My dad was telling me last night about the Willys Knight Sleeve Valve Engines, he didn't know much about them but they sounded pretty interesting and I was wondering if you guys could tell me about them. If i'm right aren't they similar to the Franklin Concentric Valve engine? And just for the hell of it has some one used a sleeve valve enigne in a hot rod?? I'd just like to know more about them. bobby
For starters, it was licensed to a number of manufacturers. You need to make the trek to Hershey and visit the Knight club tent, where they have a cutaway cylinder for one with a handcrank allowing you to turnitover and marvel at all the mysterious moving parts...I give it a spin every year.
http://www.classiccarclub.org/knightsleevevalvekb.htm has an explanation... advanced google will get you lots of hits on the concept and the various users. There was a thread on hotrodding a Knight vehicle of some sort a year or two ago...
What Bruce said. I spent a lot of time spinning that cut away motor at hersey.At least one british ww2 airplane engine use sleave valves.
Bristol...a two-row radial AND there was a Napier flat-H 24 banger... this page has some basic specs: http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/BARC/tempest.html
Look at the second engine on this page: 53.6 litres... Having trouble with metrics here...how many Super Slurpees is that??
Here's the Sabre...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_Sabre The H-24 configuration looks like it would be easier to stuff into a '32 than the Bristol thing, though you have to give up 20 litres or s...
Here's a cutaway: http://www.khulsey.com/makoto_ouchi_napier_sabre.html Thank heavens I only work on flatheads...
These were pretty powerful,I had a pair of Falcon-Knights at one time,a 28 and a 29.They smoked[oil smoke],an old timer told me"if it doesn't smoke it's not a Knight!"These were big cars and would blow the doors off a stock Model A.
That's wild, reminds me of the deltic. Has anyone seen one of these deltic motors before. http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/Tomlinson.htm
this is a cool thread... thank you. I just spent an hour pouring over warplane engine specs. Rotary, Radial, Inline...I thought, a few years back, that a new automotive sleeve valve engine was being developed? hmmm...V-24's are cool...multi-speed superchargers, inverted V's...all the way back to single valve Gnome radials...! this...is where it all began...thank warfare for hotrodding. Some of the early aircraft engines were SO mechanically beautiful, in their design, their craftsmanship...Nitrous injection??? in 1932? incredible. I want to build a plane now. talk about variety...and me with a small block chevy!
They are certainly a non-high performance engine. The sleeve are connected to an eccentric shaft (1" stroke crankshaft) and run the sleeves up and, alighning ports to obtain intake and exhaust. They have pisto stroke form 4 1/4" to well over 5" making for torque but not much in RPM's. HP and torque both fall off dramatically above 3000 rpm. They are also smaller bored engines ranging from 2 15/16" to 3 5/8". Some mfgs have a little bigger bore but are uncommon. A 255 c.i.d. 6 cylinder topped out at 87 hp. Not what youd call a good rod engine.
Always read that the knight engines used more oil, but that they became more efficient as time went on due to the carbon buildup on the reciprocating valve sleeves, effectively tightening the tolerances. My guess is you'd never get away with running one in California, and who knows how long before the other states get that anal.
You mulitply cubic inches x 61.4 to get cubic centimeters. For example, your 350 Chevy engine is 5,700cc or 5.7L. Conversely, you divide the cubic centimeters by 61.4 to convert to cubic inches. Easy!
My Father Used to tell me about the one that he had in about 1926 in a Willys, When he was in the Navy and in charge of the Pt Reyes Compass Station. he said he would go up these steep hills on the Calif. Coastline, and retard the Spark and the engine would just chug up the hill. You could count the beats. I have seen several around the Russian River (Years ago) that were running pump stations.
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