by Somender Singh

631/A Hyder Ali Road,

Nazarbad Mysore - 570010 India

Tel 91 821 2449018   e-mail 

I got to see & feel life as a tiny tot, since the early 50's - Was exposed to Motorcycles & Piston engined aircrafts from a very young age, due to my fathers occupation in the Armed Forces- Also got to learn the finer aspects of 2 stroke engines by playing around with model aero-plane engines. Further tuning & understanding these high ' rev-ving ' model air-plane engines lay the foundations of  " Carb-uration, Comp-ression followed by Ig-nition timings " and their settings - Blending fuels got me closer to understanding ' Combustion ' in my own way. If you did not get one of them right you could keep flicking the prop all day long to get them started up ! These self-taught, in-depth experiences at an early age, lay the foundations of my understandings of piston engines & their workings !

To this day - Any engine I look at  ~ Performs more or less on the same basic principles & behaves more or less in the same manner too ! All one needs to visualize is - How engines manage to draw in the much needed air/fuel charge into the cylinder or into the crankcase, depending on their configurations - further efficiently transfer all of this into the cylinder - to start the process of compression followed by displacing all of this into the Combustion Chamber to fire it appropriately to start an " Explosion " ~ This ' Bang ' needs to be strong enough to kick the piston down the cylinder to get the crank rolling with the help of a connecting rod ! Once you get this process right in any engine - it will start to tick over and idle.

Even today - I simply get fascinated when I visualize & see what could be happening inside any cylinder to do what it is doing ? - Most of us don't care to understand such silly simple things any more ! With no offences meant to any one ! We are living in an "  Confined, Solid-State, Super-age of refinements" compared to the early days of motoring ! Where you had to think twice before you did any thing .... ! Getting the engine started up with a starting handle on a normal day in itself, was a feat. Let alone on a rainy or a cold day ! 

Thanks to innovations that have come about in time to give us Today's Automobiles / Cars - On the contrary we have actually forgotten the ' Pulse' of the automobile due to these refinements - We take every thing for granted ! Some times we need to look at our own selves a little more closely for a change - How many of us do really bother to think about our own " Heart " which just keeps ticking its butt off - " Day in & Out " to keep us ( Alive ! ?) and to see us ' Happy & Going ' ! When you actually think about it ? ! ? The " Heart " is really the greatest piece of evolution that has stood the test of time & creation in itself ? Hidden deep inside the chest ticking away silently through the entire life span of a person without a ' misfire or Hick-Ups ' or complaining ! - Similarly we expect the same out of our engines too - not bothering to lift the hood even once to find out about its health ! ? The minute you feel a ' mis-fire or skipping a beat ' - We get worried & worked up too - due to our lack of understanding !

These subtle inner feelings to understand engines better and more closely brought me one step closer to check out the possibilities to further refine engines to extract more power out of them by carrying out minor changes to the internals, and further attempting to reduce the overall weight of the over engineered components. Just this suggestion sounded like " A ridiculous proposition " to most - How can one individual who " knows nothing about any thing " suggest bettering the base design of a branded engine assembled by a reputed manufacturer ? - He expects us to believe, his " Cock & Bull " theories of bettering existing engines is going to work ?

In those days - The phrase " Blue Printing "  often sounded really strange to any one - In fact it sounds strange to most - Even to this day ! How could one ' Grease Monkey ' ever think of bettering an engine with his bare hands ! ? You mean the guys who designed them & put them together in a reputed setup - did not pay attention to finer details !? "Utter Rubbish" Would be anybodies guess & conclusion !

The 50's & 60's were dark ages in India - Getting your hands on a workshop manual itself was next to impossible - getting someone to work on engines or use special tools was considered ' rocket science '  - To see it happen was next to impossible - getting to know more about ' Souping Up Engines' ??? - Was close to sighting an UFO ! Most claimed to know the hidden secrets but refuse to divulge any of it ! Most often it was a myth - They just spun yarns & " Mislead " people most of the time.

