One byproduct of Crosley's war effort was the production of a lightweight four cylinder engine for auxiliary power for field equipment, aboard PT boats and B-17 bombers. The unique little mill was fabricated from sheet metal rather than cast iron. It had its beginning at Taylor Engines, Inc., Oakland, California. Taylor Engines was a 3 man company, consisting of a machinist named Jess, a draftsman named Joe Smith and Lloyd M. Taylor, the man with a dream. Taylor was a self-taught mechanical genius. Taylor knew the trouble with high compression engines had to do with thermal efficiency. At the high compression ratios needed to get lots of horse power out of a small displacement engine you could get violent denotation at unwanted times, sending shock waves through the block, canceling any gains in efficiency, and possibly destroying the engine. Taylor's obsession was to figure out why that happened, so he could make it stop. As he came to see it, the stumbling lay in the inherent properties of cast iron, the standard material for engine blocks. Technology of the time did not allow castings thinner than 1/4 inch, thicker in most places. Taylor calculated that temperatures could rise to over 600 degrees on one side of an engine block wall in spite of the coolant flowing past the other side. Hot spots around the combustion chamber acts as a spark plug, causing the pre-ignition. A thin, uniform wall thickness would dissipates heat rapidly, allowing higher compression.
X-24 Defender
On May12th 1942 a report was submitted to Ray Olson Jr of the Navy Department proposing an all new 24 cylinder aircraft engine, designed by Taylor Engine of California. This would be a fabricated block engine using ideas developed by Daimler and Mercedes-Benz in the early years of the automobile as well as the 27 liter Liberty V-12 aircraft engine during WW-1.
Un-Supercharged 1000 HP
Supercharged 32 In.* 1,250 HP
Supercharged 39 In.* 1,600 HP
Supercharged 48 In.* 2,000 HP
*Manifold pressure in inches of mercury(hg).
The overall size with tapered nose for the prop and the rear accessory drive assembly was 76 inches and 45.5 inches in diameter. It was interesting to look at the drawings and see if the front nose and rear assembly was removed, the engine was almost a perfect cube and would have fit in a 36 X 35 inch box.
Four 6 cylinder banks 90 degrees apart.
Proposed for aircraft use but for any use where space and weight was a important.
Taylor 6 Cylinder |
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425 CI 6 cylinder with
fabricated block was built hoping for a military contract. The IL-6 was delivered to Tide
Water's Automotive Laboratory on May 30th 1942. The primary tests
to be perform was maximum HP at various RPM, fuel consumption at full
& partial throttle and determine the octane requirements with the
spark advance for maximum HP at RPMs from 1500 to 3600 with full
throttle. The official test rated the engine at a max hp of 231 at 3600
rpm and 337.5 ft-lbs of torque.
When the 6 was not accepted, he built a 4 cylinder version, based on the same principals, that he submitted for testing by the Navy. The Navy liked the engine but Taylor was not in a position to build engines in quantity, Crosley Corporation came into the picture and that is where we begin this family tree. |
It lives.
After posting on the web that we wondered if the Taylor 6 still existed
we got these photos. This is the current story of The Taylor Big 6 as
told by Joe Gertle the current owner. "We had bought the Taylor back around 1973 or so, having been told it was an experimental aero engine. LOTS of interesting design features. The main block and case were integral. (They did NOT come apart!) the intake manifolds were integral to the block. the crank went in the lower case by removing the back plate of the engine (which had all the accessory drives)and pushing it through. The rods and pistons were installed by inserting them in large round holes (with cover plates) on the bottom of the case, fishing them around the crank and then fastening the piston rods to the crank. Carbs are not original, but originals can be easily bolted back onto the original intake manifolds. The six stub exhaust on the left side of the block were all tapered in length from front to rear and were made of streamlined steel tubing with flanges, and mounted with large collar nuts that fit the threaded exhaust ports. As mentioned. most of the engine was fabricated from sheet and tubing! Very large and heavy duty DOUBLE overhead cam on top...-even though it LOOKS like a single cam, because the double camshaft was tightly fitted, side-by-side in the top." Joe runs the web site http://www.memaerobilia.com for more info on his engine collection and his Dad's race cars. |
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Mystery 6 Cylinder
As far as we know it didn't sell at that time
Crankcase casting number
Fabricated Engine - 1942 to 1945
The CE2 (1942) Taylor engine above was part of a report to the Navy on August 8th 1942. The 35 hp 9:1 compression engine being proposed to the government resembles the later CoBRA but has some major differences, the biggest being a partial mirroring from the later Crosley engine.
A total of 28 engines from different companies were referenced in the report. Only the supercharged Rolls edged out the CE2 in horsepower per cubic inch.
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government was not interested in the big fabricated engines they did
see a need for a light weight engine for other uses. Taylor
supplied them an engine, and it met all their requirements, including
running for 100 hours at full throttle without failure, but they would
need them in large quantities and Taylor was not big enough to supply
them. The government connected Taylor up with Crosley for
production in 1943. In roughly 2 months Taylor's total
company of 3, including Taylor himself, brought Crosley up to speed in
fabricating the 4 cylinder engine. Taylor and company spent 2 months
transferring the technology to Crosley and they were delivering engines
in 1944. |
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connection with Crosley may have been a natural, it appears
Crosley had already perfect a process to fuse steel together with
copper in a hydrogen oven to make a substitute for aluminum and other
castings in 1941. More than a year before they connected up with
Taylor they had 5 contracts with the Air Corp using the process. Anyone
know
what they were making for the Air Corp? In later years Lloyd Taylor took every opportunity to bad mouth Crosley for cutting to many corners on his design to make a cheaper engine. |
1944 CE4 Military Generator Engine |
Displayed at 2010 Nationals |
Thank You
Ray Olson Jr worked for the Navy Department early in WW II and was involved in the early development of the copper brazed engine for the Navy. He was also involved in the testing and manufacturing techniques required to produce the future CoBra motor. He often told his son about carrying the block from Washington DC to California.
Military Uses
CoBra Years
| Taylor Years | CoBra Years |
CIBA Years |
Post Crosley | Big
Block Years |
