” FORBIDDEN FRUIT ” has brought about a lot of Curiosity, Commotion and Exchange of thoughts in various pockets of enthusiasts in different parts of the world after a few knowledgeable people were quick to realize the potentials in improvements after grooving different types of 2 valve cylinder heads in their own capacities. It is also interesting to note, how many more are looking up to this simple design change as fuel gets dearer.
All these findings remind me of my earlier days, when I hit upon these crazy ideas by deforming different types of 2 and 4 stroke combustion chambers with ‘steps and scars’ ? After all my experiments with squishing finally ended up in slamming the piston into the head ! To most,Grooving as an idea sounded stupid if not a ridiculous one, to overcome present limitations set bysquish or call it ‘ quench’ !
It still remains so, with many ? The general belief now is, ‘too much turbulence is not good for emissions’ ? Some say it is out of fashion, as Gasoline Direct Injection and Common Rail Direct Injection technologies with over 30,000 psi at their disposal can create the desired turbulence in the chamber with the least emissions ! Most don’t realize, all this “hard ware and soft wear” does not come cheap and needs ‘pure’ fuels to perform at their best and last out a full term ! Meanwhile, what happens to all the existing engines that have their own limitations (by design) to combat fuel prices and emissions ? The best part of this simple groovy mod is, you can hack your own head to bring about these’sudden’ changes in your very own old engines with just basic hand tools and a little application of common sense ! It is almost like changing an age-old black and white photograph into one with colours, with just one stroke of a brush !? Some call it the ‘ Harry Potter ‘ effect ! You also end-up Pushing Detonation and Pinging into the past !? The limit lies in finding your optimum higher compression ratios with respect to the fuel in use, after Grooving ! Nothing more !?
” End of the day ; You are the Master of your own Destiny ” ! ? Some also call it the” Forbidden Fruit ” ? As it is forbiden to deform the combustion chamber with Crude Ideas ? In this case, you will get to peel and taste each layer by yourself as you go deeper into the forbidden fruit. You will get to understand the Mysteries surrounding the thresholds of In-Cylinder Combustion too. You will also get to see everything unfold in front of you, in your very own private lab using any old engine to better it, with basic hand tools, supported by common sense and to eventually enjoy the taste of this ‘ New Found Fruit ‘ which never existed before ! ? Coming back to ” Basics ” : Lets look at some ‘ Time tested ~ Hard Facts ‘ ! Progressive turbulence ‘ lasting out ‘ inside a diminishing cylinder on the compression stroke determines the ” final ” outcome of combustion in any IC Engine ! Collective turbulence greatly shortens the ‘ ignition delay period ‘ further accelerating the growth of an expanding flame front across the chamber close to tdc. At this point there lies ~ A thin red line separating ” detonation ” from ‘ fast burn combustion ‘ consuming the entire charge in a jiffy ! The groove (or call it a channel ) placed through the existing quench pads greatly promote fast burn combustion suppressing most forms of spontaneous detonation which invariably occur in pockets of rich mixtures spread out unevenly in most ‘ non grooved ‘ combustion chambers, due to thelack of progressive turbulence in them. Lack of mixing in the charge, results in uneven erratic burn patterns – resulting in leftovers of some unburnt fuel and making emissions of CO and NOxinevitable.
What Grooved Turbulence actually manages to achieve, is a much better “mix and spread” of thelargest constituent present in natural ” free air ” ~ Called ~ Nitrogen ( N2). N2 is an inert gas and its “even” distribution with the remaining 21% of Oxygen (O2) along with the unstable hydrocarbon molecules gives rise to a truly ideal homogeneous mixture within the compressing charge prior to ignition. Grooving brings about a ‘ ballet ‘ between the non-combustible molecules and a small percent of unstable Hydrocarbon molecules as the cylinder diminishes bringing them ever closer, causing friction between the two, leading to heat build-ups as the piston forms the combustion chamber at TDC.
What follows after ignition is a chemical reaction, due to the applied heat spreading into the Hydrocarbons and popping them into atoms in the presence of Oxygen, to start a thermal reaction called ‘combustion’ resulting in instant by-products of molecules made up of H2O in the form of super heated steam along with CO2 bringing about some fantastic expansions in the buffer gases largely made up of Nitrogen, due to the even heat build-ups in the confined chamber achieved out of grooving. It is this ” rapid expansion ” within the spread-out Nitrogen molecules, making up thelargest and heaviest expanding commodity trapped within the cylinder along with the fast-expanding super-heated steam that are both collectively responsible for acting forcefully on the piston in an expanding cylinder to propel all types of IC Engines by spinning the crankshaft with the help of pistons and conrods !
