Author Topic: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown  (Read 41767 times)

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Offline fordboy628

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Re: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown
« Reply #45 on: October 12, 2017, 08:12:12 AM »
  I should have said something about repeatability, you are right about that but it had slipped my mind when I wrote my post. I did find a better picture Harry Miller’s dyno and it is a water brake type. (On the photo that was posted you can’t see the water brake only the test bed)

  I am mainly interested in race bikes, in that sport the range of dynos used in engine development goes from the eddy current dynos of factory teams in Japan to some guy in Denmark hopping up his moped testing the results on a dyno he build using a rotor out of a ten horse electric motor (He use the rotor like the drum on a dynojet, check him out on U-tube).  The amount of BS I have heard over the years about horsepower numbers has taught me to take what I told with a grain of salt.

  Consider this the Coventry Climax FPE “Godiva”, this 2.5 liter DOHC 90 degree steel cross plane crank V8 engine was built in 1954 for Formula One.  Coventry Climax  had technical problems adapting the engine to fuel injection however the  FPE initially showed 240 bhp using Weber carburetors, but the press at the time reported the rumored fuel-injected Mercedes 2.5L GP engine is quoted as producing more than 300 bhp, and a corporate decision was made not to release FPE in light of the lack of proper fuel injection, leaving the Kieft F1 project, as well as other prospective users, HWM and Connaught, high and dry.
 
 There were reports to the effect that the engine was not run because of fears about the rumored power of other 2.5L GP engines, but shortly after 2.5 era of formula one ended, John Cooper brought a race-winning, works Maserati F1 engine he had on loan into Coventry Climax, where it produced 225 bhp running on the same dynamometer upon which the FPE had made 264 bhp after some development. The FPE never ran in a car.

 Or the Honda NR500 (500cc) a race bike that millions yen were spent on than was slower that a stock TZ350 (90 Honda horses vs. 65 Yamaha horses). The TZ350 raced in a lower class (350cc GP) the Honda raced against 500cc Yamaha and Suzuki.

  Something to remember is that the problem with race engine development it is rare that you get a chance to compare a competing engine.
The reason I wrote my first post is people are quoting numbers without giving any meaning or context to them. I hope both Harold Bettes and Mike LeFevers give their options’ about this thread.

 Maybe my dream of a hundred horsepower single cylinder motorcycle is not stupid  if  the Burton Brown head works.


WELL, yes, there is lots of "smoke" about engine bhp numbers.    ALWAYS has been, ALWAYS will be.

As a "student" of engine design history, I am well aware of the FPE.   I consider Walter Hassan and Harry Mundy to be some of the great I/C engine minds of the 20th century.  Their track record speaks for itself.

Depending on the type of racing, getting a look at a "competitor's stuff" is not that hard, except for "pinnacle" formulas.    I'll remind everyone that before Toyota moved up to the Cup Series, they bought (through a team) one each of all their competitor's engines.    Took them apart, and then went to Nascar with a "proposal" for "their" engine design.     A bit on the "tricky" side, but also smart.    They knew what they were up against.

Don't think that good engineers don't work on track performance backwards to determine engine bhp numbers, because we do.    It's just math . . . . .

 :cheers:
Fordboy
Science, NOT Magic . . . .

I used to be a people person.  But people changed that relationship.

"There is nothing permanent except change."    Heraclitus

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."     Albert Einstein

Offline ggl205

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Re: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown
« Reply #46 on: October 12, 2017, 10:00:53 AM »

Offline WOODY@DDLLC

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Re: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown
« Reply #47 on: October 12, 2017, 03:02:51 PM »
It's only physics - everything else is just stamp collecting!  :-o :-D
Google it - not my original thought - just confirming the sentiment!  :cheers:
All models are wrong, but some are useful! G.E. Box (1967) www.designdreams.biz

Offline Marcroux

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Re: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown
« Reply #48 on: October 14, 2017, 04:50:55 AM »
   Boy, go away for a few days and I have explain more things I said. No I am not building a 100 Hp 500cc four stroke single. That dream died due to the recession, my pending retirement and the ending of and current lack of any meaningful series for it to race in. On the other hand John thank you for John Stowe contact information however what I need is a phone number of someone willing to pay for it because that what holds back the project.  I think such an engine is possible; it is just waiting for someone to build it.

