On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 8:18 PM, John Bange <jbange@gmail.com> wrote:
>> But ya, haven't found anything of it running on anything but compressed
>> air.
>>
>>
> Yeah, it's vapoware. It's been around for many years, and never has gone
> beyond the "look, it runs on compressed air" stage. It's an interesting
> concept, but just offhand I can tell you that sealing those piston chambers
> is likely a major long term reliability issue. The wankel is already a
> headache, and it doesn't have a multidimensionally convoluted combustion
> chamber seal.

I'm a skeptic at heart in some ways. Posted the link partly because of
the interesting mechanics behind it. But....

Initially thought that even IF developed far enough to actually RUN on
fossil or bio fuel w/o blowing up, (he claims 1K hours on 100% bio but
no video??) simply letting out the clutch on a Vanagon might over
stress mechanisms related to the pistons/discs. I imagine that with
the weight savings, one could "afford" to build a pretty skookum
shatter-shield around the engine.   ;)

Brings a whole new meaning to "piston slap"  ;)

Seems to me that something like a Suby diesel swap would be viable
before something like this. I wish him luck though.

And as per your comments, nothing new. Further reading (was news to me):

"Swing-piston engine"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing-piston_engine

Neil.

--
Neil Nicholson '81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco"

http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/

http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-engines