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The horizontally-opposed, OHV combustion chamber


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#1 THead

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 16:40

Posted Image

Correction I made a mistake with the title of this post and meant horizontally opposed valves. The combustion chambers in both the Frayer and the
16-valve Duesenberg are similar: A rounded chamber with a vertical chamber on top of that. The Frayer is two-valve and the Duesenberg is a four

We have done a bit of research on this 1906 Frayer-Miller which was an entrant in the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Elimination races. We are wondering if
Frayer was the first to use this system? The Frayer design is as show in the illustration below on the right fig. 7.

We have restored and maintain a 1915 16-valve Duesenberg racing car which has a system as shown in the bottom photo. This arrangement is
uses vertical rocker-arms instead of rocker-arms and pushrods as in fig. 6. Follow the link above to learn more about both.

If anyone should know of other earlier systems or even any others from the period, please send us a comment.

Posted Image

Posted Image

Edited by THead, 13 April 2012 - 20:11.


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#2 Doug Nye

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 19:14

Errrr - do you mean horizontally-opposed?

DCN

#3 Sharman

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 19:51

Errrr - do you mean horizontally-opposed?

DCN


Doesn't look horizontally opposed to me Doug, what makes you say that?

#4 D-Type

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 19:54

The valves are horizontally opposed. They [questionably] describe the combustion chamber as "vertical" in the text. Hence the title

#5 THead

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 19:56

Errrr - do you mean horizontally-opposed?

DCN


Doug, Thanks for catching my mistake


#6 THead

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 19:58

Errrr - do you mean horizontally-opposed?

DCN


Doug, Thanks for catching my mistake


#7 THead

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 20:03

To all thanks for catching my mistake as I was thinking bassackward at the time

#8 Sharman

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 20:41

The valves are horizontally opposed. They [questionably] describe the combustion chamber as "vertical" in the text. Hence the title


Hmmm I was thinking more complicatedly than that and wondering how Doug could see the cylinders as horizontally opposed :drunk:

#9 Doug Nye

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 21:52

No worries - great photo by the way. I have always regarded these air-cooled Frayer-Millers as being fascinating bits of kit, but I have never known enough about them to understand their valve gear arrangements. The road cars, I believe, had externally spiked and finned cylinders, each one within an air-cooling shroud open at top and bottom, through which cooling air was forced by a crankshaft-driven fan. Was the air-cooling system on the racing Frayer-Millers the same? I presume they were glorified versions of the road car rather than being pureblood racers from a blank sheet of paper...

Robert Dick is the man to ask.

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 13 April 2012 - 21:59.


#10 Allan Lupton

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Posted 13 April 2012 - 22:48

Fred Lanchester used a valve system very similar to Fig 6 (two camshafts low down with long rockers transferring the motion to horizontal valves) on the four-cylinder 20 h.p., first on test in 1904 and in production in '05.

Edited by Allan Lupton, 13 April 2012 - 22:49.


#11 plannerpower

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Posted 14 April 2012 - 00:58

A wonderfully evocative photo!

The arrangement shown in Fig 7 would require pull-rods and a "stirrup" cam-follower; the drawing on the linked site shows the Frayer-Miller with the L-shaped rockers "inverted" from Fig 7 and, therefore, with push-rods and a "normal" cam-follower.

#12 Michael Ferner

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Posted 14 April 2012 - 11:14

I don't know of any earlier use of the system, but the first thought that crossed my mind is the connection between Frayer-Miller and Duesenberg: Eddie Rickenbacher! Eddie was (riding) mechanic for Lee Frayer (of Frayer-Miller) in 1911 during his days at Firestone-Columbus, and later, of course, Duesenberg's leading driver, though not at the time of the 16-valve engine's gestation. Still, another fascinating facet of early technology transfer!?

#13 Michael Ferner

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Posted 14 April 2012 - 11:16

A wonderfully evocative photo!

