Loving cars and their amazing engines is my hobby. If you share the same hobby as me, you may like this place.
My goal is to bring you interesting, educational or even entertaining content. I look deeper into various car brands, models or their engines, search for interesting stuff around them or even make a whole video about one engine, engine series or even comparing them - all aimed towards your education.
You missed the twin split single (4 pistons) and the horizontally opposed twin. The Suzuki GT380, 550 & 750 as released to the public were NOT sporty, but fairly staid tourers (I had a GT380 bought new in '74).
Congratulations on a superbly researched production on the Rootes TS3 diesel. I have been a huge fan of these engines since riding in the cab of a very early TS3 powered Commer 7 tonner in New Zealand, driven by my father on stock cartage over some very hilly and sometimes rough territory. The sound of that motor can never been forgotten. I was very fortunate to make contact with Don Kitchen in later life and would always ring him on his birthday - 10th July from memory. He was an amazing man, still living in his own house and driving himself around in his mid 90s with an amazing range of interests. Sadly he died of COVID when he had to go into hospital due to another medical issue. A very sad loss to an amazing man. I enjoyed the phone calls talking about Commer stuff and letters he wrote to me about his life and his time developing the TS3 / TS4. I was also fortunate to get copies of other letters he sent to another Commer enthusiast in NZ as well as receiving interesting plans, reports and photos from Don. I am very pleased you have mentioned that TS3 stands for Two Stroke 3 Cylinder and are not repeating the myth that this stands for Tilling Stevens which is sadly often incorrectly reported by authors in Classic Truck Magazine articles on TS3 powered Commers, or mentioned on the WWW. If people only did a little research, they would work out it couldnʻt possibly stand for Tilling Stevens. As you quite rightly state, development started on this engine in 1946. Rootes Group didnʻt purchase Tilling Stevens until 1950! And they purchased it for manufacturing space, not for any technical developments being undertaken by Tilling Stevens. As Don said in a letter, the fact that the TS3 was MANUFACTURED at Maidstone was entirely coincidental. It could have been manufactured at another of the Rootes plants... Just to add further to its development, the TS3 design team were housed on the third floor of the Admin block at the Humber-Hillman Stoke Aldermoor Rootes plant in Coventry between the military vehicles design office and the Hillman Minx ohv 4 cylinder design team which was developed from 1390cc its final incarnation in the Hillman Hunter. It was a few years later that the Rootes Diesel engine division moved to Maidstone to be nearer production and any issues that arose. Just to make a little correction on your commentary, Don wrote in a letter that when he arrived to work at the Humber plant as a design engineer apprentice, there was the single cylinder version which they used to work on liner / cylinder design, and two TS3 prototypes, one in a truck and one on the test bed. The two cylinder version came a few years later after the TS3 had been in production and the design request from Commer trucks for the two cylinder version was as a possible diesel engine option for the bonneted 6 cylinder Superpoise petrol or an industrial motor. Don thought it was proceeded with because of vibration issues. As far as he knew, it ended up in the scrap bin. I wish I could post photos as I have a copy of the only known photo of the 2 cylinder engine... The mention of Commer Trucks requesting a two cylinder version brings up a point not often understood. Rootes Diesel Engine Division was responsible to Commer Trucks Luton who would forward request for engine development. It is not widely known but Rootes Diesel Engine Division, at the request of Commer Trucks, tried to develop diesel versions of the 4 and 6 cylinder petrol motors used in Commer trucks. This wasnʻt successful. Don stressed that there was always a little tension between the Rootes Diesel Engine Division and the Maidstone engineers as they were only responsible for the manufacturing of the TS3, not its development and they often thought they knew what should be done, in their opinion, to improve the TS3. I am amazed that you have featured a page of the design calculations for the TS3. I have seen these ʻin the fleshʻ as Don sent them to the other Commer enthusiast in NZ. They make a mockery of the idea that the TS3 was a copy of one of the other opposed piston two stroke diesels. Why would you need to go to the trouble of calculating all those stress calculations - and there are pages of them, and if the TS3 was a copy, surely they would have had at least one of those engines lying around in the design centre workshop to consult. It is very clear from papers he presented to the likes of the Royal Society of Engineers, that Eric Coy knew a great deal about all the opposed piston engines, but just because he developed an engine using similar ideas - as you state from a clean slate, doesnʻt mean it was a ʻcopyʻ of another engine. You mentioned that the TS3 was developed for Industrial purposes. This was just one branch of the development of the TS3 - never an initial goal. Rootes Diesel engine division came to an arrangement for Listers for an industrial version of the TS3 to power stationary pumps and gen sets, late in the 1950s, but this only lasted 18 months or so. Despite this, the TS3 was used and developed for an incredible range of uses where its low running costs and reliability was a real assets. Sorry if I have gone on a bit but I didnʻt have any other way of contacting you but I hope this adds to the story of remarkable engine. Again, well done on a tremendous history of this remarkable engine and the incredibly small and dedicated team that bought this engine to life. Cheers from New Zealand
One nice thing about 5 valve heads on Yamahas, the smaller intakes hold lash adjustment for a long time. They do like to be fueled on on the richer side, and a bit more spark advance than a 4 valve head, as they aren't as efficient a combustion chamber shape and as a result don't burn as fast as a 4 valve head. I had a nicely Ivan's Performance tuned '06 FZ1, it was a liquid revs kind of beast on the cam from 7K to the 13K rev limiter I saw Jesus quite a few times on it 😆
I hate to pee in your Cheerios, but RPM, is directly limited piston speed. I don't care what Pistons were talking about, but they all come apart at the same speed For example if Harley-Davidsons could red line at 10,000 RPM, they would be making over 200 horsepower normally aspirated. When you pressurize an engine, you increase the combustion efficiency, usually in the 160% to 180% range. The gas will only burn so fast no matter what you do to it. It'll still take another 20 years until they catch up with motorcycle technology. Just saying................... PS They're using two Hayabusa, toppings made it to a common crankcase, with the single crankshaft. 🤔Hummmm. It's probably because motorcycle technology is so far ahead of automotive formula 1 it's not funny. Just saying................
Looked what happened after Volvo shut the 7 down. Mercury marine comes out with their v8 then v10 & of course the monster v 12 with a two stage transmission along with Yamaha’s 425 & now 450. 😎. It’s clear what happened at Volvo 💥🌈🌦️❄️
The cr700 motorbike gives 240 bhp. Weighs 120kg. So fast and done by Brian Crighton the genius who made those 588cc norton rotarys that raced with great success including winning the british superbike serirs around 1990
if its an inline 5 its not a hayabusa motor at all. throw two of them together it isnt a hayabusa.. obscure custom shit out of home shops is never cool or interesting or bad ass at all
Lmao 300 hp from 14L turbocharged diesel for the accessories must be pretty depressing but who knows what was going on in the ussr the entire thing was depression 😂
No mention of there being two different v10s? The 3 valve head in pickups and Class A RVs and the 2 valve in E series vans. Ford learned early on that they had to change recommendations for oil in the 3 valve to 5W-20. Anything heavier would lead to the 3rd valve cam follower getting spit out of position after the cam roughed up due to insufficient top end oiling when idling. The 3 valve has a lot more moving parts syphoning off oil pressure at idle speed and startup. The 2 valve has less (including no balance shaft) The balance shafts and cams in the 3 valve are running in bare aluminum bores and unless properly maintained also start losing low speed oil pressure there as they wear. Talked to so many clueless mechanics who would insist 20w oil was too thin and they unwittingly set the hapless owner up for a blown engine.
