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Car and Driver - The 10 Most Unusual Engines of All Time

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really like the engineering ingenuity from the early days. I wonder if tech like the sleeve valve would work in a modern engine.


I am still and always will be smitten with two strokes. Would love to see a modern two stroke in a small car. Hell with all the oil consumption of these "efficient" engines today the oil consumption values of a modern two stroke is almost moot.
 
manimal said:
really like the engineering ingenuity from the early days. I wonder if tech like the sleeve valve would work in a modern engine.


I am still and always will be smitten with two strokes. Would love to see a modern two stroke in a small car. Hell with all the oil consumption of these "efficient" engines today the oil consumption values of a modern two stroke is almost moot.
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Surprisingly the French had a lot of radical (and successful) designs, hitting 100 MPH in 1904 was no small feat., nice read OP, thanks.
 
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That Commer engine makes me say 'wow, that's neat,' immediately followed by 'wow, what a terrible idea.'

It's hard for me to understand why some of these ever became ideas, let alone actually existed. 'Hey, instead of a bunch of cylinders in a row, capped off by a head...let's cap them off with another set of pistons! And let's run them off of one crankshaft and a set of gigantic rocker arms!'

It reeks of someone who thought every single problem they solved (like how to use a single crankshaft) was ingenius, while ignoring that all they were doing was putting useless thought into a really bad concept.
 
phucheneh said:
That Commer engine makes me say 'wow, that's neat,' immediately followed by 'wow, what a terrible idea.'

It's hard for me to understand why some of these ever became ideas, let alone actually existed. 'Hey, instead of a bunch of cylinders in a row, capped off by a head...let's cap them off with another set of pistons! And let's run them off of one crankshaft and a set of gigantic rocker arms!'

It reeks of someone who thought every single problem they solved (like how to use a single crankshaft) was ingenius, while ignoring that all they were doing was putting useless thought into a really bad concept.
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It would be interesting to see what the efficiency was for the Commer engine, it had a lot of torque output @270, my guess is that due to it's odd design parts could only be obtained from the original manufacturer or it could also have been expensive to make vs a conventional diesel but it doesn't mean it's a POS just because it's different.
 
Neat.

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I would definitely add Mazda's Miller Cycle engine from the Millenium to this list. That is a pretty unique engine.
 
Unrelated to cars, also add Junkers Motoren (Junkers Jumo) 207 diesel. It had excellent power output for a diesel at the time. Hell, add Daimler Benz DB6xx series and Junkers 21x series inverted V12's.
 
If the idea of your engine rotating behind you seems like a good one, then the Adams-Farwell, hailing from Dubuque, Iowa, is your car. Well, it wasn’t the whole engine rotating: just the cylinders and pistons, because the crankshafts on these three- and five-cylinder engines were fixed. Arranged radially, the cylinders were air-cooled and acted as a flywheel once the engine was up and running. Drive was taken off the cylinder assembly via a short, single chain, and the units were light for the time—190 pounds for the 4.3-liter three-cylinder and 265 pounds for the 8.0-liter five.
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this arrangement would soon become the standard for aero engines. aircraft in the beginning of WWI worked the same way - the crankshaft was bolted to the fuselage and the airscrew was attached to the crankcase. the whole bank of cylinders turned around the crankshaft. they did it because the engine was very light compared to inline and other forms at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UBAukXPD-0
 
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tortillasoup said:
A lot of the hybrids on the road today are Atkinson cycle. Miller Cycle is just atkinson cycle but with a supercharger.
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True, but if I recall correctly, it was the first personal automobile application of that engine. Now, a lot of hybrids do use similar engines.
 
manimal said:
really like the engineering ingenuity from the early days. I wonder if tech like the sleeve valve would work in a modern engine.


I am still and always will be smitten with two strokes. Would love to see a modern two stroke in a small car. Hell with all the oil consumption of these "efficient" engines today the oil consumption values of a modern two stroke is almost moot.
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You should add a Trabant to your garage. 2 stroke.
 
Deltic engines are pretty bizarre. They were used in the UK for marine and locomotive applications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Deltic

Rotary engines are quite strange as well. The engine turns around a stationary crank shaft. Produces smoother power without the need for a heavy flywheel. They produced a ridiculous amount of torque as well. Mostly used for aircraft, they were occasionally used in early motorcycles and cars as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams-Farwell

Fenixgoon said:
no mention of the chrysler turbine car?
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Jay Leno has one. Pretty impressive technology for the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2A5ijU3Ivs
 
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