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Rotary Valves


Drax240z

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Did anyone else happen to flip through or buy the Popular Hotrodding "Engine Masters" magazine vol. 3 no. 1? They have quite a nice article on rotary valve design. What a sweet design it is...

 

For those of you that haven't heard of them, rotary valves are simply that. Instead of a reciprocating valve assembly, consisting of ~100 moving parts, there is 2 moving parts. A "cam" with spherical lobes that have been CNC machined through the sphere to allow intake and exhaust gasses to pass through the cam in certain orientation. (got all that?) What this means is that the simple rotation of the cams (1 int, 1 exh) is all that is required to open and close the combustion chamber!!

 

In a study, Coates Engineering (the inventor) Bolted on their rotary valve heads to a 5.0L Ford engine out of a lincoln. This engine stock was 260hp, 249ft-lbs at 5500rpm. By replacing ONLY the heads with the Coates heads, this engine pumped out 475hp and 454ft-lbs at the same 5500rpm!!! Plus the engine having lost the majority of its moving parts can rev upwards of 10,000rpm with a stock bottom end.

 

How? Well I'd guess that the "cam profile" of the Coates valves are a performance "grind". But these rotary valves allowed the intake valve to go from closed to completely open in 2 degrees of crankshaft rotation, compared to the stock valve train... get this, 34 degrees to go from fully closed to open.

 

The down side is the cost for this setup is around $15,000... And it hasn't really been proven as far as duribility goes. Some of you more adventurous types might want to check it out!

 

 

 

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Drax240z

1973 240z - L28TURBO transplant on the way!

http://members.xoom.com/r_lewis/datsun.html

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Guest Anonymous

Wow. I couldn't find any info on the magazine's site, but a little searching revealed the website of some other curious souls who collected some info:

http://fbody.com/coates/

 

Apparently there's nothing in development for Chevy engines! Just Ford and Mercury.

 

JUST FOUND MORE INFO:

South Wales Kit Car Club info (Great article): http://www.amincher.freeserve.co.uk/page44.html

 

ACTUAL COATES WEB PAGE (seems to be a dead link): http://www.cromellcrown.com/coates

 

Coates request for funding/investors: http://www.partnerseek.com/_vs/0000024b.htm

 

 

[This message has been edited by dewzenol (edited May 28, 2000).]

 

UPDATE: Coates website seems to have moved to a more permanent home: http://www.coatesengine.com/

 

[This message has been edited by dewzenol (edited May 28, 2000).]

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