If you're talking about a two cycle engine, the Yamaha YZ
series dirt bike
engines have domed pistons and a domed chamber, though
the dome is not as
tall as that of a hemi. The spark plug is dead center
above the piston, and
only slightly recessed.
It would be cool to make modern designed aluminum heads
for old engines like
those you described though.
Dave Casey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Watson" <wwatson@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 1:57 AM
Subject: Re: [FWDLK] FIRST HEMI
I, for one, would like to see this hemi version of the
sleeve-valve
enigne.
It would be possible to produce a hemispherical
combustion chamber in a
sleeve-valve engine as the engine has the valves on the
sides of the
cylinder walls. It would be a simple matter of
machining a domed
cumbustion
chamber with domed pistons. All the drawings I have seen
of Willys's
sleeve-valve engines show a recessed chamber for the
spark plug, but the
pistons are cupped, not domed. So these drawings do not
show a hemi
engine.
However, the sleeve-valve engine was not a Willys
design, who was a
salesman
not an engineer,. It was designed by one Charles Knight
with a
production-ready, patented design by 1907. He sold
licences for his
patented engine and Willys gained the rights to produce
and sell Knight
sleeve-engined cars when he acquired the Edwards Motor
Car Co., Long
Island,
New York in 1914 along with its Knight licence.
Although Willys did
produce a V8 Knight sleeve-valve engine in the late
teens, his next
engine,
a six, was gained by acquiring the Sterling-Knight
company in 1925. He
also acquired Stearns-Knight in 1926.
The last Willys-Knight was built for 1933, just about
the time the Knight
patents expired. The Knight engine was more popular
with expensive
makes,
suich as Minerva and Mercedes, as well as Daimler who
built their last
Knight-engined car in 1939.
By the way, the first car to use a Knight sleeve-valve
engine was the
British Daimler car in 1908. Russell of Toronto,
Canada, acquired a
license
in 1910, while some other American firms were
Stoddard-Dayton (1911),
Columbia (1911) Atlas/Lyons (1912), R & V Knight, and
Handley-Knight
(1921),
Walter Chrysler, though, never owned Willys-Overland.
He was in charge
of
the company during 1919-21 as a contractor of the
banking syndicate that
put
Willys into bankruptcy proceedings. To my knowledge
Chrysler put no money
into the Willys-Knight, instead working on improving the
Overland and
developing the first Chrysler This Chrysler was not the
Chrysler Model B
that was introduced in 1924, but the Model A that was
sold off at auction
in
1921 to one William C. Durant. This Chrysler formed the
basis for
Durant's
Flint car.
When Chrysler left Willys he never looked back at the
Knight engine. He
stuck to "poppet" valve engines, producing in-line,
side-valve versions.
The sleeve-valve design was a dead-end, being an oil
burner, expensive to
build and not an easy engine to produce more power.
Bill
Vancouver, BC
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul J Dwaihy II
To: wwatson@xxxxxxxxx ; L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 2003 4:29 PM
Subject: FIRST HEMI
Gents,
You may want to check your history of the HEMI a wee bit
more.... An
American Company called Willys-Overland -Knight was the
first American
Company to produce a HEMI. During a conversation with
a fellow gear head
in Auburn Mass. I (being from Detroit) learned something
that history
books
in the library confirmed. Essentially this Detroit
"Motor City" boy got
"spanked" by a guy from Auburn, Mass.!! Willys pretty
much came up with
the
idea and were the first to produce a "sleeve valved"
version. Well before
either Europe or Chrysler. W. P. Chrysler bought Willys
( and their
designs) and put his folks on them to "fine tune" the
concept. Several
substandard versions later they got it right. But
neither good ole' W.P.
nor his company were the first in either category, he
purchased the idea
from Willys. Several Willys-Overland-Knight HEMI's can
still be found in
operation today! Do a wee bit of research...and use it
to frustrate the
overly confident ( like I was) HEMI pseudo effcianato's.
enjoy!
Paul from Detroit
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