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36-583: Frank Ballou Stearns (1879–1955) left school at age 14 in 1893 in his freshman year at the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland Ohio. At the age of 17 Stearns drove his first car, which incidentally he also built in 1896 in Cleveland. His father, F. M. Stearns, had built a fortune in the stone-quarry industry, and decided to indulge his son Frank with a fully equipped machine shop located in

72-518: A touring car model. Equipped with a front-mounted, 24 hp (17.9 kW) water-cooled flat twin and tonneau , and three-speed transmission was fitted. Notably, all vehicle controls were situated on the steering wheel . The armored wood-framed car weighed 2800 lb (1270 kg), seated six passengers, and sold for $ 3,000. In 1904, Stearns had a very European four-cylinder of 36 hp (27 kW), with pressed steel chassis, wheelbase of 111 inches (282 cm), and four-speed gearbox, but

108-399: A 5.1-liter four and a 6.8-liter six, electric lighting, and electric starter . This was followed by a V8 , one of the first companies to offer one, in 1917. Stearns retired in 1919 and sold his automotive company to J. N. Willys in 1925; Willys operated Stearns-Knight as a non-integrated affiliate of Willys -Overland until 1929 when the F.B. Stearns Company was liquidated. Production of

144-520: A Touring with either 5 or 7 seats for $ 4,500 each, and a 7-passenger Pullman at US$ 4,759 ($ 155,619 in 2023 dollars ). Believed to be the fastest stock automobile of its period, Barney Oldfield won the Mount Wilson hillclimb in a Stearns Six (which was a 45/90 of 12913cc/788ci). In 1910 at Brighton Beach , Al Poole and Cyrus Patschke won a 24-hour race, covering 1253 mi (2016 km) at an average 52.2 mph (84.0 km/h). This

180-503: A cost of $ 5,200. This car shared the wheelbase of previous year's 32/40, though the touring body now seated five passengers. 1907 was the last year in which the company offered but one single model. Again, it was a new one, and again, it was the largest and most powerful yet. The 30/60 rode on a 120-inch (3048 mm). It had a massive T-head four-cylinder engine with the cylinder block cast in pairs, displacing 536 c.i. (8783 cc) and delivering 60 HP. There were two body styles available:

216-487: A director of Daimler. Daimler's engineers tested the engine and the results were sufficiently encouraging for Daimler to set up a secret team to fully develop Knight's concept. On the project's completion, though, it was no longer "Wholly Knight". Knight obtained a British patent for his modified engine on June 6, 1908. In September Daimler announced that "Silent Knight" engines would be installed in some of its 1909 models. To combat criticism from its competitors, Daimler had

252-469: A distinctly American ( i.e. , backward) coil and battery, rather than the magneto typical in Europe. This changed in 1905, when the 32/40 made magneto standard, as wheelbase grew to 118 in (300 cm). Stearns used the slogan Runs like A Deer in this year. 1905 brought a new car that was again bigger and which provided the only offering from the small Cleveland manufacturer. It was a huge automobile with

288-405: A few thousand miles. However, the adiabatic and isothermal characteristics accompanying the increased power afforded by the large (relative to contemporary poppet valve designs) port areas in the sleeves proved the double-sleeve valve concept's Achilles heel. Much of the advantage to be gained from increased volumetric efficiency could not be realized due to the inability to transfer resultant heat in

324-455: A four-cylinder L-head engine with a block cast in pairs and mechanical operated side valves delivering 40 HP. Wheelbase of 118 inches (300 cm). It was called the model 32/40 and was available as a very expensive 7-passenger Touring that set a buyer back a hefty US$ 4,150 ($ 140,731 in 2023 dollars ). Stearns introduced a 40/45 four in 1906, with aluminum body panels, tonneau, and windshield , with "no less than 17 coats of paint", at

360-541: A practicable engine (at a cost of around $ 150,000), Knight and Kilbourne showed a complete "Silent Knight" touring car at the 1906 Chicago Auto Show . Fitted with a 4-cylinder, 40 hp (30 kW) engine, the car was priced at $ 3,500. Knight's design has two cast-iron sleeves per cylinder, bronze in some models, sliding inside the other, with the piston inside the inner sleeve. The sleeves are operated by small connecting rods actuated by an eccentric shaft and have ports cut out at their upper ends. The cylinder head (known as

396-424: A sufficiently steep gradient to avoid excessive internal temperatures, however, Harry Ricardo pointed, about the single Sleeve-valve , Burt-McCollum type, that as long as oil film between Sleeve and cylinder wall is kept thin enough, sleeves are transparent to heat. As a consequence of these thermal conditions, and contrary to conventional practice, the induction port area was reduced to substantially less than that of