Grooving enables a better spread of the super heated Steam and Nitrogen to apply far greater pressures on a larger surface area of the piston crown through the squish areas to eventually register improved torque for every degree of crank shaft rotation past TDC on the power stroke. This form of accelerated laminar fast-burn combustion leaves no pockets of rich mixtures or un-burnt fuel mixtures to spontaneously ignite and explode into ” ping or knock “. This form of even’quick burn combustion’ results in far lesser heat absorptions into the cylinder and head while more of the heat is going into expansions that deliver smoother and silent engine operations further achieving sustained improved torque and power, stroke after stroke. Now imagine trying to run your Petrol or Diesel Engine minus the vital 78 % of Nitrogen in the cylinder ? ( Which most of us take for granted anyway ! ) As our primary interests have always revolved around stuffing the maximum volumes of ‘ air ‘ and ‘ fuel ‘ into an cylinder to extract the biggest Bang ! Try running an engine on just O2 and Fuel ! You will end up with very little expansions out of combustion, except for some super-heated steam and plenty of CO2 forming as by-products along with excessive heat build-ups, that are sure to ” melt and oxidize ” any engine on Earth !?! On the other hand, the good-old Steam engines needed to fire up the coal, and heat up gallons of stored water in thick big boilers capable of withstanding super high pressures of steam, that eventually needed to be channeled and regulated through thick pipes, past valves, to push a fully loaded stagnant piston down the cylinder to start the engine rolling ! While the expanding Nitrogen just went wasted through the chimney as they found no use for it and the trapped steam ended up doing all the work till the engine ran low on coal and water ?
While in an IC engine, you compress free air and throw in just the required amounts of fuel into the cylinder and fire it up with a spark, or out of self-ignition ! The generated heat out of combustion now taking place inside the cylinder (Or call it the boiler ? ) ends up expanding all the trapped Nitrogen along with a bonus of super-heated steam forming out of an instant chemical / thermal reaction between the Hydrocarbons and O2 jointly assisting in the process of ramming the piston down a thick cylinder much more efficiently and also achieving far better thermal efficiencies out of a much lighter and compact engine than the best steam set ups of the age. IC Engines come alive in the first rotation and can deliver a much broader operating range economically in contrast to steam engines which need to fire-up a boiler full of water with tons of coal and wait for hours while water turns into steam power and having no use for the expanding Nitrogen that goes unnoticed and un-utilized !
Smoke and discharge of green house gases were of little consequence in the good old days. Hence the even spread achieved in the ‘air-fuel’ mixture out of Grooved Turbulence, largely consisting of the inert gas Nitrogen (comprising of almost 78+ % by volume and 75% by weight, of the compressing charge) ends up spreading the O2 molecules present in the air far better with the volatile unstable Hydrocarbons in a diminishing cylinder, eventually forming into the combustion chamber. The sudden reductions of volume in the cylinder bring about great amounts of friction between the N2 molecules which are larger than the O2 molecules with the remaining molecules of fuel as they come closest at TDC. This form of a truly heated-up homogeneous mixture due to Grooving and the applied reductions in volume achieve a much more laminar form of quick-burn combustion within the ingredients playing the most vital role necessary in promoting ” Propulsion out of Expansion ” in any ICE’s ! Massive air breathing Jet Engines also derive their propulsion out of the expanding heated Nitrogen and Super Heated Steam jetting out in the form of thrust and leaving a trail across the Sky !
Now you know why Laughing gas / NOS / N2O makes engines come alive the minute you hit the red button ! It is this rapid expansion of the enormous amounts of expanding Nitrogen that deliver the ‘kick’ out of super combustion with the aided Oxygen and extra fuel ! Moreover, N2O breaks up violently due to the heat build-ups developed out of compression before ignition, causing a collective random form of turbulence, mixing-up the charge confined to the combustion chamber thus bringing about ‘ very fast burn ‘ resulting in ” wheel spin ” in any gear ! Grooved Turbulence will require a lot less ” Laughing Gas ” to achieve the same effects – Due to the better Mix before the splitting of N2O takes place ! ‘ Turbo Performance ‘ also directly relates to the expansions within the exiting Nitrogen gases out of the exhaust port. Water injection under load also brings about turbulence in the compressing charge as H2O turns into steam before combustion occurs due to temperature increases out of compression.
Eventually, it is the amounts of Nitrogen and its perfect mix with the rest of the ingredients before ignition , that decide the outcome of combustion, that finally translate all the generated heat into “super expansions ” delivering optimum torque from a given amount of fuel on Earth. To most, who have not yet heard or taken the plunge into Grooving ~ All this ‘ stuff ‘ must be sounding like ” Hot Air ” backed by an ” Absurd ” CrackPot ” Theory ” ! In reality the other advantages seen out of Grooving are the lower percentages of Unburnt fuel ( UHC) and Carbon monoxide (CO) as seen in basic emission tests that are required by ‘ Law ‘ to be ‘ Street Legal ‘.
