rotary valve train for V-8?
 

has anyone seen this before? I think it was designed by a company called
coates engineering. has anyone ever used these before

what the hell is it?

Looks like something that either BMW or Mercedes were working on I think. The design is supposed to eliminate valvespring bind and valve float (because there aren't any to have a problem with). I don't know anything about it other than I bet it's expensive.

it's come up a bunch of times over at nasioc. it's a valve train that uses those little spheres for the port timing. think of the valves becoming rotating instead of reciprocating. it's a tad complicated :)

That looks nice! I like the idea of a rotating valve. It gets rid of some moving/wearable parts. I wonder what kind of seal surrounds the ball valves.? How would you lube it without getting it into the combustion chamber? :confused:

First and foremost, I want to say that this is not to discourage the rotary community.
I have also tried to post about this particular cylinder head design SEVERAL times, but it has been nothing more than a "bad omen" for me. (Nothing but computer glitches and random errors and "shut-offs" from my computer EVERYTIME I tried to post about it.
Keep in mind that this design won't be out for automobiles for atleast a couple of years.

Anyway.

It's called the 'Coates Spherical Rotary Valve System' and the design itself is actually as old as the Rotary engine itself. The reason why it's finally coming out now is because this company has finally solved the combustion sealing problem with this head. In recent tests (within the last 5 years) it was an extreme eye opener!! Here's a few examples: they took a stock Ford 302 c.i. (5.0 Liter) engine, replaced the heads with these and the results were: roughly 485 HP and about equal torque and it revved to 14,500 rpms!! Another example was they used a big block (400+ cubic inches----somewhere in the 400's) and it produced 950+HP and about equal torque, and with a much higher redline!! Apparently, the power curve is somewhat similar to a normally aspirated rotary engine: if you were looking at a dyno chart, the power curve is a steady increase throughout the rpms. AKA: the more you rev it, the more power you get ----> to put it plainly.
As for the lubrication? Very good question. The company uses sealed bearings as opposed to the typical bearings that you see in an engine that require oil to keep them lubricated.
With that being said, the company has stated that the upper portion of the cylinder head NO LONGER needs oil to be supplied to it----only the crankcase!! With the replacement of this head, all the unneccessary friction from the valvetrain is practically nonexistent!! Also, the intake and exhaust tracts during their opening cycles are practically free-flowing tunnels----no more valves in the way!!
The company has also stated that they have this cylinder head installed on one of their cars and it currently has over 40,000 miles on the head with absolutely no problems whatsoever. They have also installed it on a Harley Davidson V-twin.
As of today, the company has billions (if I'm not mistaken) of dollars in contracts with other companies to start production on these heads for "machine/factory" use (aka: engines of all sorts used in factories for production, etc.) Now, it is only a matter of time before they move on to the automotive engine. One must realize though that this will be rather difficult because the current valve-train that is used throughout the world will no longer be sought after and many companies even remotely dealing with it's design will more or less become extinct!!


I find the design complex, yet rather simple at the same time------> much like a rotary. Complex to design correctly, but simple in the end with very little moving parts.
I do find the introduction of this cylinder head design intriguing and I will undoubtedly want one for myself when they are finally put into production for automotive piston engines. But, nonetheless, I am, and will still be..... a "rotor-head".

BTW, don't bother trying to flame me about these HP numbers because it is what I have read for myself and I am merely passing on knowledgable info about this design. If you do a search on the web yourself for: COATES SPHERICAL ROTARY VALVE you will no doubt find just about all of the info that I have stated here.

Nonetheless, keep those rotors spinning!!:)

BTW, the reference about the big block was that I was stating that it's stock redline was raised much higher, not that it was higher than the Ford smallblock. I'm not sure if higher compression pistons were installed and what not, but it was definitely making 950+ HP. BTW, there was NO forced induction, no NOS..............nothing!!! Just the heads.

Looks pretty neat. I'd try one. :bigthumb:

I know peejay likes poppet valves.

Well, you're sort of right, or unintentionally confused/combined two results. The "about equal torque" was on the 5500 rpm spin, not on the 14, 750 rpm spin.

They didn't publish any numbers for the high rpm spin, likely because the motor either worked itself apart, or was choking due to a lack of flow. ~485 lbs. ft of torque would net you ~1340 hp at 14.5K rpm. 485 hp at 14.5K would be a whopping ~175 lbs. ft.

