I found this story on my hard drive. File date was 1/98. A little OE history. Very interesting.
ORBITAL ENGINES: LAYING THE SARICH GHOST
It's an automatic reflex: Say "orbital'' and people will respond: "Ralph Sarich''. Yet Ralph Sarich sold all but a tiny percentage of his family company shareholding and has been gone for five years now.
There are times, no doubt, when the Orbital Engine Corporation Limited (OEC) wishes it could change its name. This is both because of its association with the original Sarich orbital engine, dropped years ago because it would take too long to get into commercial production, and the seemingly-endless series of press reports throughout the 1980s and early 1990s trumpeting yet more licensing agreements and the promise of a big engine plant being built in the US.
The senior management of OEC today is still loyal to Sarich's creative fire and are reluctant to criticise him. But Sarich took so much exception to an article I wrote for Business Review Weekly magazine a fortnight ago saying OEC had finally put the nail in the Sarich era coffin that he paid for a full-page advertisement in BRW to correct what he saw as misleading impressions.
The fact these impressions were given by the management confirmed (to me, at least) that his main beef was with them and their suggestion that in moving to focus the engine technology business away from Europe and North America to the Asia-Pacific area they had slain the old demons. And that is precisely what has happened.
The turning point came when the company's two major automotive licensees, Ford and Volkswagen, dropped their options to proceed. Ford did it because a mistake in refuelling a test engine with leaded petrol aborted the crucial the 600 hours emissions test and Volkswagen because of a global upheaval in its parts procurement program.
A six-cylinder engine program with Jaguar was canned at the same time, probably by Ford, but Orbital says its engine had already been "locked-in'' for Ford's Ka, which eventually used the four-stroke from the European Fiesta. VW said publicly it had not dropped the engine for any technical reasons, and in fact paid OEC a reported $35 million to end the contract.
OEC's executives realised finally then the magnitude of the "ask'' in getting big car makers to rip out their existing engine plant technology and replace it with two-stroke stuff. On the other hand, the emerging makers of Asia, who didn't want to get into bed with the Japanese or the Americans understood that if they had to spend perhaps $750 million building an entirely new plant to make their own engines it was a chance to use revolutionary new technology.
Thus BPIS, the Indonesian Government-backed company that late next year will start building that country's second "national'' car, the Maleo, decided to use the 1.2-litre three-cylinder Orbital two-stroke engine in the car being designed by Melbourne's Millard group and due for unveiling early next year. The $800 million project includes an engine plant to produce 100,000 units a year; OEC will take up 30% of the Maelo Engine Company shares.
Three things convinced the Indonesians: One was the performance of the engine in the Genesis Project Festivas that have been running for more than a year in field tests with government and business fleets; another the fact that the engine is almost 20% cheaper to build than an equivalent four-stroke, as well as being lighter, more compact, cleaner and more fuel efficient. The third was the equipment and talent in the Perth complex _ now one of the leading independent automotive research establishments in the world.
What also helped was that OEC fuel injection technology has started achieving big commercial successes. The giant US Brunswick corporation in early 1966 was the first to market an Orbital direct-injection engine with its 200-horsepower three-litre V6 Mercury and Mariner outboards _ now being expanded over three more horsepower ranges down to 75 bhp.
OEC supplies the fuel and control systems through its new massive joint venture with Siemens Automotive. The world's second biggest independent producer of air injectors, Siemens is now spewing out more than 30 million of the little boogers a year.
The Canadian/Austrian company Bombardier/Rotax is now into licensed production of OEC technology motors in its recreational vehicles, like jet skis and snowmobiles, and in February Japan's second biggest marine outboard maker, Tohatsu, unveiled its first 50 hp three-cylinder marine engine using Orbital technology and is talking volume production in 1999.
