Evo Patent

[Skip]

just some files to share.....

 

[Titch]

Nice!

 

[kiwidave]

Interesting that it took two and a half years from the date the patent application was filed for it to be granted.
But they learned a LOT as a result of the sales explosion and the massive growth in the aftermarket catering for the Evo, including entire engines.
I'm not sure how those Brand X ''Evo'' engines (S&S, Ultima, RevTech and everyone else) were able to be offered, given this patent
But did you notice how you never saw an aftermarket Twin Cam engine? H-D patent lawyers really upped their game. At the time of the TC release in 1999, the whole Screaming Eagle range was ready to go too, and nobody else got a look-in.

 

[Dredger]

Not too many people know this, but as far as I am aware the combustion chamber, valves and porting were designed by the renowned Ricardo company in Shoreham Sussex who design combustion chambers for many engine makers including large ships engines.

 

[softail898]

You have Spilled the Beans Dredger. It’s a Secret no longer.

 

[Ron]

But did you notice how you never saw an aftermarket Twin Cam engine?

I've got a 2007 W&W catalog with S&S offering a Twin cam style engine in 124 inches, based on Twin Cam style crankcases.

 

[hippy]

Not too many people know this, but as far as I am aware the combustion chamber, valves and porting were designed by the renowned Ricardo company in Shoreham Sussex who design combustion chambers for many engine makers including large ships engines.

They , were, the Harleyquin was the 1st magazine to have a photo of the new Evo engine in it, it was on the front cover Paul Parslow , our esteemed archivist could tell you the full details of how we got the photo of engine.Its a really interestingt tale, even Willy G was curious as to how we got the photo.

Paul come in and tell the tail for our newer members lol

 

[Paul P.]

As many of you have seen many times, back in March 1982 we had the Evo engine on the cover, which shocked HD in the states. We couldn't tell then but after all those involved were safely retired we did explain that a member photographed it in the customs shed at Heathrow, it was a test engine going to Ricardo for further work. Ricardo were involved with Harley for their 1926 sidevalve single and continued to be involved in the rest of the sidevalve heads and maybe the ohv as well.
There is an interesting conjecture from the engine existing in 1982 - we can guess that HD cannot create a new motor and make a running version in a short time scale, we can only guess it must take them well over a year, if not two. That would mean the "buy back" team of executives who bought the factory from AMF, late summer of 1981, knew there was a radical (for HD) new motor waiting in the wings....so the question is...did AMF know?? (ie; was it designed and planned as early as 1980?)

edit; hey Hippy, I was typing my reply as you were posting yours...strange forces at work, eh?

 

[Ron]

Not too many people know this, but as far as I am aware the combustion chamber, valves and porting were designed by the renowned Ricardo company in Shoreham Sussex who design combustion chambers for many engine makers including large ships engines.

Harry Ricardo first did work for Harley back in 1916 working on the cylinders and heads of the new four valve racers. He was the leading freelance theorist and practitioner in the then young science of cylinder flow physics.

 

[dynalow]

Ricardo still going strong, working with McLaren on their next generation V6 & V8s. There's still life in the old ICE yet...

 

[kiwidave]

I've got a 2007 W&W catalog with S&S offering a Twin cam style engine in 124 inches, based on Twin Cam style crankcases.

Well, you got me there.......

 

[hippy]

I've got a 2007 W&W catalog with S&S offering a Twin cam style engine in 124 inches, based on Twin Cam style crankcases.

I seem to think if memory serves me right HD and S&S were in dispute over the twin cam engine, S&S stopped selling twim cam engines, then things got sorted out ,

 

[Paul P.]

As much as they wind us up I have to have a little sympathy with HD - you spend all that time and money to develop a complete engine and someone else just makes a copy.

 

[Skip]

And you get the right one, a blueprint (as above) is rather like a parts and maint. manuals combined.
.....and, something for my fellow rivet-counters, did you notice the lockwashers?.....

 

[Paul P.]

No, didn't notice the lockwashers - however you have made me look again and so noticed "other publications...Janes aircraft....R-R/Continental"..?? Sooooo,...as Skip certainly knows, Rolls-Royce was a licensee from Conti from the sixties to about 1981, which is when the Evo is conceived soooooo,...did Bill Senior use the Rolls version of the Conti as the inspiration for the Evo..???
(R-R made tuned up versions of Conti's flat six for the Beagle Bassett used by the RAF)