They made ~450 lbs. ft. at peak. Assuming they could keep the torque curve within 90% of peak that's ~ 1120 HP @ redline. Impressive, but obviously didn't happen or they'd be plastering it everywhere. More than likely the motor broke, and didn't breathe very well at higher RPMs. Maybe it is the future for cylinder head design, but clearly some more development and design is necessary. Pretty cool stuff though.



http://www.coatesengine.com/look_mom_no_camshaft.html

I've been through similar spherical valve threads before and we even called them to see aboout buying a set of them for a 5.0 a year or so ago. They basically said they have no interest in dealing with normal consumers, so I wouldn't get your hopes up about ever seeing a set on the consumer market.

It works but its also dirty as can be.

Spews fuel and the emissions are through the roof.

A few OE manufactuers looked into their stuff, but it would never work for them due to emissions.

cough $15,000 cough

Those things are going to take up a hell of a lot of combustion chamber volume and so make for a very weird roof shape but I guess the dyno results prove the power advantages.

If you want to see something trick check out the sleeve valves that were being studied back in the 20's and saw high development in the 30's and 40's for large displacement aviation motors.

http://www.eaa.org/benefits/sportavi...er_sleeves.jpg

The cylinder is on the left and the sleeve valve on the right. The sleeve fits inside the cylinder and the piston runs inside the sleeve. The sleeve is driven from the bottom which forces it to not only rise up and down but rotate back and forth slightly as it does so. Thus the ports on the sleeve actually travel in an elliptical path while covering and uncovering the inlet and exhaust ports of the cylinder. As the piston runs up and down inside the sleeve the sleeve itself is oscillating up and down in a twist motion at 1/2 piston speed.

coates was supposed to start offering crate motors when I read about them in 2000 in popular hot rodding. I called them also and they said they werent intrested in selling to consumers, but if they did it would cost somewhere between 7-10k for a set of heads. They are currently devolping heads for semi's. All they pretty much want is an automaker to use there heads, guess its better not to sell any in the meantime and go broke waiting. The actual design of the head its self is pretty old, coates has just been the first to get the seal around the valve to last.

I called Coates when I was researching options for my engine. I was told $15,000 up front and that they would not guarantee a delivery date.

no comment;)

I had heard about this before, but not in a great amount of detail. Very interesting.

It'll be a long time fellas, before anyone sees these things on anything. There isn't an auto manufacture in the US that will touch these things with a ten foot pole. The last "revolutionary" thing that any of the big three messed with was GM in the late 60's early 70's. I think it was called... um..ah the rotory. They were going to use it in corvettes and monza's. Never happened for, go figure emissions and reliability issues. Mazda picked it up and have spent years making it what it is today, fuel hungry and unreliable (that is compared to the average piston popper and is no means ment to piss anyone off, but flame if you wish) GM still uses pushrods and rockerarms, and tell you the truth i'm glad, I don't see any one else boasting 400hp and 25mpg from a 6 litre dinosaur. The point is the auto makers dont say "wow, thats cool, that'll work way better" it more like "that's gonna cost a lot of money to develop, and what if it dosen't work". Even if it was put into production, it would only be by one auto maker, they wouldn't alow their competition to have it. They're not worried about what makes a better car, as much as what makes better money. It's a very cool design, if you guys are interested in stuff like this, check out halfbakery.com theres mucho crazy stuff there.

On a side note Coates is a pretty shady organization, they've been working on these heads for 15-20 years, and they are not in production anywhere. Imagine what their investors are thinking. I just wish someone else would pick up on this and produce it before they did.

Not bad
 

That's a really cool design and it actually makes alot of sense. If you think about it, you would spend thousands making your engine that powerful if you went NA so it's actually not a bad price for a bolt-on that allows you to rev to 13000+ and more than doubles your horsepower!

Didn't Felix Wankel design some type of rotary valve system like that for the Gemans for use in their planes in WW2?

Y'know, when someone claims 14k rpm out of a Ford 5.0, you know they're blowing smoke up your ass. I mean, geez people, that works out to piston accelerations quite a bit higher than Formula 1 motors.

That's leaving aside any problems with sealing and combustion chamber shape... yeah. Y'know, I'd be less skeptical if, after all this time, I'd have heard about a single person using them.