Topic: Is this Feasible?

[Dusthawk]

WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are gonna think I'm nuts, crazy, loco, insane, spacecase, and many others by the time you are done with this thread.


O.K. heres my brainstorm, or brainfart if you prefer. What about turning a head around so that the intake is on the front? I know about symetricality issues but they can be worked around. And about cam issues, but again, they can be worked around. My thoughts are thus:

1.) More air pressure in the front would put more air into the cylinder, thereby increasing combustion pressure.
2.) When riding, the cylinder head blocks airflow and the air has to make a 180 degree turn to go into the engine.
3.) Air passing the head on the way to the intakes pick up a bit of heat, lowering airpressure. (maybe not much but ?)
4.) In my configuration, airflow would continue in a fairly straight line, front to back.
5.) With a properly ground cam, every thing else would stay the same, points, etc. so no mods there.
6.) The stock airbox wouldn't work for obvious reasons, so V-stacks or pods would be the way to go.
7.) A carb rack can be easily designed to mount them to the front downtubes.
8.) Coil bracket can be easily relocated.

Now, before you immediately blow me off as a loon, just contemplate for a couple of minutes on the feasibility. I know you'll consider me a crackpot from now on but I get these crazy ideas and they rattle around my head til I do something with them. If I don't, they'll drive me around the bend for sure .

Well, there you go, I await your condecension,

Peace and Long Rides,

Jeff

[scunny]

I don't see why it wouldn't work. There you go, two heads on the chopping block.

[KB02]

I've actually always wondered why the air flow of most motorcycle engines is reveresed from the direction of travel of the bike. It seems it would only make sense to turn it around like that.

It maks sense to me. Then again, maybe all three of us are loons...   

[canttuckmyshirt]

Nice idea! I like it...
One thing. You may loose HP due to the turbulent air. An air box will still be needed to maximize HP.

[Raul CB750K1]

That's thinking outside the box. I like it, never thought about it before.

From what I see, there would be two mayor drawbacks.

a) Turbulence in the intake. Unless you are able to design a perfect system that deliver the air inside the carbs without turbulence

b) Heat dissipation. Reversing the engine means that the exhaust ports are not getting air to refrigerate. This is crucial for air-cooled engines, but not so important for water-cooled engines.

Once the air is inside, it really doesn't matter from where to where the air flows to and from. That air is inside a closed system, independent from the outside air. Once inside the cylinder its speed is 0, and it's the exhaust stroke what pushes it out of the engine. We are not talking about a pass-through system.

Once said that, it's true that when we think about new solutions to new problems we tend to look at what is already done and "inspire" from it. Bikes are derived from bicycles, that are derived from the first prototypes of two-wheeled vehicles shaped as... horses. Cars are derived from carriages -the first models even had an unsheltered driver area, as in a carriage. What if you take somebody as a baby, keep him secluded, feed him and educate him trying not to teach about the outside world. Then you ask him to design a personal way of transportation, even if technically not feasible. What will he come with? Probably nothing similar to what we know. Or probably exactly the same. Who knows...


Dusthawk, if the karma system would have not been dropped you would have one point from me!!


Raul

[bill440cars]

                  Jeff & scunny, Let me join you in that loony bin. What about an air scoop on each side of
         the bike for a "Ram Air" effect?             
                   Is that feasible or am I in? In the loony bin that is. Bill

[canttuckmyshirt]

                  Jeff & scunny, Let me join you in that loony bin. What about an air scoop on each side of
         the bike for a "Ram Air" effect?             
                   Is that feasible or am I in? In the loony bin that is. Bill

Or even a single air scoop, "Screamin Eagle" style... you may see positive pressure with a setup like this. Can our carbs deal with a positive pressure?

[ohiocaferacer]

The triumph guys have been doing this for years on the old english twins.....apparently its a real easy flip on them.

I've heard so say it works better with the intakes forward....others swear against it....never seen any real facts as to any pros or cons.

Might me a little harder on an inline 4 to flip the head.....would be kool thou..

