The Zoller supercharger was a vane-type supercharger created by Arnold Zoller (1882-1934) who had patents regarding supercharging engines before WW1. [1] The Zoller supercharger was popular in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Zoller supercharger was a vane-type supercharger created by Arnold Zoller (1882-1934) who had patents regarding supercharging engines before WW1. [1] The Zoller supercharger was popular in the 1920s and 1930s.
In the UK the distributor for Zoller superchargers was Forced Induction Ltd of London c1931, then M.A. McEvoy (London) Ltd of Leaper Street Works, Derby. A McEvoy advert in 1933 claimed they designed, and made the Zoller superchargers. [2] Supporting that they were manufactured in the UK was an article from 1939 which stated that they were manufactured in the UK from 1931 to 1936. [3] This also stated that they were made under licence by Petters Limited of Yeovil for application to their 2-stroke engine, though by 1945 the Petter superscavenge (SS) engine had Roots-type blowers (Holmes-Connersville blowers on the six cylinder). [4]
Although Arnold Zoller died in 1934, McEvoy displayed the Zoller supercharger (manufactured at their Derby works) at the 1935 Berlin show, [5] and it appears it was manufactured until the war, though from 1936 McEvoy had been developing a new supercharger they called the 'Velox' (also a vane type, but with variable boost). [6] By mid-1939 they had experimental ones made for testing, unfortunately they were made in Taunus, Germany. [3]
Zoller had a particular interest in high performance 2-stroke engines, in particular those with two parallel cylinders sharing a common combustion chamber, with the pistons arranged so that one uncovered the inlet port and the other the exhaust port. [1] His patented linked con-rod design was adopted by DKW for their highly successful pre-war racing motorcycles. These engines responded very well to supercharging, typically using a piston type charger (e.g. DKW SS 350), though the 1939 250 and 350 US models used rotary superchargers. Zoller had something rather larger in mind, and his 12-cylinder 1500cc racing engine (with twin Zoller superchargers) produced 200 bhp - he also made a 723cc eight cylinder engine for car use that produced 30 hp at 2600rpm. [7]
Zoller's supercharger patents (initially targeted specifically at two stroke engines) also date back to 1910. [8] This patented design was updated in 1923 to a type similar to those sold by McEvoy, and used by car makers such as Lagonda (although they also used the Cozette supercharger). [9] [10] Further patented refinements followed, as well as the patent for his supercharged two-stroke engine. [11]
According to the McEvoy advertising in 1933, [2] the Zoller supercharger had been used with the following engines :
The AJS V4 racing motorcycle was fitted with a Zoller supercharger in 1936, and stayed with it through subsequent development until 1939 when the war intervened, though it did manage the first 100 mph lap on the Ulster Grand Prix in its final year.
The E.R.A. (English Racing Automobiles Ltd.) race car - made from 1936 until the war in very small numbers, used a highly modified and supercharged Riley engine. Several were fitted with Zoller superchargers, others had a Roots-type supercharger.
The Zoller designed supercharged 2-stroke engine was reviewed in 1931, and this also mentions that a "well-known central European Motor Works" has produced a 3-litre 12 cylinder version. [12] The 723cc unit produced 30 bhp at 2600rpm, but it never went into production. A 12-cylinder version, of 1500cc was raced at least twice in 1934 suffering mechanical problems and then overheating problems in the next race, but later that year Arnold Zoller collapsed and died, and the true potential of the design was never fully explored.
DKW was a German car- and motorcycle-marque. DKW was one of the four companies that formed Auto Union in 1932 and thus became an ancestor of the modern-day Audi company.
In engineering, the Miller cycle is a thermodynamic cycle used in a type of internal combustion engine. The Miller cycle was patented by Ralph Miller, an American engineer, U.S. patent 2,817,322 dated Dec 24, 1957. The engine may be two- or four-stroke and may be run on diesel fuel, gases, or dual fuel. It uses a supercharger or a turbocharger to offset the performance loss of the Atkinson cycle.
A two-strokeengine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes of the piston in one revolution of the crankshaft. A four-stroke engine requires four strokes of the piston to complete a power cycle in two crankshaft revolutions. In a two-stroke engine, the end of the combustion stroke and the beginning of the compression stroke happen simultaneously, with the intake and exhaust functions occurring at the same time.
A four-strokeengine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either direction. The four separate strokes are termed:
The Roots blower is a positive displacement lobe pump which operates by pumping a fluid with a pair of meshing lobes resembling a set of stretched gears. Fluid is trapped in pockets surrounding the lobes and carried from the intake side to the exhaust.
A naturally aspirated engine, also known as a normally aspirated engine, and abbreviated to N/A or NA, is an internal combustion engine in which air intake depends solely on atmospheric pressure and does not have forced induction through a turbocharger or a supercharger.
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Initially started in a rented workshop, Alfred moved the business to Hirstwood Works, Hirstwood Road, Saltaire. This building is still standing and has industrial use.
Itala was a car manufacturer based in Turin, Italy, from 1904 to 1934, started by Matteo Ceirano and five partners in 1903.
In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement.
The AJS V4 started out as a prototype air-cooled V4 road bike, but became a water-cooled and supercharged racing bike.
Captain George Edward Thomas Eyston MC OBE was a British engineer, inventor, and racing driver best known for breaking the land speed record three times between 1937 and 1939.
A two-stroke diesel engine is a diesel engine that uses compression ignition in a two-stroke combustion cycle. It was invented by Hugo Güldner in 1899.
The Powerplus is a design of supercharger that was used to boost the performance of car engines in the 1930s. It is a mechanically driven positive displacement pump, operating on the sliding-vane principle.
In internal combustion engines, a split-single design is a type of two-stroke where two cylinders share a single combustion chamber.
An internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high-pressure gases produced by combustion applies direct force to some component of the engine. The force is typically applied to pistons, turbine blades, a rotor, or a nozzle. This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into kinetic energy which is used to propel, move or power whatever the engine is attached to.
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The Shorrock supercharger was an eccentric sliding-vane type engine supercharger patented by James Haydock and Christopher Shorrock in 1933. Originally known as the Centric supercharger, it was widely used by engine tuners in the UK in the 1930s and in the 1950 and 1960s.
The Marshall supercharger was a Roots-type supercharger based on a patent by John Wilmot Marshall in 1933
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