 The current crop of moto 3 engines are similar to what I have in mind but the engines are restricted by bore diameter (81mm max),spec engine management system, rev limits (13,500 rpm max) and valve train drive (you limit to chain drive and only one gear stage reduction by the rules. In fact all the classic Italian racing singles made in the fifties are illegal by the rules). This engine would not be limited by these restrictions.  My point is I think the Stowe has merit and deserve study.     

  The decision not to race FPE was most likely made by upper management not by the Coventry Climax engineers.   

  On the Toyota NASCAR engine I have a different opinion.  First NASCAR unlike most pro racing bodies wants their teams to make a living. Second one way to do this is control costs. Third they have a history of not letting a manufacturer’s new engine race. Remember the SOHC Ford and DOHC four valve Chrysler?  So you bet Toyota are going to look at what everybody else is doing. It a strange case of not making an engine better that everyone else but making an engine that was at the level as everybody else.   
More later

Offline thefrenchowl

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Re: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown
« Reply #49 on: October 15, 2017, 06:37:22 AM »
Quote
Marcroux: The current crop of moto 3 engines are similar to what I have in mind but the engines are restricted by bore diameter (81mm max),spec engine management system, rev limits (13,500 rpm max) and valve train drive (you limit to chain drive and only one gear stage reduction by the rules. In fact all the classic Italian racing singles made in the fifties are illegal by the rules).

The mind boggles... Reminds me of "non capacity" rules in early French voiturettes racing... rule book bore of say 70mm and they made cars with 70 bore and say 200mm stroke, resulting in engines that tall they look like locomotives on the road with pilot and mechanic hanging over the side to check progress...

Peugeot voiturette racer before the Ernest Henry revolution:



What bothers me most with modern racing is that design is not governed by intelligent guys, but by bunches of lawyers finding the best way to bend the stated rules to the max...

Hence why I try to do Bonneville Salt Flat racing, I have a more or less free rein to indulge in my fantasies!!!

Patrick



Flat Head Forever

...What exactly are we trying to do here?...

Offline wobblywalrus

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Re: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown
« Reply #50 on: October 16, 2017, 09:36:38 PM »
The FIM has classes for single cylinder engines in about any size and configuration.

Offline Marcroux

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Re: Engine Builder Mag: Burton Brown
« Reply #51 on: October 18, 2017, 01:55:26 PM »
I am thinking of changing my forum name to erratum, because I keep making errors in what I write.

1.    Moto 3 bikes are 250cc maximum displacement, single cylinder four stokes motors. In World MotoGP there are three classes, MotoGP have 1000cc max displacement four cylinder four stoke motors, Moto 2 have  600cc leased spec Honda motors and the above Moto 3. Both MotoGP and Moto 3 are the restricted by 81mm max bore diameter rule. Which means the most extreme bore and stoke you can run in an engine and still have max displacement is 81mm x 48.5mm.  (there were some V12s built in the sixties with this bore and stoke for F1)  I forgot that not everyone on this forum knows motorcycle road racing rules like I do. I did not want to a forum reader  to think  Moto 3 did not have "non capacity" rules.

2.   I did not stop work yesterday on the single but in the early nineties.

3.   Wobblywalrus I know the FIM has classes for single cylinder engines in about any size and configuration. However this is a fairly recent change to the rule book. I looked at my copy of the 2004 FIM rule book and there is only one displacement class for singles is showed. In the thirteen years that the motorcycle speed trials have run the FIM have made huge changes to record setting classes. I have an old race single engine that lately I have been thinking of running however there are a few things I have work out first.