12 replies to this topic

[primer]

Plastics Engines Could Reduce Vehicle Weight, Cost

Matti Holtzberg, left, and James Huntsman with a plastic engine block.

Excerpt:

Mr. Holtzberg's company is named Polimotor and it was first founded in 1979, a year in which it produced its first engine -- a Ford Pinto clone. The engine used a plastic block, piston skirts, connecting rods, oil pan and most of the cylinder head. The bore surfaces, piston crowns and combustion-chamber liners were iron or aluminum, and crankshaft and camshaft were metal. Two years later the company was producing a 300 hp, 152 lb engine, which compared very favorably to a 88 hp, 415 lb standard engine.

During the 1980s the company continued to develop its idea and sold engines to racing firms. However, it received little attention from the consumer market. Undeterred, Mr. Holtzberg continued to work towards a mass-market plastic engine, experimenting with different types of plastic, such as phenolic resin.

Now they're trying to push the results onto the broader market. They estimate that plastic components could reduce engine weight by 30 to 35 percent, save development time, and manufacturing costs.

A composite plastic engine block developed by Matti Holtzberg.

Found this on Dailytech blog, though the original source (better article) is The New York Times.

[desmo]

Aren't engines about the least promising places in a car to apply FRP tech to? Composites are suited to large simple parts without significant thermal or tribology issues, point loads or multiple hard points and where in an engine do you find those? And 35% lighter? Where has composite construction ever saved that kind of weight over state of the art alternatives, even in its most suitable applications?

This guy needs to forget the composite engine, make a better cheaper lighter composite conrod or other simple engine component, produce it and sell it to racers and hotrodders and it either succeeds or fails on its own merits. Once he's made that step then he can talk. The fact that he's apparently been incapable of doing so so far suggests to me he probably never will be capable. Isotropic homogeneous metal parts look to me to be perfect for production engine components.

[Greg Locock]

plastic intake manifolds have been proposed since 85 (or earlier). We are finally seeing them in mass use now. Now when all is said and done an intake manifold is a set of holes and flanges, with a fairly benign operating environment. You can build a satisfactory one yourself in a couple of weeks. So, it has taken the thick end of 20 years for people to build a plastic substitute for a simple component. Now think about the additional complexity of a block or head.

[Phil.J]

I remember a few hillclimbers in the UK getting their fingers and wallets burnt in the eighties with Polimotor.

[NTSOS]

I remember a few hillclimbers in the UK getting their fingers and wallets burnt in the eighties with Polimotor.

My cousin was also a victim of Polimotor. He purchased a set of connecting rods and piston pins for his Opel race car from Matti.

They were supposed to be as strong as steel and as light as plastic. He fired up his engine for the first time and it lasted maybe a minute
and a half, then the piston pin let go whilst it was idling. The parts were actually as light as plastic and as strong as plastic.

John

[Fat Boy]

The parts were actually as light as plastic and as strong as plastic.

John

Funny how that is....

[J. Edlund]

There are currently a number of engine components that are produced using FRP, often nylon with glass fibre reinforcement and the their numbers are increasing. Polymer parts are cheap to massproduce and it's easy to integrate functions in a polymer part that otherwise would have required several components, machining and assembly. While this can be good for valve covers, intake manifolds, chain guides, oil filter holders, pump rotors, ball bearing cages, exhaust silencers and other low stress parts I don't think it's suitable for engine components like engine blocks, pistons, pins, cylinder heads and such. But polymer coatings can be useful for some. Pistons can for instance be PTFE coated to reduce noise and there are even engine blocks that are rubber coated for noise reduction. Perhaps FRP could be used for additional engine covers and perhaps also the oil sump, it probably offer good NVH properties, but I would probably stop there. To reduce the weight of castings there are high strength aluminum, iron and steel materials that are more suitable together with a thin wall casting method. BMW even use an aluminium/magnesium composite casting for the engine block. For components like con rods, pistons and piston pins there are much more interresting metal matrix composites, light alloys and high strength steels. A cheap powderforged MMC conrod would for instance be interresting, perhaps without bearings.

Using rapid prototyping it should also be quite easy to develop one off prototypes of FRP components, I read that Red Bull Racing even use that method to produce brake cooling intakes for F1.

[bobqzzi]

What a load of hooey.

It was based on a Vega Engine, not a Pinto, it never ran, and they never sold a running engine to anyone.

Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

[MikeTekRacing]

Funny how that is....

yeap, since they actually were..plastic

[scooperman]

It was discussed on autosport.com forum long ago.

http://forums.autosp...php/t56971.html

Just search "IMSA Polimotor" in Google, there should be some pictures of the Lola T616 and its race history, one Polimotored car did run in some IMSA races in the mid-80s under Amoco sponsorship.

[Lee Nicolle]

To me this seems a WHY.I am sure a block could be made from special plastics that is functional but would it be much lighter or cheaper than alloy. I doubt it and I suspect long term durability would be a major issue. As for conrods and a commercially viable cylinder head forget it.
So in the end you have a borderline feasable block with metal liners, bearing supports etc. hardly new and hi tech.
Though I suspect that these materials are viable for intakes, sumps, rockercovers and the like but once again is it appreciably lighter or easier to produce than alloy. And long term durablity would still be an issue as all plastics do not like long term heat, and the heat factor will make them brittle in areas where the greatrest heat is. eg where they bolt on. This already happens with variuos plastic covers etc now which are not semi structural.

[Phil.J]

What a load of hooey.

It was based on a Vega Engine, not a Pinto, it never ran, and they never sold a running engine to anyone.

Go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

One definitely ran in a UK hillclimb car, a vision driven by Derek Young if I remember right, showed a lot of promise but quickly became unreliable (valve seat issues I believe)

[zac510]

Suppose this is still dependent on oil too?