The radial engine is gorgeous. With its one or two rows of radially-mounted pistons, adorned in cooling fins, it can be as much art as it is engineering triumph. As if that wasn’t enough, a man named José Manuel Hermo Barreiro has built a double-star radial engine in small scale that he can drive with air. It’s incredible the craftsmanship that went into this engine’s creation. Hit the jump for a video of it being created, assembled, and run.
Isn't he great at that? There is at least one other video of another engine that he made, a V-8 or a straight-8 or something like that, that is just as detailed with a zillion itty-bitty parts. Very, very cool.
The famous Harley Davidson V-Twin is considered a radial engine. Back in the days when powerplants were getting bigger, H-D had to compete with twin cylinder engines, and as many MC manufacturers have done, they simply added a barrel to their existing single (Like my Laverda Triple started as a parallel twin with a sort of sidecar extra cylinder.) To save engineering costs (probably time, more than cost) they went with a radial twin rather than make a new crankshaft.
I suppose it's more like two singles, since typically a 4-stroke radial has an odd number of cylinders. Two is certainly an odd number of cylinders for a radial to have, though, ain't it?
I want a radial engined car… they exist but are few and far between.
We had an oddball one at the Larz Anderson from the teens-twenties that had 5 rotating cylinders on a fixed crankshaft, technically called a rotary engine but not so much any more because of the Wankel Rotary. Also, on that car the engine was horizontal. It's been years, so I can't quite recall how that worked. I think the car company was called Star.
(EDIT: Wikipedia lists the Adams-Farwell as a rotary powered car, and the layout seems to be what I remember.)
<img src="http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/images/gallery/pebble2011/26176.jpg" width=600">
full size, <a href="http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/images/gallery/pebble2011/26176.jpg” target=”_blank”>http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/images/gallery/pebble2011/26176.jpg
There also was a radial powered Formula/Grand Prix car built in the 20's/30's.
That is seriously awesome. I love the detail, and the engine itself is just a pretty thing to behold.