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. |
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Fabricated block construction on a
tubular one piece crankcase with 7 mains was proposed.
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X-24 DefenderOn 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. |
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1702
cubic
inch
X-24
Defender
HP estimated from the 950-1050lb package: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. |
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The decision to build a 6 cylinder (one bank) test engine came after the design of the X-24. An army engineer suggest building a one cylinder demonstration engine, after they submitted the plans for the Armies consideration, so performance test could be run. Taylor did not feel a one cylinder version would adequately test for possible structural problems with this new design. He was not concerned with the performance testing, he knew it would pass and decide to move on with a 6 cylinder version, to speed up the process, since all indications were that the USA would need high output engines very soon. There is no indication that the X-24 or Flat-12 were ever built. | A flat 12 cylinder version
that would weigh 750 pounds, displace 851 ci was purposed for use in
tanks.
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Mystery 6 CylinderAnother mystery engine has shown up, this one
in Ohio. It is a 6 cylinder fabricated block engine,
reported to be 90 CI and is visibly larger than what an extended
standard CoBra would be. It was bought in piece as army surplus. This
engine showed up again at Hershey in 2012 minus the race car. Could
this be a smaller Taylor 6, supplied to the military for testing?
An early Crosley creation? Any ideas? Were there more of these
made?
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It appears somewhat cruder than the Cobra
especially the crankcase. The engine was mounted in a midget
racer when first seen.
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Not all parts were part of the surplus purchase
the manifolds were with the engine but the carbs and water pump were
added.
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Seen at the Hershey in 2012
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As far as we know it didn't sell at that time |
Crankcase casting number |
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Fabricated Engine - 1942 to 1945 |
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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. |
The gauges are oil & water
temperature, oil pressure and the two white face gauges go from 0-50 an
0-400, can't read what they are labeled, probably Amps and Volts.
This is a smaller generator than we are use to seeing on
the Crosley engine.
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Interesting hardware on this side.
In a discussion with Barry Seel we speculate that the upper pulley
drives a pump to an oil cooler (tall pipe) then back into the crankcase
and a crankcase ventilation pump. The lower drive is a water pump for
cooling the engine and the oil cooler. The housing between the engine
and the generator is a blower to cool the generator.
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Thank YouRay 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 UsesMore early Taylor/CoBra info was
published in
the club Quarterly in a four part article in 2008.
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CoBra Years |
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