What do you think would happen if...

[rusty ol ranger]

This is going to sound crazy and im pretty sure its never been done, and i dont have the time, knowledge or resources to do it. But driving around by myself 6 hrs a day gives a guy alot of time to think...

But i like mechanical what if scenarios so here we go...

What if someone built an engine, or modified an existing engine to where it would fire one whole bank of cylinders at once?

Like say a 351, fire all 4 on one side at the same time, then the other.

Or better yet an Inline 6, then balance wouldnt really be an issue. 3 at a time...or hell 6 at a time

Obviously it would require at minimum a custom crank to allow that many cylinders to be on the same stroke, and a funky distributor to fire that many at a time. EDIS might help here.

Would it be a low end torque monster with a 1500rpm redline?

Would it still produce the same power as it did set up normally?

Would the whole thing just rattle into self destruction in 30 seconds?

Would it just run like a very big twin cylinder?

Feel free to discuss. What do yall think?

 

[MaicoDoug]

Rotating equipment is a science. Mitsubishi owns the patent for externally spinning 2 little shafts that sit next to the oil pan, the 90 degree V6 also has harmonic balancing issues, but as you can imagine anything that could spin itself apart (such as an unbalanced driveshaft) must be controlled to not tear itself apart due to harmonics such as Tesla demonstrated at his lab in San Francisco which left the building's structure failing. So you can see that these days with everything being run through failure analysis software, steel is being saved everywhere and any sort of rotating machinery is very much engineered to withstand dynamic harmonics that are expected and engineered for.

Detroit mechanical engineers do and have had ideas such as the V10 from Ford & Dodge, just simply cut & paste another V, and there was the slant 6 laid over to save space. Once I wanted to make a set of heads that used reed valves turning a 4 cycle V8 into a 2 cycle V8. There is a tank & train motor design that uses 2 opposed pistons / cylinder in use today which employs a crankshaft on opposite sides. Rotating machinery has a large background in reliability when the airplane came along. BMW's insignia is a skewed propeller. But those Germans never talk about stuff that is a waste of time. They were some designs that employed a non moving crank and the whole motor spun. Crazy airplane recips.

I enjoy the objective way you think, that is how & why we got here by asking objective questions. When the wheel was invented, there was much thrown out along the way and it is up to us to re-arrange the pathway.
Old Cold Start ups

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Rotating equipment is a science. Mitsubishi owns the patent for externally spinning 2 little shafts that sit next to the oil pan, the 90 degree V6 also has harmonic balancing issues, but as you can imagine anything that could spin itself apart (such as an unbalanced driveshaft) must be controlled to not tear itself apart due to harmonics such as Tesla demonstrated at his lab in San Francisco which left the building's structure failing. So you can see that these days with everything being run through failure analysis software, steel is being saved everywhere and any sort of rotating machinery is very much engineered to withstand dynamic harmonics that are expected and engineered for.

Detroit mechanical engineers do and have had ideas such as the V10 from Ford & Dodge, just simply cut & paste another V, and there was the slant 6 laid over to save space. Once I wanted to make a set of heads that used reed valves turning a 4 cycle V8 into a 2 cycle V8. There is a tank & train motor design that uses 2 opposed pistons / cylinder in use today which employs a crankshaft on opposite sides. Rotating machinery has a large background in reliability when the airplane came along. BMW's insignia is a skewed propeller. But those Germans never talk about stuff that is a waste of time.

I enjoy the objective way you think, that is how & why we got here by asking objective questions. When the wheel was invented, there was much thrown out along the way and it is up to us to re-arrange the pathway.

That was what i figured that balance would be a massive issue...which is why we have firing orders.

I have alot of weird mechanical ideas but i keep them generally quiet so people dont think im more crazy then they already think i am.

But im not nearly smart, ambitious or rich enough to try them out lol

 

[RobbieD]

Would the whole thing just rattle into self destruction in 30 seconds?

. . . gets my vote.

It's a question of balance.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

. . . gets my vote.

It's a question of balance.

What do you think then about an inline?

 

[RobbieD]

I'm far from being an expert (or even sane, for that matter . . . ), but I don't think that the engine configuration (V, inline, opposed, radial, rotary, etc.) would matter as much as this:

It's the rotating assembly that is what really matters.

The real "load" is when a cylinder is fired, and the expanding combustion pushes against the resistance of the drivetrain. That's why these are evenly spaced around the circle that is the crankshaft rotation- it "balances" these load events evenly around each rotation. If all of the load events occurred at the same time in only one point on the rotation circle, there would be a huge unbalance in the circle, and catastrophic vibration as it runs.

I think that single cylinder engines get around this with counterbalancing.

And again, I'm self-taught at almost everything, and not an expert on anything. Others may come along here with a more enlightened viewpoint.

Posts like this, I sure miss @RonD not being on the forum.

 

[superj]

The Dyna-Cam engine originally came from a design by the Blazer brothers, two American engineers in the brass era automotive industry who worked for Studebaker in 1916. It has 6 double-ended pistons working in 6 cylinders, and its 12 combustion chambers are fired every revolution of the drive shaft. The pistons drive a sine-shaped cam, as opposed to a swashplate or wobble-plate, hence its name.

