Auto Gossip

Press, Issue 32535, 19 February 1971, Page 7

Auto Gossip

by

A.J.P.

Many designs • Under the spur of present and threatened airpollution regulations, new designs of engines are now being announced from various parts of the world, almost every month, and it is going to be most interesting to see how many of the units are developed into practical propositions and survive the test of time. All the inventors, of course, say their engine is the answer to pollution production and reliability problems, but they cannot all survive. At the moment the leading contenders appear to include two steam engines, and two (and possibly three) types of rotary engine. There are several other types of unit which are not yet developed enough to promise any practical use in the next decade, and this includes electric units. Rotaries and steam The rotary engines, which are now being used to power cars made in Japan and Germany, appear to have the edge at the moment But most such designs still appear to have air-pollution problems ahead of them, although the Japanese rotary-engine makers are confident they will be able to meet the stringent United States Federal standards for several years yet. Steam engines, apparently designed largely on a turbine basis, are being produced in prototype form in the United States and Australia. In both countries the developers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on development, and are claiming success, but are keeping all technical details secret. The Australian steam car, called the Gvang (after the initials of the inventor, G. van Grecken), is a very modemlooking GT machine which Mr van Grecken says has a top speed of 200 m.p.h. Some time this year he plans to use it to break the present 127.6 m.p.h. world steam-car speed record set

by a Stanley Steamer in 1906—until then he is giving no details of his engine except that it has few moving parts, can be easily produced in versions producing from 40 to 400 b.h.p. and is a rotary design. A 40 b.h.p. engine has been benchtested for the equivalent of 100,000 miles with negligible wear. The American steam expert is the company of the United States millionaire and inventor William Lear—he, too, is keeping details of his engine a close secret. , Steam problems Until now the main steam-engine problems have been low power for high weight, the need for fre-

quent water replenishment, the need to bum airpolluting fuel to heat the water, and the fact that water freezes—and will not work a steam engine properly if anti-freeze is added to it To just what extent the American and Australian inventors have overcome these last two problems has not yet been revealed, but bcth say their engines have excellent power-to-weight and power-to-bulk ratios. Very inefficient The four-stroke engine we use now is very inefficient. We have to go to a lot of trouble, with hundreds of parts, to transform the up-and-down motion of the pistons into the rotating motion needed to drive the car. Only about 20 per cent of the energy in the fuel ends up driving the wheels, the rest is lost in friction, unburned gases, and in doing largely useless things like heating water in the water-jackets. But until now, nobody has come up with anything more practical, with a better power-to-weight ratio, better reliability and flexibility, and something that is as cheap to mass-produce. So far, the rotary Wankeltype engine has come closest But meanwhile, development of the conventional engine is not standing still. In the search for improved efficiency, more manufacturers are turning to new materials, new techniques, and such things as overhead camshafts. It would be foolhardy to predict what type of power unit will be used in ordinary cars in 20 years: rotary petrol, rotary diesel, steam, petrol-electric, electric or improved conventional. Certainly conventional engines are likely to be still very common in 10 years, and pure electric units show no signs at present of being practical propositions until some radically new power source is found. But it is probably safe to say that the next 10 years will bring some exciting changes in car power-units. Let us hope we will end up with the smooth, powerful, flexible, pollution-free, silentrunning, economical and truly reliable engines everyone really wants. ■*-