MYT engine - is this genuine?

I can't imagine that there will be an ignition system. the position of the combustions around the torus will be quite random. Hence it's probably some form of a diesel. This tally with the mentioning that all kinds of liquid fuel or gas could be used.

At the moment it's a compressed air engine.

Here are some more specs

"5. On a dynamometer, an engine?s combustion temperatures is typically measured 2? from the exhaust ports, on the premise that the combustion temperature is very close to exhaust temperature. This is due to the zero degree duration @ TDC and the 360 degrees running duration of a standard engine. However, if @TDC, the piston is allowed to stay for a longer duration, it will burn a greater percentage of the fuel and air mixture in the combustion chamber until oxygen or fuel theoretically runs out at the end of the power stroke, thereby totally completing the combustion process and drastically lowering the exhaust temperature at the end of the exhaust stroke."

is utter bollocks. Only Diesels don't burn essentially all the fuel at the top of the stroke & even they burn most of it, 100% fuel burn is the norm in an engine & combustion temperature is much higher than exhaust temperature or you wouldn't actually be able to generate any work.

It takes many years to perfect an engine. Hence we still see progress on the 100 year old 4-stroke engine. The power output of modern engines is really amazing, considering the same mechanical layout as a Ford T engine.

I am a bit annoyed that the land speed record allows the use of jet engines, the vehicles are really nothing more that an aircraft trapped to the ground; no power goes through the wheels. I only recognise the last wheel powered car as the true record holder (John Cobb, ~400mph, 1947!). Wouldn't such wheel powered land speed records be much more interesting & relevant?

Of course it is. What's not clear are how they cope (a) with the colossal vibrational torque required to speed up and slow down the pistons and (b) how they seal the piston drives.

Incidentally, I think that demonstration is one of their compressed air runs.

Ian

Thus spake johannes ( snipped-for-privacy@sizef4467898898itter.com) unto the assembled multitudes:

Errmmm... Donald Campbell in Bluebird, 17 July 1964, 403.1 mph?

I agree with your sentiment, though.

Indeed. That's the whole point of diesels. They aim to burn the fuel at constant pressure rather than at constant volume as in an Otto cycle. Since flame fronts move faster than pistons, the only way to get a progressive burn is to omit the sparking plug and add the fuel gradually, hence the need for a higher compression rato to ignite the fuel.

Ian

It doesn't have to take long. Look at the power increase in the Gnome Rotary between 1914 and 1918, or in the Rolls-Royce Merlin between

However, that doesn't mean that every crackpot idea will in due course be a winner. Some ducklings are ugly.

Ian

multitudes:

FIM later ratified the Jet powered 3 wheeler "Sprit of America" as a valid record and it thus lay claim to the outright LSR. As it had made the LSR run before Bluebird, which had been built to FIA wheel driven rules using a turboSHAFT engine, Bluebird lost the record. FIM had no rules on "wheel driven", just outright speed with wheels in contact with ground (this is/was contentious). It became clear to the FIA that the outright fastest LSR (which they thought they owned) would always be held by a goddamn "bike" and be ratified by the FIM for all time hence unless they changed their rules to allow thrust. So they changed the rules.

Wheel driven turbine powered record is held by Don Vesco in his Turbinator. FIA flying mile 458.443mph

Wheel driven piston engine record for Flying Mile is held by Tom Burkland in The Burkland streamliner. FIA 415.896mph (has recorded

Wheel driven piston engine Flying Kilometer is still held by Al Teague at 425.05mph.

Non of it's relevent, non of them are useable on road, turning circle being a major issue. 300.788mph agerage with a stock body is where it's at.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Mrcheerful" saying something like:

Well, that was shit. And what the f*ck was up with the soundtrack.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Chris saying something like:

It's not new. I recall an exactly same design some thirty years ago and it sunk without trace. Not only that type either, similar ones have been dreamed up, come and gone and it's usually some fundamental difficulty with making the damn things work over time - even a short time.

Cooling difficulties usually rear their heads, of course, along with sealing and metallurgical problems.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Tim Downie" saying something like:

I like the way it starts with a scream then gets slower and slower. Just as if it's losing power because of pick-up in the bores/pistons. Oh no, it couldn't be seizing up, could it? I think he stopped it just in time.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is generally pretty brutal to these inventors as well.

Ian

That was due to the air pressure dropping IIRC in the video (he didn't leave the compressor running)