In 1961, at the age of 80, Herrmann sold the rights to one of his employees, Edward Palmer, who set up the Dyna-Cam Engine Corp. along with son Dennis. Edward's son Dennis and daughter Pat then helped get the engine installed in a Piper Arrow airplane. The engine was flown for about 700 hours from 1987 through 1991. Their longest-life engine ran for nearly 4000 hours before overhaul. Dyna-Cam opened a research and development facility about 1993 and won many various awards from NASA, the United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps, California Energy Commission, Air Quality Management District,[clarification needed] and Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance for different variations of the same Dyna-Cam engine. About 40 prototype engines were built by the Herrmann Group and another 25 built by the Dyna-Cam Group since they acquired the engine and opened their shop.

here are some cool engines too:

Axial Internal-Combustion Engines. Tax Credits for Internal-Combustion Engine R&D (douglas-self.com)

 

[MaicoDoug]

The inline six, arguably the best engine configuration ever invented. And it was all due to the inherent balance issues. Any of the classic (non V type) engine manufacturers are still adamant about the yankees, the U.S. and their V type configs. The germans still love their opposed type. With both opposed cylinders-pistons firing at the same time slightly offset just enough for the crankshaft spacing. The V8 fires 2 cylinders at once every 90 degrees or rotation.

Roadkill & Roadkill Garage TV shows. The Hot Rod Magazine crew regularly remind everyone all about these common engine dynamics always complaining about bad experiences with the wrong combinations of flywheels, internally & externally balanced, harmonic balancers falling off, hacked un-balanced driveshafts, heck who needs all that balance stuff anyway. "Doing "the right thing - the wrong way" is their motto. Well, their always fixing their stuff....on the Motor Trend network, good for inspiration and a few laughs.

I love the argument regarding longer connecting rods and the more common drive angle in the vertical axis as compared to a shorter connecting rod which lives more sideways. See what you started? At my age this would be considered a cold start.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

The inline six, arguably the best engine configuration ever invented. And it was all due to the inherent balance issues. Any of the classic (non V type) engine manufacturers are still adamant about the yankees, the U.S. and their V type configs. The germans still love their opposed type. With both opposed cylinders-pistons firing at the same time slightly offset just enough for the crankshaft spacing. The V8 fires 2 cylinders at once every 90 degrees or rotation.

Roadkill & Roadkill Garage TV shows. The Hot Rod Magazine crew regularly remind everyone all about these common engine dynamics always complaining about bad experiences with the wrong combinations of flywheels, internally & externally balanced, harmonic balancers falling off, hacked un-balanced driveshafts, heck who needs all that balance stuff anyway. "Doing "the right thing - the wrong way" is their motto. Well, their always fixing their stuff....on the Motor Trend network, good for inspiration and a few laughs.

I love the argument regarding longer connecting rods and the more common drive angle in the vertical axis as compared to a shorter connecting rod which lives more sideways. See what you started? At my age this would be considered a cold start.

I love roadkill. Havent watched it in a while but the time they ran the ranchero to alaska was great.

The connecting rod issue is intresting.

My Inline experience is pretty limited, mainly to the 300 and the 4.0L jeep/AMC/whatever. And the big I6's in semi's.

But it does seem just about every I6 has a reputation for being basically bulletproof....seems there might be a reason for that.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

In the early 00's I used to tractor pull with a guy that had a late JD A (2cyl) where he had the crank cut/welded so both pistons were together. It ran hard but had no bottom end.

The regular 2cyl JD has both cylinders fire right after each other, if you have a miss it sounds like half a hit. Pop, pop, exhaust, exhaust etc.

And yes, they have huge heavy cast iron flywheels to keep everything moving between pops.

 

[superj]

almost all my bmws were inline 6s too. solid dependable engines, just like the jeep 4.0

 

[rusty ol ranger]

In the early 00's I used to tractor pull with a guy that had a late JD A (2cyl) where he had the crank cut/welded so both pistons were together. It ran hard but had no bottom end.

The regular 2cyl JD has both cylinders fire right after each other, if you have a miss it sounds like half a hit. Pop, pop, exhaust, exhaust etc.

And yes, they have huge heavy cast iron flywheels to keep everything moving between pops.

Ive never ran a 2 cylinder deere or really had any interaction with them besides seeing guys tool around tractor shows on them.

They do sound cool when they get into them a bit.

its strange the modded one didnt have alot of low end, youd think doing that would have it hit harder on a dig...unless my thinking is backward and its relying mostly on flywheel weight to do work.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Ive never ran a 2 cylinder deere or really had any interaction with them besides seeing guys tool around tractor shows on them.

They do sound cool when they get into them a bit.

its strange the modded one didnt have alot of low end, youd think doing that would have it hit harder on a dig...unless my thinking is backward and its relying mostly on flywheel weight to do work.

I think the space between the power pulses... the flywheel alone wasn't enough to keep the momentum going.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

I think the space between the power pulses... the flywheel alone wasn't enough to keep the momentum going.

Makes sense. Probably be the same way or worse with a automotive engine

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

The reason at least the 300 straight 6 is so effective is that it always has once piston heading down on the power stroke at any given time, so it’s a constant torque machine. 4-cylinder and other engine types often end up with small gaps between the power. I’d guess that any inline 6 cylinder likely has that configuration where one piston is always dumping power into the crank. Not great for building horsepower, but rather effective for a nice smooth torque curve. Torque is important for working an engine.

The old saying is “Horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, torque is how far you move the wall.”