December 27, 201114 yr Ive just come across this. Heres an interesting article from a 1990 edition of DBR. Surely the idea of carbon fibre pistons makes sense , for all of the reasons in this article. So why didnt they take take off? Any ideas?
December 27, 201114 yr I saw this a while back when doing some R&D work for a Race engine ... http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/2258 I've never heard anything else about it ... Excessive cost ???? Glenn
December 27, 201114 yr Weren't Honda doing some developments with composite cylinder liners, ceramic piston rings? I seem to remember them trying oval pistons as well to reduce the width of the old V4 GP racing engines back in the late 80's or early 90's. It's this sort of stuff that gets the old grey matter working overtime (read that as dreaming)
December 27, 201114 yr interesting reading axelsuv, can't help wondering if the big manufacturers have looked at it and are maybe even working on it? honda ran a few oval piston bikes in the eighties, they even produced a road bike with them! the rather beautiful looking NR750 if i recall!!
December 28, 201114 yr The article states better lifespan than a aluminium piston, theres the reason why it got dropped, not enough high priced replacements needed for the manufacturers tastes
December 28, 201114 yr I read about this when I were't'apprentice...25yrs ago An aloominum piston will leech heat away where a carbon piston wont.I bet carbon pistons can be very abrasive under certain conditions? I reckon the problem with pistons made of low thermally conductive material (i.e. carbon re-enforced fibre) would be the additional heat load imparted into the cylinder-liner surface around the piston/rings, which would cause the oil film on the cylinder wall to flash-off. That may lead to scuffing of the piston compression rings. Maybe the extra heat kept in the combustion chamber couldn't be turned into better thermal efficiency on a two-stroke (it might just go out of the port to heat the exhaust excessively?)..Can you tell I'm just guessing?
December 30, 201114 yr I seem to remember them trying oval pistons as well to reduce the width of the old V4 GP racing engines back in the late 80's or early 90's. Late 70's/early 80's actually. Width wasn't the reason. It was to stuff as many valves in the pots as possible. Edited December 30, 201114 yr by TooFastTim
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