James Hebert wrote:
In article , "K. Smith"
wrote:


wrote:


[material deleted]

I also like to see more data and like to know where the original post
came from.


Here the reference to "the original post" is to a comment that three
Evinrude E-TEC motors had blown up at a fishing tournament held in Lake
Erie around July 24, 2005

[Karen replies]

These are a few just for you:


http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/003712.html



Thanks for citing my website as a part of your effort to discredit the
E-TEC, but I am afraid the article you cited contains not one word of
any problems with the E-TEC motor at a fishing tournament in Lake Erie
around July 24, 2005. As a matter of fact, all the articles in the cited
thread were posted about a week before the fishing tournament held in
Lake Erie around July 24, 2005.

I don't see how they corroborate the initial claim about all of these
engines blowing up. I am local to that area and have not heard anything
about it.


You see James this is the problem with forums such as yours, in this
case you nopt onloy feel compelled to support your site you also support
the latest DFI experiment called E-Tec? You even try to claim another
forums posts "must" be wrong because you say so:-)

I did not say "your" forum mentioned blown E-Tecs although the poster
had asked for more data & where the original (blown E-tecs) post came
from, but his request wasn't limited to just that, it's patently clear
from the links where the information came from. Of course you'd never
allow that:-). I had derided the latest "upgrades" your site
conveniently gave material on them & clearly unbeknown to you much
mo-) People can read James even though you'd prefer they just
accepted your views without any review at all. Welcome to an open forum:-)

If you had decided to actually find out about this technology you would
already know why I say Ficht failed outright & to a lesser but still
unacceptable extent Optimax. You're correct I am an Ozzy & was well
familiar with Orbital long before Brunswick came into it. They'd been
trying to flog it for years prior as had Ficht but none of the real
engine people had taken it up & so far still haven't??? or do you say
otherwise??

Over some years I've explained in detail why & exactly how the DFIs
including Orbital Optimax would fail & sadly for many boaters, OMC
employees & unionists' pensions I was right. Of course as you promote &
boot lick the suppliers you don't wish to even acknowledge these facts.
You should read a truly "open" forum like here, then you'd know that the
OMC dealers were well aware of the defective nature of the Fichts &
continued to push them because they were getting up to 30% agg of
rebates & other sundry kickbacks on them. It was all well documented &
discussed here as the bankruptcy court dealt with OMC & the dealers
trying to get themselves onto the list of creditors for their so called
rebates:-)

A 101 so that even you may get a rubimentary understanding;

(i) The only way it seems a crankcase transferred 2 stroke can viably
get through the EPA rules is by running extremely lean mixtures at low
to medium revs. In the early days OMC dealers were claiming 40-1
mixtures but once the failures started all hard technical material was
withdrawn.

(ii) The Ficht style injector is nothing more than an impact pressure
pulse. There is no actual rail circulating fuel at any really high
pressure compared to say the Yamaha's up to 800 psi. Now the new owners
talk about injection pressures they're actually talking about the peak
pulse of pressure, after that each following shock wave is progressively
lower. Drop a stone into a full bucket of water. If you can search Deja
news/google groups you'll find where years ago I posted the pressure
graph that accompanied one of the early patent applications for Ficht.

(iii) The suggestion is that a combination of a very lean mixture, very
poor fuel atomisation caused by too low an injection pressure, prolonged
repeated firing of the spark plug & maintaining that mode of operation
up to reasonable levels of specific power might "sometimes" lead to
excessive heat buildup in the piston.

(iv) Here I originally suggested that this would lead to enough heat
building in the piston to cause potentially disastrous detonation &
indeed given the premises when they first came out, felt the failure
rate would be huge much higher than the later claimed 1 in 5, indeed it
was OMCs 1 in 5 claim that got me wondering how 4 out of 5 survived:-)

(v) The answer seems to be that when in lean mode there just isn't
enough fuel present to sustain detonation. This is a phenomenon well
known & understood in aero engines since the 1930s (& they never try to
run anything like a mixture of 40-1 if they did the engine just stops,
you can't in the normal sense ignite such a mixture). By repeatedly
firing the plug while the injector sprays fuel past (not at) it they can
get an ignition. In the early days OMC had the dealers telling people it
was like putting a match to a can of WD40 while you held the button down:-)
WD40 is mostly kero & like most jet engines that also run on kero you
can get a continuous ignition but don't try it with petrol:-)

(iv) The submission was & remains that in "some" circumstances (say a
large boat with a high top speed & therefore high prop pitch, being used
for long periods at the upper end of the lean burn mode?), it's then
that piston heat might become extreme. This possibility I say is
admitted by the latest fixes special high melting point alloy in the
pistons & special high temp oil why?? if there aren't any piston temp
issues???

(v) If & it's an "if" one of the pistons gets even a little hot (say any
point on it or the rings being over 250C) certainly then the situation
has the potential for pre ignition once the mixture is quickly returned
to "normal". i.e.the suggestion is that as the engine changes from lean
burn mode to full mixture & a single firing of the plug, the sudden
influx of fuel might get pre ignited by a possibly overly hot piston &
then the heat/extreme pressure combination might send the particular
cylinder into full detonation.

(vi) It's also suggested the oiling is a part of the problem & also
maybe a part of the proof of what I have said, because again excess oil
possibly gets baked behind the rings? & then possibly more heat?
possibly more pre-ignition? possibly more detonation is a risk? The
proof part is that they have greatly reduced the quantum of oil
available in all the so called DFI 2 strokes but again why?? & why the
special super expensive dealer only hight temp oils?? again it's
suggested this is support for the position put when Ficht was new.

So James if you've read this & even partly got a handle on it, now go &
re read the link I posted to your site, do you see the issue with the so
called "upgrades"??? also ask yourself why do different boats, different
props etc seem to experience the "roughness" at different engine
speeds??? Given that the spruikers will not give any real technical
material & the dealers certainly have none, then I'm happy to use your
site's material in support of my position.

So again just for clarity: I didn't allege your site said there were
blown up E-Tecs because you clearly would have none of that:-) But I did
note the OMC Ficht like "upgrades" were back & I was happy to link to
you showing the symptoms as these engine get to or near the mode change
point & the mixture is reverting back to normal, maybe just maybe on a
very hot piston????

No need to thank me for publicising your site for you indeed I'm glad to
& hope to again.

K