Coates International Ltd. (fka COTE)

[Joe_NY]

But what company would buy many engines that they haven't tested, or that hasn't gone through a rigorous 3rd party test. Because Coates says it works means little... There should be articles about Coates in many different auto and tech mags. The one I found below doesn't sound too promising.


"...Another area that has been attempted to be improved upon with little success is the poppet valves on a conventional engine. The problem with poppet valves is that the incoming air does not have a direct line of sight into the cylinder; and once that air has reached the cylinder, it still has to make it around the big end of the valve. Other issues with poppet valves are they are difficult to actuate at high rpm’s, and the exhaust valve causes a hot spot in the combustion chamber. But the beauty of the poppet valve is that combustion pressure helps to seal the valve against its seat, and because they are round, they heat and expand evenly. They also don’t need any lubrication where the valve meets its seat since they are not sliding.

Many alternatives that have been proposed use some type of rotary valve that open and close ports as they spin. One company proposed a promising design was Coates. Their design uses a play off a ball valve that replaces all traditional valve hardware. The system seems very ingenious until you start to think about the forces it has to deal with. Unlike a poppet valve which seals tighter under pressure, the opposite is true for the Coates valve since it’s on top of the cylinder outside the combustion chamber. This means that all of the force from combustion is trying to blow the valve off the top of engine, not push it against a seal like the poppet valve. Coates also claims that their ceramic seal doesn’t require lubrication; since this valve has never been released to the public for 3rd party evaluation, I have my doubts on this. But I’m sure like many other attempted solutions, their design does work – at least for a little while.

So for the most part, it seems like the major problem with alternate engines (and valve) designs is that they are difficult to seal. Many people think that it’s only a matter of time before technology is good enough to figure out these problems, but I’m not so sure. I think in a lot of these cases, physics will have to be defied."

From: http://automotivethinker.com/general/why-alternative-engine-designs-have-never-met-much-success/