Duesenberg

[DonziJon]

George and I were talking today about the Duesenberg W24. Two of them were built for Horace Dodge in 1926. They were essentially 3 Straight Eights in a "W" configuration. Unknown today. In 1939 Harry Miller & Dan Arena rebuilt one and made it work in Notre Dame 3 to a first place in the Gold Cup. Check those timing gears....:) :) DJ

PS: I remembered the Timig Gears..George remembered it was a "Duesey"....Duesenberg.......:)

[gcarter]

I remember reading about this engine years ago. It had tremendous carburation problems...not unusual for such a long, large displacement engine. Some of the cylinders would be running rich while the other end would run lean. I think they enventually supercharged it and it did better. I also remember Dodge had the Duesenberg brothers do some work on it, Dodge was charged about $8.00/hour.
Times have changed.

[bertsboat]

They made those gears before the age of CAD computers. Seems like it would be impossible. It would be impossible today if we tried to do it without the help of the computer.

[zelatore]

You may recall the current VW (corporate) W-engines, along with the narrow-angle VR6. Not exactly the same, but about the closest thing around currently.

Clearly if they had carb problems it was because they didn't try running individual down-draft webbers. That would have taken care of things....:bonk:

[gcarter]

They made those gears before the age of CAD computers. Seems like it would be impossible. It would be impossible today if we tried to do it without the help of the computer.

Back in the '70's, I was half of the engineering department for a medium sized fab shop in Houston.
Among other things this shop did was to cut gears. They had about 6 hobbing machines w/the largest having the capacity of about 10'.
They also had a couple of Gleason spiral bevel generators. These were fascinating machines to watch.
I still have a part of a broken hob. It's for about 1-1/2" pitch. I keep it on my desk and when folks see it, they don't know what it is.
I used to design gear trains on a regular basis. The key is to have good machine operators. Everything was checked and re-checked., like measuring the pitch diameter by miking over round ground pins placed inbetween the teeth.

[Greg Guimond]

Reading the three paragraphs above makes it 100% clear in my mind how you can turn out the quality work you do George.

[Ghost]

Jeez, what sort of Mickey-Mouse gear setup is that?! :wink:

[Phil S]

I can't find it now, but I enjoyed reading about the flame "spread" inside the chamber...something about being "squooshed" (sp?) the wrong way.

I can imagine the Duesey in-line sans supercharging facing similar dilemmas. Wondering what percentage efficiency these motors operated per potential btu input, given the year, technology, etc. compared to a production "today" mobile.

Probably better stated as...what oil / spark plugs do you run ? :wink:

Phil S.

[gcarter]

I can't find it now, but I enjoyed reading about the flame "spread" inside the chamber...something about being "squooshed" (sp?) the wrong way.

I can imagine the Duesey in-line sans supercharging facing similar dilemmas. Wondering what percentage efficiency these motors operated per potential btu input, given the year, technology, etc. compared to a production "today" mobile.

Probably better stated as...what oil / spark plugs do you run ? :wink:

Phil S.

Yes, that was a problem in the day. In the US, there were two really good engine builders, the Duesenberg brothers and Harry Miller in the 20's. Both built some very interesting engines incorporating four valves per cylinder, double overhead cams, supercharging, and light alloy construction. But the fuel (gasoline) was so bad (maybe 70 octane) that 4:1, or 5:1 CR wasn't unusual. This was also why so many racing engines used enhanced alcohol to run on.