The Orbital two-stroke direct injection system is also being used in Piaggio scooters and NSR motorcycles. Europe and Taiwan are driving this; together their markets represent 22% of the world's total for two-stroke two-wheelers, yet both Taiwan and Japan initially banned two-strokes until the OEC system absolutely demolished the emissions performance of carburettor four-stroke engines.
The last 20 of the 100 Festiva "Ecosports'' were delivered to the Nifty Rent A Car group in Darwin on 1 July. This $18 million Project Genesis was set up by Orbital to accelerate the commercialisation of the engine, the first going to the Federal Government's vehicle arm DASFLEET.
Orbital has a detailed analysis and response system to monitor the in-service performance of the cars with the 1.2-litre two-stroke, all the information accumulated over more than a million kilometres so far going into computerised data anlysis. Constant emissions checks are run on 14 of the vehicles.
I drove one last year, and was quite astonished by the engine response and flexibility. It has more power and torque than the 1.3-litre Mazda-based four-stroke it replaced (56 kilowatts/125 Newton-metres against 47/102) and that's reflected in a standing 400 metres acceleration time of 18.7 seconds to 19.5 (Wheels magazine figure).
OEC also built its own concept car. Called S2S (For Sports Two-Stroke), it stuffs the 1.2-litre three east-west in the rear, driving the rear wheels through a five-speed gearbox.
The S2S was styled by Melbourne designer Mr Bernie Walsh, with a design weight of 750 kilograms. Orbital quotes a 0-100 km/h time of 9.4 seconds, top speed of 190 km/h and fuel economy of 4.72 litres/100 km.
However, the broad sunlit uplands of Orbital's future lies with what it's christened its DI-4 project _ the four-stroke engine using similar direct-injection principles. The world's car makers are engaged in a frantic race to get their DI engines into production, and on the shelves of the office of Mr Rod Houston, OEC's engineering director, are bulky folders labelled Fiat, Peugeot, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and others
The advantage of a DI engine is that because it sprays petrol directly into the cylinder instead of the inlet ports it can use far leaner air-fuel ratios, giving about a 15% reduction in fuel consumption. The downside is that it cleans up all emissions other than nitrous oxides, which it produces in bigger quantities, made even worse by the high sulphur level in European petrols.
Mitsubishi and Toyota were the first to announce production DI engines, Mitsubishi's 1.8-litre unit going into Galant sedans and Legnum wagons on the domestic market and to be launched in the Carisma range for Europe at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September. It's also working with Hyundai on a three-litre V6 version and claims its system is the basis of all future engines.
Toyota is typically being more cautious, building a small number of DI engines for testing, using variable valve timing and a fifth fuel injector. The complex engine also runs a NOx storage catalyst, but high sulphur levels tend to destroy the layer of barium used on the walls of the catalyst.
OEC engineers criticise both engines as being very expensive, because both are based on a high-pressure system, and are dubious about Mitsubishi's claims of 35% better fuel consumption. The complex Mitsubishi unit reportedly costs about $320 more to build than a conventional engine _ a major factor when a normal engine cost is around $600.
OEC in March received a Federal Government funding grant of $14.5 million for its two-and-a-half-year project to develop its DI-4, and has set up a joint venture company with Siemens to produce the fuel rail assembly. Its system has major advantages in that it's low-pressure, can virtually be bolted onto existing twin-cam, single cam and pushrod engines, will cost $105-$150 more than a current manifold injection system _ and best of all, has very low NOx emissions.
Mr Houston says the company started researching DI-4 about 10 years ago, but discovered the Nox catalyst problem and then because fuel economy "was no big thing then'' put the project on the back-burner. It started work on it again about two years ago _ now the target is to gave it commercially available by late 1999.
So the Orbital Engine Corporation is finally achieving the promise it displayed so many years ago, going back to September, 1972 when self-taught engineer Sarich won the ABC's "Inventors'' TV program award for his rotary-pistoned engine. And to add the cream on top, 1997 is the year all those licensing agreement royalties finally start rolling in.....
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