Originally Posted by
wingracer
By their own website, it is a spherical rotary valve driven by chain, belt, or gears off of the crankshaft. Such a design, regardless of the details will have certain advantages and certain disadvantages to a conventional valve system. This is engineering FACT, not speculation. Now whether or not they have managed to get the advantages to outweigh the disadvantages and result in a truly superior system is unknown. My guess is that they have not but I would be very happy to be wrong.
I am not skeptical because I fear new technology, I love new stuff. But you have to understand that people have been trying to come up with better valve systems for 4 stroke motors for over a hundred years (including similar rotary systems) and ALL have failed to replace poppets in high end performance. This system may very well wind up being great for street cars or sport racing but that doesn't mean it will win at the highest levels. Everyone thought AAC was the next big thing but good old ABC just won the worlds.
Personally, if I was an engineer working on all out high tech race motor design, I think I would be working on some sort of slide valve with electro-mechanical actuation. I certainly wouldn't be wasting my time on any form of crank driven rotary valves. Even if someone gets them to work, mine has more potential on a strictly theoretical standpoint.
I honestly don't know enough to even begin speculating on what they can or can't do ...However they did show some good results on a stock engine...whether they can be used on a top level race engine is something I have no clue about.... Also without them showing the dyno curve its impossible to know what kind of power curve they achieved...their peak numbers sound impressive, but who knows the full story without a dyno curve..... Apparently another type of rotatry valve was being designed but its use was banned by formula 1....So even if they do find a new technology there is a strong proponent to protect the status qua, so even if something beter is out there we may never see it.... top level racing has been known to restrict technology to keep the playing field equal....So wether top level racing uses a certain technology or not really is no measure of whether the technology is good or not....... I am by no means an expert on the subject, I just found the Coates system pretty cool is all...I just didn't like all the armchair engineers being soo skeptical of something they really haven't analyzed first hand..... There is so much information missing from the website and tests, such as flowbench results and dyno curves that really we know very little about the system one way or the other...Hell the system may be great for making extremely economical engines, who knows....I certainly do not, and chances are the only people who have all the answers are the people from Coates themselves.....