This data will further confuse most skeptics to a leaky exhaust system ??? Finally, the cleaner “plugs and oils ” will raise the biggest controversy ever ! ? What is really strange is, you can now run engines ‘ ultra lean ‘ without hick-ups or leaping flames flying out of Bell Mouths, or water temperatures going through the roof or burnouts of exhaust valves and seats due to the total quick burn combustion now taking place in the earlier parts of the power stroke followed by rapid expansions in the heated inert gases made up of N2 and Steam! This leads us to believe the burning process is now taking place really fast despite the leaner mixtures due to the Grooved Turbulence Effect ! Remember – Nothing else was done to the internals of the engine except for Grooving !Increasing the compression by reducing the clearance volume or by force-feeding a denser charge is sure to bring about the true potentials out of Grooving in any engine, or fuel, or both with no undue setbacks or breakdowns or burn-outs of any kind except for carefully timing the ignition curve to achieve the optimum Torque output in any engine ! The face of the Spark Plugs and the Combustion Chamber will tell you the rest ! Ancient Side Valve SI Engines and IDI Diesels featuring pre-combustion chamber designs churn up the Nitrogen in the air a lot more effectively than open combustion chamber designs such as DI Diesels and OHV engine designs, but they unfortunately lose-out in delivering the derived forces out of expansions square onto the piston crown, due to their layouts, ending up dissipating a sizable amount of the generated heat and expansions into a larger surface area arising out of’bifurcated’ combustion chambers.
” Thus Thermal Efficiency of any ICE directly relates to the best advantages achieved out of the forces derived out of expansions within the hot gases to exert their maximum forces towards pushing the piston down the cylinder and further achieving the maximum mechanical advantages with the least amounts of heat dissipating into the exposed areas of the cylinder and head during the power stroke. Lets hope someone eventually finds the depths of this mysterious ‘” groovy tunnel “‘ shrouded in darkness and mystery with all the help of the latest ‘ Gags’ that allow some fortunate people to peep into combustion chambers while they are “Firing” ! Such Gags are only available to the ‘ Learned and Deserving’ ! ( Most others souls need to rely on their imaginations ? ! )
Dyno results are not the end of the road ! Maybe this form of Grooved combustion may notproduce higher peak BHPs due to the softer and more progressive form of combustion taking place, minus the minute impacts of ” ping or knock “. But for sure, the Groovy design will pull away far more silently and efficiently with no forms of “Jingle Bells” ringing under the hood through a much wider usable Torque band with the least inputs of Fuel and out-comes of CO2 ! This just so happens to be the immediate Global requirements of ” Now ” and in the ” Future “considering the mess we humans are slowly drifting into by the noticeable effects of ” Global Warming and Pollution ” ! For sure ~ It is all related to us ~ Some call it ~ ” Man Made Stuff ” ! And blame it on the other ? !
I am surprised after all this while, people looking out for serious solutions to complex problems haunting the global end-users along with the ever increasing costs of motoring primarily related to the ever rising cost of fuels have not opened their minds to such a simple “Groovy” Discovery / Solution in the offerings. While they spend endless Million$ to fund advanced research that shows’ Hope’ while the situation in reality is only going from bad to ” hopeless ” ~ Day by Day ! We now have close to One Billion IC engines that could have been bettered with Grooving ever since this design was made public ! The other sad aspects are, what can be done and achieved by an average enthusiast in a few months time may normally take the Automobile Industry at least one decade to fully “Understand, Perfect and Propose” A simple new design for implementation ! In the midst of ” Big Hefty Lobbying” taking place inside Explosive Board Rooms to get the final O.K. ! As Profitability is the first name of the game with any Automakers World Wide, ” Too much Reliability ” is also a ” taboo ” !! ? As nobody in the industry would like to see an ” Everlasting Product ” ever surface up ! It “needs” to have a weak link – For “success” – This is the inner Buzzword among the hard liners ? The slogan with most Corporates goes ….. “We need to build Millions more Automobiles to be Profitable and Alive as an Industry!” Making sure we beat the competition – If not we buy them outright – in percentages ! ? Without realizing, where from is all the ‘ Oil and Fuel ‘ going to be coming to keep all of them running – And at what costs ?
And who will finally end up paying to keep them ‘ alive and running ‘ all their life ?? If you look carefully ‘ Sir ‘, ??? It happens to be “You” not them anymore ! You will end up paying dearly every time you fill up ! For all those who have taken the ” plunge ” into grooving ~ Great Job my Friends ! You are allnow finding out more about the “Groovy Effects” that are taking place inside your combustion chambers ! The inner wheel of this ” Elite Club ” now knows for sure, the grooves are the ” Simplest and Quickest ” mods that can ‘ better ‘ the ‘ best engine ‘ !
Lets hope the rest of the world realizes the simple effects of this “Forbidden Fruit” Before ” Fuel and Oil ” becomes dearer and out of reach for most of us ? Ultimately leading many of us to resort to pedal-power backed by battery power ? And most others will have to rely on the ” Trade Winds “to take us around the Globe to fetch our “Spices” of Variety in times to come ! ?
Sing!!