The arrangement shown in Fig 7 would require pull-rods and a "stirrup" cam-follower; the drawing on the linked site shows the Frayer-Miller with the L-shaped rockers "inverted" from Fig 7 and, therefore, with push-rods and a "normal" cam-follower.


That's quite right. I wondered about this myself, a very unusual arrangement!

#14 THead

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Posted 14 April 2012 - 16:41

Posted Image

Doug, I also have two photos (1906) one shown here that appear to have sheet metal covers
which appear to be aluminum that follow each cylinder down from the ductwork at the top.
The side view shows it better and it appears that there maybe cutouts in the vertical covers for
the ports on either side.

I will try to find photos on a bare Frayer cylinder so we will know what they used for cooling.
One American car that I am aware of that used pins was the air-cooled Knox

More Frayer-Miller info here on theoldmotor.com for anyone new to this discussion

Posted Image

Edited by THead, 14 April 2012 - 18:02.


#15 plannerpower

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Posted 15 April 2012 - 02:37

Pin-cooling is a new one for me; never seen it before.

It would not have been effective; the problem is in the interface between the pins and the head/block.

No matter what the finish of the thread mating faces or how tightly the screws are tightened, there is always air trapped in tiny pockets between them; air is an excellent insulator and would greatly impede the flow of heat from head/block to pin.

Modern electronics, with its need for effective heat-sinking, has taught us this; the concept would probably not have been clearly understood a century ago.



#16 Allan Lupton

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Posted 15 April 2012 - 07:22

Even the "Waterless Knox" abandoned pin cooling (as in the Knox Porcupine!) and water-cooling was optional from 1906.

#17 plannerpower

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Posted 15 April 2012 - 10:47

It's probable that specific outputs at this time were increasing at a rapid rate and that Knox outran the heat-transfer capability of the "porcupine" system.

#18 robert dick

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 07:49

More or less hemispherical combustion chamber + vertical valve pocket:
- I don't know of earlier systems.
- In 1920, Bellanger had the intake and exhaust valves set side by side in the vertical valve pocket (not opposedly arranged), in 4-cylinder and V-8 touring cars (both 90 x 125 mm), the valves being operated by long vertical rocker arms.
- In addition to the 300-cubic-inch racing car engine, Duesenberg built a similar 4-cylinder with four valves per cylinder (4,75 x 6 inch, 500 cubic inch) as aero-engine. In a V-12 Duesenberg aero-engine (4,875 x 7 inch, 1570 cubic inch), a single camshaft was located in the Vee and operated two valves per cylinder set side by side. In a V-16 (6 x 7,5 inch, 3390 cubic inch), the rocker arms were shorter with the single camshaft mounted relatively higher in the Vee than on the other engines; a single intake and two exhaust valves were located toward the inside of the Vee, the intake below the two exhaust valves.

Horizontal valves arranged opposedly, but not in combination with a vertical valve pocket:
- In the Delage racers designed by Michelat, in the 1911 3-litre (2-valve head, won the 1911 Coupe de L'Auto) and in the 1913 6,2-litre (4-valve head, won the 1913 GP de France and the 1914 Indy 500).
- Six horizontal valves in the single cylinder Boudreaux-Verdet engine used in the 1909 Lion-Peugeot voiturette racer.

The contemporary French press described the cooling pins of the Frayer-Miller as 3 mm in diameter and 6 mm long.


#19 THead

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Posted 16 April 2012 - 16:24

I did find the out more about the Frayer-Millers cooling system. In the Motor Age, in June of 1907, in a article about the engine is the following;
"The fan forces a current of air through an aluminum casing above and surounding each cylinder. The cylinders are provided with a number
of short pins or or studs cast on the outside"

A reader sent in an illustration from an original brochure which clearly shows these "studs" but none at all on the head.

I also found another photo in The Peter Helck collection which is quite clear and shows the very interesting intake valve mechinism.
I will be doing another post on theoldmotor.com about it soon and will post more photos here.