My early exposure to Motor Racing in the early 60's woke the Devil in me ! All that any body did those days was to remove all the body parts and make the bike look as naked as possible - Get the silencer off & get the Carb to inhale as much air & dust as possible - the internals of the engine were given the much needed mirror finishes - To achieve the desired punch - The cylinder head needed that shave very badly too ? - All the bolts needed that extra click to keep them tight enough to prevent blown " Head Gaskets " ! All this fascinated the 17 year old in me - The next best thing I could think of doing was to 'don' my self and go - ' Hell bent for Leather ', hug the bike as tight & close as possible & hang on to the throttle as long as possible ! I got to see action in the late 60's - Armed with a copy of " Speed & How to Obtain it " ! ? There was no looking back after that - It was full time - total involvement.& learning it the hard way - All the way ? - To this day ! I was deeply involved in racing Bikes & doing up Cars ( As I could not afford a car myself ) My self sponsored " Will Power " along with a copy of ' Gordon Jennings' Two-stroke Tuner's Handbook took me Racing & Rallying till the late 80's - "To give it all up one day" ? - After winning ' Sack Fulls' of trophies !

Sponsors & me never ever got on - Even to this day !  As they did not seem to understand the " Pulse & Philosophy " of " Racing or Rallying " ! Motor-sport in India mostly seemed to revolve in some form of a hangover of the Grand old days of the " Raj " ! The same ' Lot(s)' getting together annually in the same disused cracking-up airfields & the same organizers displaying their coveted badges each year ! With little sponsorship in sight. Sadly to say, most lacking foresight of what needed to be done to promote the future of motor-sport in India  - While the automobile industry was just opening up and growing in a big way in India - My individual efforts led me to start a Motor Sports Club at Mysore in '75 - We showed people we could do a better job by running Dirt Track races, Observed trials & Drags & Speed trials where the spectators & the competitors got to see a lot more " Fun & Action " ! Our rallies also ran on the lines of the erstwhile Kenyan Safari ! Once the Badge culture took over - Doom followed ! I was actively involved in doing up Bikes & Cars in every possible class under the banner - Speed-Well Racing & Rallying !

The least sponsored team was winning the maximum number of trophies ? Our motto was simple " Winning or Loosing " don't miss out on the good times - As I was not answerable to any body but to my self. Most often it was like a family circus on tour moving on. Participating in the '86 Calcutta GP - Due to my stupidity & preoccupation with over-work - I ended up routing my Yamaha TZ - 350's ( Home Made ) throttle cables wrongly -leading to a part throttle lock up which led me to head for the hay bales coming out of a tight chicane !!! - Unfortunately for me the so called hay bales turned out to be ' Sand Bags' taken from a nearby security bunker at the Air Force base ! ?

After nursing my self back to health, I decided to pass into a new dimension that could hopefully offer me " Three Dimensions " to play around with ? - The closest & the easest one that fit my picture was Hang-Gliding . My focus after this went total " Three Dimensional "- I learnt to fly by my-self. - I soon started to look at the world with a new perspective - The invisible medium of air had many surprises in the form of  Wind Currents & Turbulence that my hidden senses started to wake up ! The day I got to Fly my own powered hang glider fitted with a Jawa 250 engine - it was almost a " Leap into Space " ! Coupled with my racing experiences both in ' reflexes & engine reliability ' led me to flying through the clouds without the aid of instruments ( as I did not have any ! ) Most often I would fly with my eyes closed to further develop my skills for feeling the ' qualities & currents ' of air during different parts of the day & seasons. Luckily for me no one else was flying in this part of the world and hang-gliders don't ' slip' ? ! - They just turn ! That's how I survived these enlightening exploits passing through fluffy cauliflower like clouds & making sure staying clear out off potential electrifying dark turbulent clouds that strike !

