I've seen several posts talking about the problems dealing with head lift/blowing head gasket under high boost. That got me to thinking about some really old engine designs used in stuff like tractors. I was thinking of the headless engine, which did not have a head (the combustion chamber and cylinder was all one piece). I think there have even been fairly modern turbo headless engines used in buses and other large vehicles.

So it seems feasible that one could create a sleeve that mimics a headless engine so there wouldn't be any worry about the head gasket giving way to combustion pressure.

Just mill out the the combustion chambers on the original head. Then make sleeves that look more like a rounded bottom cup (with holes for valves and spark plugs). The heads and headgaskets would still be used to hold the sleeves down, support cams/valves/etc., and hold coolant in the right place.

Putting together/tearing apart such an engine would be a nightmare, but it could possibly hold together quite well once everything is in place. New ways to do final machining for the valves and cylinder wall scoring would have to be utilized as well.

Anyways, just an idea. It's probably already been tried before too...

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Jeff

 

Just get an old Ford flathead V8 and through it in there, lol.

 

you would be looking at HUUUUGGGE costs to do it. not worth it.

 

Yeah, I guess that once people figure out how to get the head to stay sealed then the problem is solved from an engineering standpoint and then no to spend much money/time on the headless approach.

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Jeff

 

What was that old saying bout the Mother of Invention???? Or was that a Rock band. Hey ---Its imagination that is the seed for many inovations!!!! How bout just welding the head to the block ----J/K or am I ?? I am !