Lightweight SV-engine for U-L-airplanes developed in 2010.
Edit:
brief for the lazy ones:
A 52kg SV-engine with 88.8hp.
The Ford Zetec-SE 1.3 DOHC (Ford Fiesta 1996) is nearly twice as heavy (92kg) and produces only 55hp. This means that SV has 2.86 times as much power-to-weight.
I’m not saying there weren’t any OHVs with more power-to-weight…
They are developing a 6 cyl. scheduled to be released for mid 2015.
And it will not work, for long, in a car, being to fragile.
To be fair, a car engine is designed to be idiot-proof. Momentary over-revving doesn’t do much to a modern car engine because the engineers have already taken that into account.
In a plane, “DO NOT EXCEED” means do not exceed under any circumstances, ever.
Thats what rev-limiters are for. Besides SVs produce nearly max. power already in fairly low revs so one could play it safe there.
But honestly I have no idea how such a thing would fare in a car, all I tried to point out is, that they are not extinct and have certain advantages.
When they (SV) are watercooled, they have a very low distance from the center of the crank to the top of the head. To bad the sparkplug sticks out so far.