Meanwhile my quest to get the best efficiency out of engines was very much " on " in my little " Tune Up Centre " & Garuda R & D - The same people once again threw the same challenges saying your days are numbered Mr. Singh - The new generation single point fuel injection and the state of the art MPFI systems with mapped ignition curves will not accept any changes to the engine as they are pretty much pre-programmed & cannot be tampered with hand tools or vague ideas !??

I proved them wrong once again by stripping the so called Hi-Tech engines and doing minor modifications to get them to run much more efficiently ( As usual - There is a lot of scope available in mass-scale production engines ? ) - Further more there was nothing so spectacular in the internals of these Hi-Tech engines nor had they changed significantly. Just additions of 3 & 4 valves supported by twin cam lay-outs with a centrally located spark plug - All heralding high performance - The ' Electronic Gadgetry ' seem to have taken over all the inputs of fuel & ignition - Reliability had definitely got better & Quieter in operation - mainly attributed to the catalytic converters in most cases.

My quest to get past present thresholds of combustion had limited me to the crucial factors such as "Combustion Chambers & Compression Ratio's" in spark ignition engines - Like any one else - Getting past this thresholds led to - The " Twilight Zone " followed by the inevitable ' PINK ' ! or call it Pinging or Knock ! Mid range & high end could be defined by the cam profile & their timings - " But Raw Bottom End Torque " ( ? ) was just impossible to attain out of small capacity engines / cars and yet retaining the mid & top end package !

It was Mr Loganathan ( Affectionately called ' Logi ' ) A Racer / Inventor, a hands down engineer and my Mentor who induced me to the " Philosophy Of Turbulence " and got my head spinning with its effects ! In the 70's just after the Oil crisis ( Like the ones we may be heading for soon ?) had forced Mr. Logi to develop a new venturi - He later patented this interesting venturi in India which mixed the air & fuel better than any carburetor I can think of - it had its limitations as it robbed the top-end due to excessive turbulence or call it ' Mixing ' bringing down the volumetric efficiency into the cylinder ultimately !

This unique venturi had served its purpose in achieving reliable fuel economy out of most carburetors. I followed my " Guru's " principles further by experimenting on inlet ports, valves, guides, valve seat angles & profiles - But some how the ' buck ' stopped once the spinning or mixing entered the cylinder.! Even one degree more on ignition or a wee bit on compression just displayed explosions followed by a pronounced Knock at low revs ! ? - Once the carbon deposits set in - it just got worse !

My inner feeling indicated - Some thing had to be done in-side the Combustion Chamber to go past the profound " Knock " ? - Other than getting the " quench or call it the squish areas & angles " right followed by carefully removing the sharp edges & finally giving the combustion chamber & the piston top the desired mirror finish(s) ? ! - 'All this - Almost brought us to the edge of the road ' !? To keep  Mr Knock & Miss Ping away !

I was convinced - if I could some how induce ' progressive turbulence ' in the charge as the piston came closer to TDC - We could than achieve a better mix in the charge prior to ignition ! In the early ' 90's I hit upon a simple idea, quite crazy too ? To disturb the gases - as the piston reached the vicinity of TDC - Yet retaining the ' Quench or call it Squish ' concepts derived & developed by Sir Harry Recardo as a solution almost 80 years ago. My first engines in-corporated ' Knurling ' on the squish band surfaces of the head & piston ! Quite radical if not stupid ? ! - It had to be done to find out what on earth would or could happen next ? As nobody had gone past the concepts of squish bands and the accompanied mirror finishes in the last 100 years or more !?

