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Australian Engine Designers


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#1 ed holly

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Posted 26 January 2022 - 23:25

Just wondering if we have any current engine designers in the vein of a Phil Irving or more recently Peter Molloy.

 

Not engine assemblers or rudimentary engine modifiers but innovators in the engine field.



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#2 Ray Bell

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Posted 27 January 2022 - 02:18

Was Peter Molloy one such?

 

I don't recall him doing any actual design and construct work. Not as much as Geoff Smedley did with both his downdraught head for the little Fords and the work he set out to do but didn't complete with a Jaguar twin-cam head with the centre cut out and rejoined for the small fords. That same job, of course, was once done by someone in Speedway in Sydney for a Peugeot 203 engine run by Laurie Seidl with a Vanguard crankshaft.

 

And, of course, we had Merv Waggott.

 

What about Peter Fowler, who came up with the 4-valve heads for the Chev engine for Bryan Thomson?



#3 Lee Nicolle

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Posted 27 January 2022 - 05:06

A lot of designers/ innovators around. Alec Rowe, who modded and designed stuff that others copied. OHV A Model Ford head, s/c Prefect, s/c  Puegoet, s/c Renault in midgets.

Mr Dunstall, rotary valve grey Holden heads,

Waggott Engineering for all sorts of things inc the Waggot Twin Cam head for Grey Holdens.

While a bigger deal the Repco crossflow head for grey Holdens. Irving again? 

Duggan Engineering for Duggan red motor heads. And later Chev heads. Suffered from casting issues but now reengineered by JZ in Sydney and are very succesfull.

Phil Irving for so many different engines going back to Vincent motorcycle engines. And various iterations of the 215 Buick engine for F1

On that the Victorian company who more recently modded 'Irving Vincent' engines.

There is a heap more as well. Just the ones I thought of immediatly



#4 Ray Bell

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Posted 27 January 2022 - 05:46

What Ed is after, Lee, is people doing this currently...

 

I am sure there would be someone about, maybe in Speedway?



#5 GregThomas

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Posted 27 January 2022 - 19:25

I suspect that innovative fourstroke engine development as such simply isn't happening. On the other hand, small 2 stroke development continues at pace.

Ken Seeber at Strike in Perth - ex the Orbital project - is doing interesting work.

 

Here in NZ, Neil Hintze in the Waikato is producing a 700cc 2 stroke twin for microlights and similar. He also does 4 port heads for the early Subarus used in aircraft.

He's been a world leader in injection for 2 strokes too. KTM can't patent their injection as he did it first.