Engine Punk

Similarities in layout to the Trojan split single are clear but the conrods of the EMC 350 aren't designed to bend. I've written about Trojan engines on this blog before, wondering if they could have had any sporting potential. I've a soft spot for two strokes and supercharging them sounds very exotic - almost impossible - and something to crow about if you can do it right. Dr Josef Ehrlich came from Austria and settled in post-war Britain to develop his take on the DKW blown two strokes that had made such an impression before the war. Unlike the Trojan, which used a flexible single vee-shaped conrod for the two pistons, Dr Joe used a stiffer one with an articulated link that allowed the pistons to travel happily in their separate cylinders without the need for said spindly vee-shaped conrods to flex. Based in Isleworth in the London borough of Hounslow, EMC never entered quantity production but were available from 1947 to 1952. After that Dr Ehrlich concentrated on...

In my earlier musings about the blown Trojan engine, I wondered if they had any performance potential. Well an owner of one of them has been in touch to say No. “It was the most gutless, gas-guzzling, useless piece of junk one could hope to drive, and its top speed was about 40 mph if one ignored the mechanical thrashing. One can only imagine its diff ratio!” This was from Paul Edwards in wobbly Christchurch , New Zealand , who’d owned a pick up version of the van version you see here. The supercharged Trojan 15 cwt van - not big down under “My Trojan used an aluminium head on one side, and cast-iron one on the other. I used to show people that it was, in effect, a W6!”  Paul’s was built in 1953 so probably had the enlarged 1290cc variant of this engine, which originally boasted 1186cc. That swept volume doesn’t include the pumping pistons of course. “It's the word 'supercharged' that promises so much, “ says Paul. “Imagine if the Japane...

Cut away engines seem wrong to me but are pretty well essential in understanding the workings of the normally aspirated Trojan split-single two-stroke. This the view from above. A mate of mine sent me this illustration of a cut away Trojan engine the other day. This was in response to my earlier post (VT 4) about a supercharged Trojan engine. Well, I still know nothing about the blown sort but here's a pic of the common or garden variety. Although it looks like a twin, the Trojan was a split-single. Yeah, I know, it's a contradiction in terms. Think of it as a saimese twin then. And they weren't split-singles, either. They were four cylinder split twins! Still with me? Some people call split-singles twingles so what would the quad-twin Trojan be - a quin? But why bother with split singles, or twingles, in the first place? The big problem with two strokes is spent exhaust gases mingling with a fresh incoming charge of fuel into the cylinder. Two strokes don...