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432-399: Is 1911 Stearns Model 15/30 Toy Tonneau, Chassis #4683. It has a 4-cylinder, T-head poppet valve engine with T-head configuration with a displacement of 294.2 c.i. (4821 cc), delivering 32 HP. It features a Stearns carburetor and Bosch ignition. Wheelbase is 116 in. (2946 mm). Price when new was US$ 3,200 or 3,500, depending on source, which put in easily in the luxury class although this was

468-717: Is an internal combustion engine, designed by American Charles Yale Knight (1868-1940), that uses sleeve valves instead of the more common poppet valve construction. While eventually these engines were manufactured in the largest quantities in USA, Knight's design was made a commercial success by development in England. The French gave the Knight engine more intensive development than any other nation. Ultimately Knight patents were issued in at least eight countries and were actually built by about thirty firms. At first Knight tried making

504-614: Is doubtful if production was continued into 1933. These were the last sleeve-valve automobiles manufactured in the US. The Knight engine, while it originated in USA, was developed to fruition in England gaining an earlier start in Europe, where it also lasted longer. Mercedes built their 4-litre Knight 16/50 until 1924, while the Simson Supra Knight of 1925-26 was probably the last German Knight-engined car. In France, besides Peugeot and Mors , two brands of luxury automobiles used

540-415: Is harder to start in cold weather. The engine's design allows a more central location for the spark plugs to provide a better flame path, large ports for improved gas flow and hemispherical combustion chambers that in turn allows increased power. Additionally, the sleeve valves required very much less maintenance than poppet valves of the era, which needed adjustment, grinding and even replacement after only

576-587: The RAC (Royal Automobile Club) carry out their own independent tests on the Daimler-Knight. RAC engineers took two Knight engines and ran them under full load for 132 hours nonstop. The same engines were then installed in a touring car and driven for 2,000 miles (3,200 km) on the Brooklands race track, after which they were removed and again run on the bench for 5 hours. RAC engineers reported that, when

612-603: The " junk head ") is like a fixed, inverted piston with its own set of rings projecting down inside the inner sleeve. The heads are individually detachable for each cylinder. The design is remarkably quiet and the sleeve valves need little attention. It was, however, more expensive to manufacture due to the precision grinding required on the sleeves' surfaces. About the Single Sleeve-valve engines, Continental declared it were cheaper and easier to manufacture than poppet valve motors. Also it uses more oil at high speeds and

648-553: The 1920s. In 1913 a Mercedes-Knight driven by Théodore Pilette was entered in the Indianapolis 500 where, despite having the smallest engine, it took fifth place averaging 68.148 mph (109.674 km/h) over the 500 miles (800 km). Willys made improvements to the Knight engine which were patented and in 1916 announced their Willys-Knight 88-4. They went on to open a Canadian manufacturing plant at Toronto to build export models. By 1925 there were five operations in

684-567: The Stearns-Knight ended on December 20, 1929. Case School of Engineering Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.150 via cp1114 cp1114, Varnish XID 922411433 Upstream caches: cp1114 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:58:44 GMT Knight Engine The Knight engine

720-412: The US producing chassis with Knight engines so that Willys-Knight production was running at 250 cars per day. Willys announcing in the same year that there were over 180,000 Willys-Knight engines in use worldwide. Willys also took over Stearns that year, forming a separate syndicate for the purpose (the companies were not merged). Sales of Willys-Knight cars declined towards the end of the 1920s. Thanks to

756-489: The basement of his home on the prestigious Euclid Avenue . Some sources state that a barn on the property was converted to a machine shop. Stearns became the first American automobile to use the sleeve valve Knight Engine in its vehicles in 1911. The first production model evolved in 1898; it was a gasoline-fuel buggy-style automobile with a one-cylinder engine (horizontal under the floor), tiller steering, wire wheels , planetary transmission , and chain drive . In

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792-619: The engine was licensed by the US automobile makers Columbia , Stearns , and Stoddard-Dayton . A license was also purchased by the Atlas Engineering Company of Indianapolis to make engines, which appeared in 1914 as the Lyons-Knight . Columbia, Stoddard-Dayton, and Atlas went bankrupt shortly after and their licences were transferred to other companies. Edwards-Knight obtained one which they passed on to Willys , while Moline acquired another which they retained into

828-407: The engines were dismantled, there was no perceptible wear, the cylinders and pistons were clean, and the valves showed no signs of wear either. The RAC was so impressed that it awarded Daimler the 1909 Dewar Trophy . The RAC reports caused Daimler's share price to rise, £0.85 to £18.75, and the company's competitors to fear that the poppet-valve engine would soon be obsolete. Walter Owen Bentley ,