Greg

[jdamman]

I think it's a real neat idea, I'd just want to do more research on the cooling issues, since there will be a lot less air movement near the exhaust side of the engine.  I would think an airbox that had an intake to each side and then distributed the air to the carbs may work well reducing the turbulance, however still benefiting from the ram air effect.  All of these ideas may go directly out the window when I take my fluid dynamics class in a few months- anyone already formally edumacated in that area?

[crazypj]

Cannondale is the most recent engine I can think of done this way, but it was designed 'backwards'. The rear cylinder on V-twins is also set up backwards in most cases (all single carb types) Would be an awful lot of work on any of the fours as not much lines up. I guess if you can weld aluminium it could be an 'interesting' project
PJ

[Tim2005]

Jeff, I'd wondered about doing this too, on a 400F, partly out of curiosity and partly cos a monoshock one I have hasn't got much room for the carbs, rather than expecting genuine bhp increases. The exhaust heat may be a problem (tho 4 pipes out the back would look kinda neat), both in terms of them overheating and the seat getting kinda cooked, but the bigger problem on the 4/4 is that the camchain tunnel isn't in the middle of the head, it is offset slightly, enough to foul the camchain when the head is reversed. I figured a turbo is an easier conversion, but haven't got far with that yet... anyone got a cheap Garrett GT12...

[Pinhead]

I'm kind of thinking the same thing, though I'd think a ram-air funnel or snorkel would work just as well. Also, when you're going down a dirt road or a rainy highway, you'll get a lot of junk into the air cleaners.  I'd think a force-fed snorkel would be the way to go.

[jdpas29]

i think air turbulence would be your biggest problem.  if you wanted to ride on the street that is...  if you just wanted to race the bike, i'm sure that you could get it in shape using this setup.  but if you're planning on riding on the street and it being smoothe at all RPMs and speeds.... i don't think so.  you'd still end up having to put up some sort of buffer to the airflow which somewhat defeats the whole purpose of turning it around.

maybe if the intakes were covered all the way across by a layer of foam where the buffeting of the wind was not so harsh it would work, but then... as two tired and eldar informed me...  airflow changes through foam are not linear. 

good luck, bro.

[Sam Green Racing]

This idea is not new but it has taken a long time before you see it as it is today.
I am not refering to reversing the head, but ram air.
Modern bikes still have the fuel metering device at the rear, but with an air box pressureized from the front.
The problem you will have that these modern bike don't is, the faster you go the leaner your mixture, resulting in holed pistons.
The reason modern bikes don't suffer from this, is that most are fued injected and have electronics to sort out the mapping of the fuel flow.
Most of the Triumph twins as mentioned by Greg, if in drag trim would have been supercharged so it didn't matter so much, whereas the road race boys used this idea for better ground clearance from the pipes, and would have a shield in front of the carb intakes.
But if it makes you happy, so what

Sam.

[mrbreeze]

Damn Jeff......that's almost as crazy as that kid last week that wanted to wrap aluminum foil around his spark plug threads.(Hell...who knows?It could work if well thought out and abunch of new parts). Blow you're mind if I pulled up in Berkeley on the 16th with my carbies hangin' out the front would'nt it???

[bryanj]

There is one BIG problem that all you yanks aint thought of RAIN I know you dont get much of it over there but remember what it does to the plug leads

[Dusthawk]

Damn Jeff......that's almost as crazy as that kid last week that wanted to wrap aluminum foil around his spark plug threads.(Hell...who knows?It could work if well thought out and abunch of new parts). Blow you're mind if I pulled up in Berkeley on the 16th with my carbies hangin' out the front would'nt it???

You ever seen a three hundred plus pound guy do a backflip?

If you showed up with that setup thats what I'd do.

I cant believe the response this generated.

More thoughts,

1.) Wouldn't velocity stacks reduce wind turbulence since theair is getting rammed in?
2.) would the screens of Vstacks not prevent rain from entering?
3.) A couple of ram air intakes at thr rear top of the head to direct wind over the Exhaust out takes?
4.) Keep the exhaust tubes low, near the engine, Less heat to damage seats and butts?
5.) A four into two setup exiting next on either side of the tire?

Maybe more later................

