Continental Single Slleve Valve Engine 1926

[Bud Tierney]

If anyone here has the Continental history book, would you see if it mentions the "Single Sleeve Valve" engine (Argyll patent) announced in 1926 (Comm'l Car Jnl 4-15-26 pg 17 has nice article announcing)...

Later squib showed up that engine ready for shipping, but nothing more in the trade magazines I was checking...

I'm assuming that, like their early V8, not enough interest was evidenced by the trade to actually get into production...

[Ivan Saxton]

If so that was probably a blunder, although Sir Harry Rickardo and his colleagues may not have done much work with the Burt-McCollum single sleeve valve engines then.  Rolls Royce dabbled in these, but Napier Sabre, and the air-cooled radials of Bristol were probably the supreme piston aero engines before they were supplanted by jet propulsion in the air.  There was much less cylinder wear than poppet valve engines because the piston never suffered boundary breakdown of the oil film:  because the liner oscillated in rotational as well as axial movement.  The type would run at a higher compression ratio without detonation, and so were relatively more economical and powerful.