Hercules Single Cylinder Research Engine

The Ultimate Engine Development Tool

Decades ago, we provided a contract drafting service to our friends Ricardo, and produced detailed drawings for their Hydra single cylinder research engine.

It was immediately obvious to us young chaps, what a good idea it was to carry out research on your cylinder head and piston, cam, con-rod, combustion, using one cylinder only. So much easier to modify a component and try it, without the time, expense and effort of modifying multiples. Once perfected, the winning formula could then easily be transferred into a multi-cylinder. We were fairly sure that this was Harry Ricardo’s own idea, and a very good one.

In the course of this work, we couldn’t help notice that whereas all the engines we were drawing were essentially similar, equally none of them were the same. So each one had to be designed individually, and made as a one-off to its own drawings. In addition, each engine was dedicated to a particular project, and did not readily lend itself to being used again for a different project without redesigning, effectively from scratch again.

While this might have seemed like good business for all of us, nevertheless we put forward a proposal to the Ricardo hierarchy for another way of building the engine so that it would be easier to make, easier to work on and more modular in construction. We showed them a sketch. They showed friendly interest, but politely declined to change their product, quite understandably.

However, since then we have finessed the design of our HERCULES Single Cylinder Research Engine.

It is different from other research engines in that it incorporates the following features:

• VERY good value for money.
• Fully counterbalanced. As smooth as a 4 cylinder. We think this is a very important feature when carrying out experiments.
• Boxbed Crankcase, allowing for ease of manufacture, ease of modification and ease of assembly.
• Oil pump and water pump are included, as are gear drives for Diesel pump, Fuel pump + as many others as are required.
• Provision for Gear drive or Chain drive or Belt drive to overhead camshafts.
• The Bore and Stroke can be scaled up and down, to cater for most eventualities. However the design of the engine is such that the entire engine can be scaled up or down ,if required, without compromising the concept.
• We would always be delighted to carry out your research, development or test programme, using your Hercules engine driving our dynamometer.