GARY C wrote: ↑Wed Nov 25, 2020 7:09 pm
I don't think there is a home for anything new in the market.
Example one of why you wont see those who are actually doing any thing new post here.
OK, post some examples of anything "Ground Breaking" that is being done anywhere in IC engines.
That quote about "home for innovative things" was originally written in a long hand-written letter to me by Don Hubbard (well known in cam design in Cranes era), when I was developing valvetrain ideas. He knew of a lot of my work and advised me to stop investing time and money into things that have no home.
"No home" means something that is not commercially viable.
Taking his advice improved my career very quickly; a few years later I was developing the CAD tools and methods at Daimler in Mercedes in Germany that thousands of engineers would use. That experience made it even more clear how little interest there is in "Ground Breaking" ideas.
On another project I learned that Ford has a receiving department for unsolicited inventions. They destroy the package without opening it with systems to verify that is what they did.
Working at Edelbrock, there were lot's of people sending in inventions, some went to great length to convince V.P.s to have a meeting. They would fly in with so much excitement.
Not one of the ideas was even close to being viable.
When I first started working there it was kind of interesting to see what people would bring.
After a while I understood why veterans there tried to avoid those meetings, it was the inevitable task of letting the inventor down after they were so invested in the idea. The problem is, they never accept reality, and will argue about things they clearly don't understand.
I collect books on alternative engine designs.
I have modeled many of them in CAD trying to find work-around for their fatal flaws.
Having done that, I have a deeper understanding of them than their inventors do.
I have built some of my own and helped others, made parts for Matt Holtzberg Polimotor when I worked at Bryants.
Even that engine was only "ground breaking" in materials and structure.
I built 2-cylinder opposed 2 stroke engines and rotary valve cylinder heads.
Looking back, I had a similar experience with Rotary Valve Cylinder head inventors. I had posted an offer to develop a good rotary-valve cylinder head design at my shop. For more than 10 years I received replies.
Here are the take aways:
1. The more concerned the inventor is with protecting the idea, the worse the idea is.
2. Every single one of them has at least one fatal flaw that makes them worse than poppet valves.
3. None of them will face the flaw head-on, in fact all of them wanted to build the engine and find a work-around after it was built.
4. When they could be convinced to try to develop solutions to obvious problems, they made even worse problems.
5. Few of them understood the properties of materials, let alone principles of how bearings and seals work.
6. When it came to telling them that I was not interested in building the design unless a problem was solved, paranoid conspiracy replies began, some of them evolving to death threats.
7. Many of them had lost friends, family, fortune and employment chasing their inventions. Some blew large inheritances.
To sum it up, the rotary valve cylinder head is a unsolvable Rubik cube that drives it's players to insanity if played too long.
Alternative engine design is the super-category in which rotary valve cylinder heads is just member.
It is a captivating challenge that rarely pays-off.
Looking forward to "Ground Breaking" projects.
Sincerely, few things would interest me more.