Peace,

Jeff

[skidpan]

By all means give it a go, it'll keep you quiet/entertained/mad for some considerable time.
However, MV Agusta started the F4 750 like this when they were developing it with the assistasnce of Ferrari, and spent at least a lot of time, if not cash, on trying to make it work, but as you no doubt know, the bikes hit the market with the cylinder head the conventional way round....
Just a thought.
I applaud your audacity and the scope of your vision. Best of luck and keep us posted.

[Lumbee]

...got news for you gentlemen...its been done!  At least on a 750.  LRT (AKA Tommy Low Rider) did it back in the seventies on at least one of his bikes.  His web site is www.lowridersbysummers.com  He could give you more info on it.  There was a thread on hondachopper.com a while back on it.  From what I recall, the biggest problem was to much air at higher speeds.  You can email Tommy from his web site if you want more info...

[Tim.]

I vote for a helmet mounted air-scoop connected to the stock air box under the seat with some flexible clothes dryer duct work.

Seriously though, it would seem a modified air induction system would be a lot easier to manage than flipping the cylinder heads around.

You could modify the leading edge of your seat to allow a small scoop to come up and onto the top of the gas tank, feeding directly into the airbox below.  Check out my mad photoshop skills below.  Sure you could go straight to CAD with my drawing 

[canttuckmyshirt]

It would be easier (maybe not better tho,) to mod the left cover, no?

[Orcinus]

OK, I'm not an engineer by any measure, but I thought that Ram Air didn't work at all till well over 75mph and didn't show any real improvement untill well into 3 figures?  It is an interesting idea though, the cooler air going to the cylinders (pre cooling fins) should result in a denser fuel-air mix too.

No offense meant, but this sounds like the great breakthru's I used to think of when I smoked that wacky tobaccy.   

[canttuckmyshirt]

OK, I'm not an engineer by any measure, but I thought that Ram Air didn't work at all till well over 75mph and didn't show any real improvement untill well into 3 figures?  It is an interesting idea though, the cooler air going to the cylinders (pre cooling fins) should result in a denser fuel-air mix too.

No offense meant, but this sounds like the great breakthru's I used to think of when I smoked that wacky tobaccy.   

Wacky tabaccy does bring some wacky ideas 

I don't see why this wouldn't work at low speeds if you build a large enough scoop. I would be more worried about tuning the carbs...

[Dusthawk]

OK, I'm not an engineer by any measure, but I thought that Ram Air didn't work at all till well over 75mph and didn't show any real improvement until well into 3 figures? It is an interesting idea though, the cooler air going to the cylinders (pre cooling fins) should result in a denser fuel-air mix too.

I wasn't thinking ram air for the intake so much as an addition to help cool the exhaust outlets in the new configuration. The denser, cooler air going in would lean out the mix a bit but would that be a detriment to efficiency or a gain? What about power, a gain or loss? I was looking at the intake tubes and I see a hex pattern, are these tubes removable? If so, can steel be fabricated to replace the aluminum to mount the exhaust without risking damage to the tubes?

No offense meant, but this sounds like the great breakthru's I used to think of when I smoked that wacky tobaccy.

Believe it or not, I've never had the interest to try the wacky stuff or anything stronger. I stick with my Phillip Morris and an occasional Miller

Seriously though, it would seem a modified air induction system would be a lot easier to manage than flipping the cylinder heads around.

TinTin, This is merely a mental exercise utilising a feasibility study on the applicability of my idea. A new air induction system would be easier, I'll grant you, but my idea was the unique positioning of the intakes up front and what it would take to make it a reality. I have been Flabbergasted by the responses here and stunned by the thought some of you have put into it. I am an amateur inventor and am always coming up with harebrained ideas that range from somewhat practical to absotively posolutely nutcrackerish in its creativity. I just though that with the intelligence and wisdom I have seen in these forums, someone out there would have an inkling of the possibility of how it would work.

Many ideas have been put forth for contemplation and it is so cool seeing what people think of this.

More to come.......................................

Jeff

[Ernie]

i think your idea rocks and i wish i lived near enough because id be right there doin whatever i could to help out ;)it might be easyer to turn the head and clylinders and have a crank made so the timing works,as for the plumbing that should be relatively simple.flippin the jugs would require a good amount of machine work though for the camchain and tensioner........hmmm maybe not easer