It is alarming to me that the many combinations of eccentricity and width have not been developed into a line of power plants with a wide range of sizes and capabilities. NSU I can understand, operating on a shoe string. But Mercedes? Ford? GM (when they still did R&D?)

 

Other big names could not overcome an in house bias against anything without pistons. We should have been way down the road from where we are now. Ceramic rotors in a high pressure tubocharged engine should have been here for ten years now. Why are we going ga-ga over an engine that may be two or three years away.  

 

Over 25 years ago BF Goodrich sponsored 2 Lola 616 race cars that had engines by Polymotor Research, with steel cranks and fasteners. Everything else was ceramic or plastic. They were reliable and powerful.

 

Have you heard much about those engines lately?

 

The aluminum in a modern engine should be the heaviest material used. All of the pieces have been tested to death. Materials performance is known. With NC grinders, the housings are just a program, not a special machine. And a constant speed alternator drive for a Hybrid is crying out for 40 HP rotary the size of a soup can.

 

 The John Deer SCORE series of engines was the perfect replacement for a wide range of old design diesel engines. The Navy likes big gray heavy and poor performing if they can get it. The big SCORE was offered as a replacement for the Fairbanks-Morse (Colt) 38 D8 1/8 opposed piston diesel designed in the 20s, for stationary power.The SCORE engine was 1/4 the size of the Colt engine with more power.

 

 The Navy was not at all interested. Lower cost, Longer life, lower maintenance, and multi fuel capability were not enough of an attraction for my friends in the Navy. It is often the case that monumental decisions are left to very nearly idiots who have no expertise in the area.

 

Don't get me started.

 

Lynn E. Hanover