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New engine technology, or Hocus Pocus.....?

Fountain testing motors that could rewrite history

Plans are to cruise at race speeds around current world record

By LAWRENCE KEECH, Staff Writer

Fountain Powerboats is poised to not only break the vee-bottom boat world speed record, but obliterate it at speeds approaching that of the renowned super-cats.

In testing Friday, company president David Knight said the Rio Rose’s boat “will run as fast as we want to go,” using technology that defies the laws of physics.

“We are going to be cruising (in Sunday’s race) at speeds well above the world record,” Knight said with a hint of pride in his voice Friday in a phone interview.

Knight had predicted earlier in the week a race speed around the current world record of 171-miles per hour. But in testing Friday, the engines that some say “aren’t suppose to work” produced race-condition speeds near the 180-mile per hour range.

“And with some tweaking we could probably break the 200 mark,” Knight said.

Knight estimated the motors are capable of producing speeds in the neighborhood of 225, but a redesign boat hull would be required first.

Knight, who joined Fountain Powerboats with a goal of keeping the company at the forefront of technology and engineering excellence, admitted skepticism in the new motors until he saw them run, and said it will take more time before they can start shooting for the 200 mark.

“These motors create an incredible amount of torque,” Knight said, “and a vee-bottomleans to the left in a turn already, plus the torque is push-ing you to the left. It is going to take a lot of getting use to, before we are going to know how to compensate for that. I’ll just trim it hard to the right and keep working at it, until we get it.”

How much of a change in torque?

According to engine builder and designer Alberto Solaroli’s research, the new motors produce almost 250 extra pounds of torque, nearly double the horsepower of Fountain’s previous race engines, increases boost by two tenths, reduces RPMs and comes close to tripling fuel mileage — and the faster the engine runs, the colder it gets.

“Torque is what is most important,” Knight said. “Horsepower is just a number, but torque is what turns your tires, or your drives, or props or what ever it is you’re trying to push.”

Solaroli’s patented system, which he unsuccessfully pitched to numerous companies before getting a shot with Fountain, creates an adiabatic system — principles similar to how a refrigerator or air conditioner work. It takes hot compressed air and rapidly releases it, causing it to cool. It is much like a can of spray air for computer key boards.

Adiabatic systems are not new, but until Solaroli’s design changes, they were not practical due to early ignition, compression and other problems. Solaroli installed multiple cooling chambers that allow the motor to continually cool.

“Since the motor is getting colder as you run it faster, there is no need for a radiator, no need for fans and all the belts, hoses, gears and drives associated with them,” Solaroli said.

In the case of race boats, Solaroli was able to replace the nearly four-foot superchargers with six-inch turbo drives, further decreasing the boat’s weight.

The system also runs very clean and does not require a catalytic converter, which means less weight and by burning less fuel, there are fewer refills or smaller tanks.

Inside the motor, Solaroli writes “the pre-expansion of air on its way into the combustion chamber, prevents excessive temperatures being generated ...”

“We have three basic phasing going on inside the motor,” he said. “We’ve got a depressurization (which cools the engine), then we can lean burn the motor because of the temperature of the charged air that is going in, and we have changed the efficiency from 15 percent to 85 percent.”

Breaking the law of physics, Solaroli has shortened the length of the flame.

The explain why a shortened flame is more efficiency, Solaroli said, “You hold your hand over a candle flame, it gets hot, you run your finger through the flame at the wick and you don’t feel it. Everything beyond the point where you do not feel it, is wasted energy.”

“You’re going to see the physics books rewritten because of the motors in this boat,” he said.

Solaroli added, “we wanted to give somebody like Fountain the oomph to be able to get way ahead of everybody else. We’re going to give them so much power, they are going to have to redesign the hull to handle it.”

Solaroli sees a number of other uses for the technology.

He said he is working on plans that could be used by the U.S. government for engines which could be placed into humvees,

“Hummers are burning up in the deserts in Iraq,” he said. “We have a program coming through the Pentagon, where we are going to convert some diesels. We can take a Durmax diesel, which typically gets about 14 miles per gallon, we added 196 horsepower, 346 pounds of torque and we gained 44 percent more fuel economy.”

Why else is the military interested?

“Heat seeking missiles work at a 400 degree Fahrenheit threshold, below that they are classified as people,” Solaroli explained. “This system cools the engine to a point below that, so now I can make a hummer go across the desert and look like a human and nobody can shoot at it.”

Other uses include smaller generators that produce more power.

“We are going to take a C15 diesel that is six and half feet long, five and half feet high and has a radiator of 6x6 on the front, and we’re going to shrink that by two, multiply the torque and horsepower by two and give them 60 percent more efficiency,” he said.

Solaroli said there is the potential to use the technology in regular cars.