864-533: The entire engine cylinder reciprocate to open and close the exhaust and inlet ports. Though he patented this arrangement, he soon abandoned it in favor of a double sliding sleeve principle. Backed by Chicago entrepreneur L.B. Kilbourne, an experimental engine was built in Oak Park, Illinois in 1903. Research and development continued until 1905, when a prototype passed stringent tests in Elyria, Ohio . Having developed

900-412: The exhaust port. Later engines having thinner, steel and white-metal coated sleeves possess improved levels of heat dissipation, but thermal transfer problems remain characteristic of the design, thus limiting development of the potential inherent in the double-sleeve valve engine. Improvements in design and materials of the more usual poppet valve engine eliminated most of the advantages initially held by

936-600: The founder of Bentley Motors , was of the opinion that the Daimler-Knight engine performed as well as the comparable Rolls-Royce power plant. The Knight engine (improved significantly by Daimler's engineers) attracted the attention of the European automobile manufacturers. Daimler bought rights from Knight "for England and the colonies" and shared ownership of the European rights, in which it took 60%, with Minerva of Belgium. European rights were purchased from them and used by Panhard et Levassor and Mercedes . Attracted by

972-511: The least expensive of 4 model line for Stearns and Stearns-Knight that year. A Toy Tonneau is an open, light body for 4 or 5 passengers. This car was part of the Harrah automobile collection in Reno, NV, in the 1970s. Soon, however, Stearns turned away from performance. In 1911, the firm began installing Knight sleeve valve engines, marketed under the Stearns-Knight brand name. By 1914, they had

1008-646: The long-term development potential for the engine was limited. Thomas Russell of the Canada Cycle & Motor Co. Ltd. had followed the Knight with interest and when he read about the RAC tests he went to England in 1909 to secure a license from Knight. Russell also came to an agreement with Daimler, by which the company would supply Daimler-Knight engines for two years. Russell went on to manufacture several models of Russell-Knight luxury cars in Canada. In August 1911,

1044-450: The mid-1930s. Many vehicles were described as being fault-prone due to lubrication of the cylinder and sleeve contact faces. Often, proper lubrication could not be guaranteed with the lubricants available at the time, especially with inadequate maintenance. This problem increased with engine speeds over 1600 rpm, at which point the sleeve-valve engine ceased to provide superior output. With a maximum attainable engine speed of about 1750 rpm,

1080-402: The new engine caused a sensation. "Suffice it to say that mushroom valves, springs and cams, and many small parts, are swept away bodily, that we have an almost perfectly spherical explosion chamber, and a cast-iron sleeve or tube as that portion of the combustion chamber in which the piston travels." Daimler dropped poppet-valve engines altogether and kept their silent sleeve-valve engines until

1116-515: The possibilities of the "Silent Knight" engine, Daimler's chairman had contacted Knight in Chicago and Knight settled in England near Coventry in 1907. Daimler contracted Dr. Frederick Lanchester as their consultant for the purpose and a major re-design and refinement of Knight's design took place in great secrecy. Knight's design was made a practical proposition. When unveiled in September 1908,

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1152-419: The same year, F. B. Stearns & Company was organized with his partners, brothers Raymond M. and Ralph L. Owen . As early as 1901, he introduced a steering wheel instead of the tiller , and advanced to a gasoline runabout with a 4083cc (101ci) one-cylinder engine under the seat bench, and single chain drive. Until then, about 50 cars had been built. For 1902, Stearns offered a variety of models, including

1188-557: The sleeve-valved variant, so that by the early 1930s manufacture of the Silent Knight had ceased, with only a couple of French automobile makers continuing to the War. Knight and Kilbourne had hoped to interest US automobile manufacturers in the engine so that they could grant licenses for its manufacture, but initially there were no takers. Pierce-Arrow of Buffalo, New York tested the engine against one of their own and found that it

1224-485: The work of Harry Ricardo and Charles F. Kettering , simpler poppet valve engines had become very efficient, their first appearance being in the 1924 Chrysler, and the Knight engine's high manufacturing cost began to tell against it. While Willys built Knight models into the 1930s, development work had ceased. The Knight patents expired in 1932. Although a 1933 Willys-Knight Streamline Six was announced in June of that year, it

1260-410: Was entered in the 1906 Glidden Tour , only to drop out on the first day due to mechanical failure. Having virtually ignored two written approaches by engineer Edward Manville , a director of Daimler , Knight changed his mind and decided to try to interest English manufacturers in his engine. In 1907 Knight went with one of his cars to London where he managed to see fellow-American Percy Martin , also

1296-403: Was more powerful at speeds above 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) and would also go faster. However, they dismissed it as unsuitable for their range of cars because they believed that anything over 55 miles per hour (89 km/h) was unsafe. They also considered the oil consumption (about 2 quarts per 70 miles) excessive. Knight also received some bad publicity at the same time when a prototype car

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