I could immediately see the change after Knurling these surfaces - for the better - The eddies or call it what you like, showed better burn and definitely improved engine performance and greatly reduced Knock ! - All this was short lived too, as the tiny grooves or inscriptions would clog up due to carbon build-ups in 2 stroke engines ! This - Led me to think deeper ? - Eventually I started to visualize deeper grooves & their probable effects ? ! - All this led me to a search - as to why no body had ever ventured into placing - distinct grooves or channels or passages through the squish bands to induce turbulence. in combustion chambers. Once my experiments shifted to defined grooves or call them 'Scars' ? I began to see the distinct improvements in torque minus the knock ? - Shifting from 2 to 4 stroke engines - the results got astounding - Plenty-full torque through a much wider band.- The whole process of combustion had changed & shifted due to the better mix in the air/fuel ( I suppose ? ) - Leaner settings were also possible without over heating or hick-ups. All this suggested to a progressive increases in turbulence leading to a better homogeneous air fuel mix prior to ignition ! & Once ignited probably multiple flame-fronts propagation were occurring to display these superlative surges in torque minus the knock ! In existing 2, 3 & 4 valve combustion chambers !

This ' better mix ' led me to learn more about the finer aspects of combustion chamber designs and their lay-outs ! My trying to share this simple but effective design got me no attention in the ' Scientific Community nor in the Industry ' ! One of the probable reasons was my back ground - Followed by a ' Crank' with a ' Crack Pot Design ' preaching & displaying " Induced Cracks " in the most highly stressed component(s) of an engine called the " Combustion Chamber" - Which incidentally sustains & directly reflects the " Fire Power " of any I C Engine !!!

Probably most in the industry have forgotten the good old ' Cut & Try ' methodology of yesteryears ! Since Calculators & Computer simulations seem to be the order of the DAY ! I wonder when will the highly respected ' Chef's ' of today be replaced by " No Problem " cooking Robo's offering endless instant menus & meals at the asking - similar to all the irrelevant gadgetry & features offered in today's modern Hi-Tech Automobiles ! Which only tend to confuse & distract - the ' Driver In You ' and the Road ahead ! ?

When it comes to testing with the available facilities - the shortest, easiest & cheapest - Ways are the best ! - I had no option but to apply common sense - The easiest & the Quickest way around was to test them out in a one piece combination on the ' Road & Track ' - Where you can check the Car or the Bike in a ' one piece ' set up ! Not in parts ! Most of my cars & bikes feature manual gear boxes 4 & 5 speed types - All that one needs to do - To judge the performance of any engine ? - Is to carry out a simple test - Crawl in top gear with out a jerk - if not in over drive on a straight & level road & hit the gas pedal to the floor & simultaneously click the stop watch & plot a simple graph " Speed Vs Time" ! From - 20,30,40,50,60 so on & so forth. This simple but accurate test in comparison to a standard car will tell you if you are heading in the right direction or not ! ? If you are Making gains or loosing out !

With out the availability of ' brute' torque ? - Engines just give up in such tests ! Most often you hit the Knock on the head to be heard loud & clear and so will the engine temperatures indicate ! On the other hand - The Drag strip spells out acceleration in gears and does not apply to cruising ! My design on the " Strip " is another story Due to the over flowing Torque !

Based on these factual findings we inched past the ' nitty gritties' of the '  imitations of combustion ' to attain a fruitful power stroke that spelt better Thermal Efficiencies ! The effects of which also got us that much more out of the same amount of fuel in comparison to a stock motor ! Due to the availability of enormous torque minus the knock - Frequent changing of gears was greatly reduced - Hence the name - " Direct Drive " !

Armed with these facts - I set out to apply for a Patent in the most affluent country promoting Automobiles - As America & Americans are the largest consumers of Automobiles & also manufacture the largest Number of Automobiles & related components too ! Not to forget they also consume the largest amount of Gasoline & Fuel too !

"If realized" in time - The potentials of my simple design is sure to benefit one & all ! In every aspect ! This simple cost effective design will also help conserve fuel to quite an extent - Considering what awaits the World in " Fossil Fuel Reserves" In time to come ! ? The cleaner running minus the carbon deposits is another story the " Greens " will realize better ! This little timely contribution in the form of refinements to the Age Old ICE is sure to help our fragile environment to go a long way !  Soon you will find out ~ " Global Warming " is for real ! And is catching up fast !