The Jailhouse

[ola]

marcos............................nice post

allium yes....name? I was very young, they grew in the creek water in Louisiana. Hot humid country. They were wild.
Hot and spicy and used in local Creole cooking. I would check with someone in Louisiana. Above the 49th? Yes, me too...just slightly. Chances are they won't grow spontaneously here.

As to diesels...I have worked on lots of Gardiner's but not with clutches between...mostly small stuff. If they are clutched between, then each is a separate engine!

Napier is a familiar name. I would say the Deltic was also three separate engines driving a common chain with the blower inside the triangle. Oppposed Piston engines gain nothing. Very poor efficiency wise and a nightmare to work on. Very high maintenance.

The British are famous for making something simple extrememly clever and complicated. The Italians for making it simple and failure prone. Diesels complication comes only in the fuel delivery system. The simpler the arrangement and stronger the structure, the more horsepower that can me wrung out of them. Its clever fuel delivery, heat management and multiple isolated turbos. 2 cycle seems to work best at very slow speeds (115 rpm) Piston crown longevity is paramount with the high firing pressures and temperatures attained getting the huge horsepower figures we do today. The fuel must be an EXACT temp.,viscosity and purity. The structure must be rigid and able to take the tremendous side thrusts of the power stroke directly after Top Dead Center.

Scavenging is high pressure and common delivery in nature.

General Motors has experimented with every possible workable configuration in internal combustion; fueled by war needs and a wonderful curiosity throughout GM from the 30's to the 70's.

The EMD (now named?) was a family of V-type engines with a few inlines using the same cylinders, crank measurements, piston, and valve arrangements.

They began back with the 16-278A's, 248's, 567's...etc., and evolved into the 20 cyl tight V of today.

Cooper Bessemer had a wonderful 4 cycle V-engine, the LSV 12 and 16...and I hear even larger later. Very reliable, big and slow. It turned 365 rpm and about 4000 hp in the LSV-16/turbo arrangement. Piker stuff now.

The 9 cylinder Sulzers put out 60,000+ h.p. and the 12 cylinders about 90,000 h.p. I work on the 9 cyl. and the 7 cyl...32,000 h.p. They are about 25 years old, although Sulzer is still building them, the newer ones are even stronger, higher firing pressures etc.

In-line, hunky, cleverely fueled turbo diesels are the very leading edge of diesel technology today. They last forever and are very easy to work on.

Later

ola