Engine Punk

At last - more info including a picture of that weird engine I found backalong A chap called David Pickard has sent me a link to the Trojan Trust website where there is a reproduction of an article published in the October 1946 issue of the Commercial Vehicle User's Journal . What wonderful names we used to have for our magazines! And the engine featured in this article appears to be the same supercharged engine that I found in an old copy of The Motor Vehicle by Newton and Steeds. This engine powered the 15cwt & 25cwt Trojan vans after World War II and in general terms the Commercial Vehicle User's Journal matches the technical description provided by Newton and Steeds - to wit 24bhp and 1186cc (65.5mm x 88mm). Although it is a four cylinder engine, it has six cylinders - four of them paired in two split cylinders that share a common combustion chamber. But the most interesting feature of the design is an inlet rotor in the head of the charging cylinders. This ...

The cutaway gives any idea of how few moving parts the GKW engine had. It had 3 coils through Following VT 10 about the Mercedes-Wartburg, I tried to find some more information about the DKW engine that was the basis of the Wartburg motor. The Deek also sired the early Saab and Auto-Union two-strokes. There's still quite a following for these little cars. Wartburg's and Trabants have a kind of retro-Commie Cool but I couldn't find the technical info I was after. However, in the course of my latest investigations into Trojan engines, I found a slim volume in the Anarchadia Publishing research library, entitled The Two-Stroke Engine (bit of a give away, that) by K G Draper, published by Foulis. Not only did it have a schematic diagram of the Trojan engine but also a cut away of the little Deek - DKW stands for Das Kleine Wunder, the little wonder. You can clearly see the seven moving parts - 3 pistons, 3 conrods and a crankshaft. This elegant design was first ...