maybe they could be the first to mass produce an electric valve mechanism.eliminate the cams altogether.surprise us alfisti.
--- On Mon, 7/18/11, Will Owen <[email protected]> wrote: From: Will Owen <[email protected]> Subject: [alfa] Re: Is this an Alfa? To: [email protected] Date: Monday, July 18, 2011, 6:12 PM Ira wrote: " maybe do something with the crank as well.lighten the who shebang from ass to head.make it the lightess V10 ever seen on the planet." Actually, we're seeing a few V10s now, aren't we? At least the one being used by Audi and Lamborghini. What's funny is that all the suggestions here seem to be about adding DOHC heads etcetera, along with lots of scorn for the pushrods, when that pushrod valve train is not only a good deal lighter than adding three more camshafts plus their drive apparatus, but it carries its weight much lower. And 7K rpm is not out of the question with a good pushrod valve train. "Advanced" engineering features are not always an unalloyed good. By any reckoning, the first Cadillac V16 with its narrow V angle and pushrod OHV heads was a much more "advanced" design than the wide-V sidevalve, all-iron V16 that superceded it except that the flathead engine was lighter, quieter, and more powerful despite having a smaller displacement than the OHV version. It also carried its weight much lower. This is not to say that the flathead V16 was inherently a better engine than the earlier one; the early OHV engines had mostly aircraft and racing practice to draw from, and picking the right combustion chamber shape was still partly guesswork as well. This engine was not only highly complicated and expensive to build, it was also cursed with a noisy valve train; even Rolls-Royce had noise problems with their early OHV engines, in an age where the loudest sound from a luxury car coming up the drive was expected to be that of wheels on gravel. The flathead revision solved all of the major problems at once: noise, complication and build cost. A few extra horsepower was icing on the cake. Will -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected] -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
