A new boxer diesel?

Subaru better hurry up with their diesel boxer for Europe before somebody steals the wind from their sails....

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It was funny reading this. Like this EcoMotors outfit is the only one doing boxer engines. Ha.

Reply to
Amos
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Hi,

There might be a reason...

Boxer engines (water cooled, of all makes) have a reputation for being hard on headgaskets. That's at gasoline compression pressures (150-175 psi?) so what do you suppose might happen at diesel pressures of 300-400 psi?

Then there's all the other stuff that needs to be beefed up to make a "good" diesel. It's a bit more involved than just slapping higher compression heads on a "gas" engine (ask GM how well they did w/ that approach in the '80s!) A good diesel's gotta start from ground up. But automotive bean counters don't like that approach if they think they can avoid it (even at the cost of future problems.)

At the risk of seeming like a dinosaur, may I suggest there's VERY little in automotive engine design that hasn't been tried, sometimes much earlier than we'd imagine. Good designs survive, bad ones often get "revived" under the "I just had this great idea but didn't check to see if it's been done before" philosophy. However, few of those that were turkeys the first time turn into eagles the next.

It would be nice if I'm proven wrong this time, as I'm a believer small diesels are more a part of our immediate future than hybrids and all the other darlings of the industry today.

Rick

Reply to
Rick Courtright

The artical does not say that EcoMotors building a diesel "boxer", it says they are building an "opposed piston/opposed cylinder" diesel engine. This design has 4 pistons in 2 cylinders. From Wikipedia:

"An opposed piston engine is one in which the cylinders are double- ended, with a piston at each end and no cylinder head. Some variations of the Opposed Piston or OP designs can use a single crankshaft like the Doxford ship engines [1] and the Commer OP truck engines [2] They should not be confused with a flat engine, which is referred to as horizontally opposed, or sometimes as a "Boxer" engine."

Reply to
mrputler

But only one crank. There is an article from 2005 with a diagram of what they are probably talking about here

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Interestingly it links to a magazine article by Peter Hofbauer from 1999 here

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Peter Hofbauer is chairman of APT and CEO of EcoMotors. The recent article says he hopes to have something out by 2011 (depending).

He has had 9 years since the magazine article to make something practical that works and wants another 3 years (depending). Despite the current green eco-bullshit fervour I expect he will still be making more press releases than engines in another decade.

Reply to
nospam

The Zoche aero-diesel is a pretty interesting design also. I met the son of the designer and handled some of the parts of these engines a few years back. I've often thought about the advantages of using one of these in a car:

Reply to
Clifford Heath

Ah. Thanks for clarifying.

Reply to
Amos

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