On Feb 3, 8:48*am, bod43 wrote:
On 28 Jan, 04:46, bildan wrote:

On Jan 27, 9:27*pm, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:
In article
,

*bildan wrote:
Take a look at this:
http://www.fairdiesel.co.uk/
One thing I like is the pistons can be held at TDC for the whole
injection interval. *That removes one of the big issues for high RPM
diesels.

They mention an improvement in efficiency is possible
but don't give any numbers. I suppose that for an essentially
fixed speed application such as an aircraft engine the cam
profile could be selected to optimise efficiency at that speed.

Interesting.

....the dyna cam engine, which is what the diesel design is based on,
was originally designed during WW2 to power torpedoes. ergo, when
first designed, component life was not an issue beyond a minute or
so... and anyone with a father, uncle or grandfather who sailed on ww2
pig boats who passed down war stories will attest to how reliable our
torpedoes weren't. pat wilks and dennis palmer formed a corporation
during the 80s to develop the technology for light aircraft, and flew
an Archer around to airshows to promote it. Then they got into a pi$
$ing match with a company call axial vector technologies (originally
over licensing the technology to axial), and lost the right to further
develop (or for that matter even talk about) the engine.

bottom line: very smooth, tons of torque at 1800 - 2000 rpm (and 200
horsepower), nice exhaust note, but also very heavy and with
substantial cooling problems that were never remedied.