What has been working since 1995 with countless engines modified and working well, has fairly recently been brought to the US from India. We have been contacted by volunteer testers in various locations around the world.
Somender SIngh has been awarded an US Patent for his discovery of how to gain more engine power and economy by utilizing a small groove cut into the squish area(s) of the typical Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). The Groove(s) allows gasses to expand and compress with a quality that has consistently improved fuel efficiency, lowered operating temperature, improved torque and max power as well as lowering idle speed significantly.
The Groove has beneficial effects on the compression stroke as well as the power stroke. On the compression stroke, the Groove channels the last bit of air/fuel mixture towards the combustion area, maintaining swirl until the spark provides ignition. On the power stroke, the Groove provides a channel for hot gasses to jet towards the cylinder wall and ignite comparatively more mixture in the squish area. It also appears that the Groove can destroy standing vortices in the squish areas as well.
Without grooves, the combustion is incomplete and unburned fuel remains in the cylinder. This unburned fuel is still expanding during the exhaust stroke. At the end of the exhaust stroke, the expanding unburned gases flow past the intake valve into the intake manifold, causing poor idle, carbon deposits and lower performance. Notice the areas left unburned. This is the extent of the flamefront.
Shown here are two different types of groove for illustration purposes only. Normally only one type of Groove is used. Follow this link to see many images of Grooved engines.
With the grooved cylinder heads, combustion is more complete leaving little unburned fuel behind, more of the fuel is used to generate power, reducing the time that internal surfaces are exposed to heat. (That’s also why engines typically run cooler with a Groove) This burn pattern appears silver.
For more comparison pictures go here http://somender-singh.com/content/view/65/43/
With the modified heads little or no unburned fuel remains during the exhaust stroke. With less burning fuel to expand during the overlap period, the gasses flowing past the intake valve are reduced, resulting in improved idle quality.
It has been conclusively proven that the Grooves are effective. It is also undisputed that the tune settings are significantly different between Grooved and unGrooved engines. It is simple to understand. If the same tune was used for an unGrooved engine, it wouldn't even start!
Since Grooved engines 'seem' to burn the fuel faster, you can wait to ignite the fuel-air mixture until the piston is near the top of its stroke. That leaves more energy pushing on the piston as the burning gasses expand.
The Groove 'seems' to create more mixing (turbulence) in the burning gasses, making sure that more of the fuel-air mixture gets to be completely burned before the exhaust ports open and the engine 'exhales' the used fuel-air mixture. By the way, a -surprising- amount of air-fuel mixture is NOT burned in every single stroke of your typical engine. It is allowed to exit through the tailpipe and is sometimes called pollution. It definitely is wasted fuel that you paid for with money .
The Groove reduces the amount of unburned fuel-air mixture leaving your engine and helps take advantage of the extra fuel burning. Visit the links referred to above and look closely at the cylinder heads and piston tops for signs of incomplete combustion. It usually shows up as a lighter color around the edge of the cylinder chamber. This is where pockets of fuel have not burned. It is obvious from the photo evidence that Grooved engines burn fuel more efficiently !!!
So, the main benefit of the Groove is not a specific single change, but the combination of power and efficiency improving effects. It certainly calls for a re-thinking of current Internal Combustion Engine theory and rapid adoption of this 'paradigm busting' discovery.
Now I've done a fair bit of reading around and come to neither a positive or negative conclusion....I don't think it's up to much though - but I wondered what you think.
From a typical cylinder head modification point of view to me it just looks like a nice pair of sharp edges to build up a lovely hot spot in the cylinder head that'll effect the burn......
......I did poke around and found one of the few 'official' benchmarks for it.
http://www.revsearch.com/grooves/grooves.html
Result - nil. Practically identical, exactly the variation of results you'd expect from a back-to-back run.
There's also a 14 page thread on the hotrodders forum that comes to absolutely no conclusion at all, with a lot of experience engine builders just going "meh" at it and a few pictures of nuked pistons......... and relatively few actually endorsing it and claming it helps.
It's been 7 years since he suggested the idea and there's been very little, if no development or copying since then which suggests it may be a bit of an oddball but you never know!
Anyone have any ideas about it? Most of the hot-rodders in the US seem to be using it in their drag engines now but the back-to-back testing is rare, suggesting that it's just a relatively innefective idea......
