first two are of a car called a Falcon being displayed by a company that did testing for Falcon Motor Sports

Falcon is pretty much as one-man operation as a car can get, the guy was described to me as a modern-day DeLorean of sorts a couple stages earlier in the process; the car is built in the Detroit suburbs, it runs $195k-250k and they have a maximum annual production of 12 per year, waiting list at the moment of 2 years





a cutaway of the Lotus hybrid, Lotus had a large presence at the show; alas, they're bankrupt and a couple people I talked to think they're just looking for someone to buy them



an independent engineer developed this for 20-some years on his own, and reached the point he needed venture capital to continue; this is called the Doyle Rotary Engine:



this is a 12-cylinder 4.3-liter from the same guy, I'm skeptical on it withstanding cylinder pressures





this is the Cosworth Formula One engine currently in the back of the Marussia team's chassis



LOVE THIS DESIGN! I've always loved the rotary engine concept. This is early development stages from a company called LiquidPiston. They called it a compression ignition engine (i.e. diesel). The difference between this and the Mazda rotary engine in the RX-7 and RX-8 is the Mazda has a kind of triangular piston rotating in a kind of ovular cavity, and this company is switched with a kind of ovular piston rotating in a kind of triangular cavity. Talking to the company president, he said the improvement/reason for why is you have less time scavenging than the Mazda rotary. The big unit you see is the base engine to produce 80 hp. If you want say 160 hp, you just add a 2nd white component.



[Edited on November 5, 2013 at 8:10 PM. Reason : /]

11/5/2013 8:07:42 PM

I bet you can store a lot of coke in that Falcon

11/5/2013 8:58:21 PM

The Doyle Rotary Engine looks cool, but what about the heads and the timing? Sure you got a compact block, but I want to see what it looks like with the heads installed. The exhaust work has got to be cumbersome as well.

11/7/2013 1:02:29 PM

Looking at the first Doyle engine, there is a monitor in the background. It looks like they all exhaust to the center, so only one exhaust tube.

Am I seeing that right?

11/7/2013 5:38:45 PM

I went to the Testing Expo last year. Some of it is the same cast of characters you see at the SAE World Congress. It's a lot of fringe suppliers and startups trying to get business for long-shot ideas. They may genuinely believe in their idea but they want a big supplier or even an OEM to buy in so they can cash out. Scuderi Split Cycle engine anyone?

Usually when you talk to them enough, you realize how half-baked their ideas are. They've got some simulations and maybe a couple working prototypes in a lab somewhere. As soon as you ask them how it's going to pass upcoming Euro 6C and Federal Tier III emissions (you know, so they can actually be sold somewhere) you get "uhhhhh.... uhhhhh...." or "um, I'm going to need you to sign a non disclosure agreement before I can answer that." Ask them about OBD and they will get flustered. Or they'll just tell you "well, you can start by sellling this engine in a country with weak emission standards." Yeah, where they have to compete with 2 cycle scooters!

And I'm familiar with the liquidPiston design from their website. The same questions apply. How is it going to pass emissions and OBD ? What kind of special tooling would it need to be built? Specific to liquidpiston--seems like it would be highly prone to diffusion flame and high particulates.

11/7/2013 7:40:17 PM

^ High particulates, they can do some kind of aftertreatment.

On LiquidPiston, I used to work for Cummins so when I heard "rotary diesel" I had to go look at it. The president was with a guy in front of me and said "we don't even know yet if we have to turbocharge". I came up and told him "you're going to have to turbocharge just to meet emissions". I had an interview with a Californian company late last year that was also early on in a next-generation engine. I didn't get the job because my experience was customer engineering and they weren't yet to that point of having to design that stuff (neither was LiquidPiston). So you're right in a lot of these companies are early on in the concept stage of things.

Looked really cool though, I'm always a sucker for sweet-looking designs, shook the president's hand and wished them the best.

[Edited on November 10, 2013 at 7:42 PM. Reason : /]

11/10/2013 7:22:31 PM