CYCLING AND MOTOR-ING NOTES

Horowhenua Chronicle, 25 August 1916, Page 3

CYCLING AND MOTORING NOTES

♦- Jf'roiu the Duulop liubber Company of I Au a t,alalia, Limited, tor the week ll)th August, IUIO. j

During tlit' past two years, and particularly during the last twelve months, aluminium pistons have been enormously boomed in tile United States, aiul the American maker*; have not been .slow to claim a superiority over European motor engineers by reason of their adoption of this type of piston. The pnist year also has seen the appearance of" the aluminium cylinder on two well-known makes of American oars, with a possibility of it being adopted by two or three other firms. There is a tendency in America, whenever iv new idea has caught on, for makers to stampede. Just now we hear a lot of the Hotehkiss drive, although this method of driving througn the springs has been common in Europe for more than cen .years. Two years agb the "V" motor, with eight or twelve cylinders, ivas discovered, and makers who never previously had given a thought to other than vertical engines realized overnight that nothing less than eight cylinders could possibly satisfy the intelligent motorist. Yet the. now almost forgotten :M. T.eviivassetir was racing at Mnmico with and eight and six-

toon cylinder V motors as far back as 1905. The la to Hubert Lath aim flew to within hailing distance of the British coast in 1909 with one of these V motors. Bleriot raced at the first Rheims aviation meeting witli a FraincoBritish V motor. Wolseley, Sunbeam and De Dion Bonton, among others, built successful V motors for boats -and cars long before the first commercial eight or twelve cylinder engine had appeared in America. The same thing has occurred in connection* with the aluminium cylinders nnd®pi<3tous. These* were used with satisfactory results in Franco as far back as T9OB. About the same time alniuminiurn pistons were far from perfect and manufacturers, who, in every few cases, produced their own pistons, concluded that the metallurgist and the foundry man had undertaken an impossible task and censed to take any further interest. Nevertheless. the pioneers continued their work, and when the.v had produced an almost, perfect piston, they did not

have much difficulty in convincing American makers of its value and in inducing them to adopt it on a very extensive scale. The aluminium piston boom is so strong in America that sets for that much-converted car, the Ford, are on the market and finding a ready sale. One of the most successful processes of die-cast aluminium pistons used in America is a French invention, little known (outside technical circles) in the country of its origin. The saving of weight is the outstanding advantage of using aluminium aillo.v. Tn one particular case the weight of an eight-cylinder engine was reduced 2001b by the use of aluminium, the general design being unchanged. It is certain that, after the war. there will be put on the market, a not inconsiderable number of tour'ng cars with aluminium alloy cylinders. On ;r modern car. the group of lour cylinders constitutes the heaviest single unit, and t-h° 1 reduction of that weight will he equivalent to a saving varying from 401 h to 1001b, according to . the size of the engine. Without radically affecting design, there is no other portion of the car on which a substantial saving in.weight can he effected. The amount of aluminium employed on a high-class car is already considerable; it comprises the erankcase, base chamber, portion of the radiator, fan. valve stem cover, water pump, housing, brake shoes, hub caps, carburettor, steering wheel, dashboard, dynamo and starting motor, clutch, gear-box, universal joint ' housing, differential housing. Applied to cylinders and some of the framework of the body and the series would doubtless be complete while cars, remain on their present lines. Motorists generally have every reason to give close attention t.o the coming of aluminium, for it alone appears to he possible of effecting the immediate reductions in the weight of cars—and weight, as everybody knows, is the motorist's enemy. I