Ariel Square Four

Saw a rather immaculately fettled Square Four parked in Uxbridge
centre tonight. Very nicely maintained & polished. No camera to hand,
unfortunately.

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

If you weren't such a mobile phone luddite you can have whipped out your
weapon camera phone and shot your wad over the Ariel.

 

It seems to have a 21st century successor - see
http://www.wikingmotorcycles.com/home/index.htm

They're a bit out on their claim about the first in-line 4 since 1942
though.

 

I'm confused. Assuming they just mean "longitudinal inline four",
didn't Indian do one quite recently, and there's BMW's K series. Or
have I missed the point?

 

Henderson
Indian
Excelsior (I think)

and not forgetting :

The Nimbus

As far as I know the only Danish motorbike manufacturer

--

Big Dave

B12 : CB250RSA : Z250
OMF#4

 

Just a different slant on the concept.

There was also that DIY car-engined lash-up (Austel? I can never
remember), if those count.

 

BMW K100?

Presumably the 1942 is a refence to the Henderson?
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/CBX1000Z
|_\_____/_| ..80264../..21661.../..31308.
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 WG*
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 PM#5
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17 IbB#4 YTC#4 two#11
'^' RBR'06 Points: 75 Miles: 317

 

They claim it's the Indian.

I must admit that the K100 immediately sprung to mind as an inline 4, I
think differentiating between a vertical and an inclined (flat) 4 is a
bit anal...

 

I'm not a Luddite. I pay BT £40/quarter and none of you bastards
call me, so I'm damned if I'll pay a phobile moan company even more to
have no-one call my handy! (The only phone calls I've paid for in the
last year or so are reporting the thefts of the DT175MX and the RG250WD
to the police...)

Back to the OP, it looks like it was a mid-50s model as it had the
four separate header pipes coming from the head. The mufflers looked
surprisingly small and stifling for a 1000 cc machine.

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO#003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

Anglo-Dane, BFC, Diesella, Elleham, Juergenssen, Power, Skylon, Wooler
(no, not *that* Wooler). So there were a few, but nowhere near the 'one
for every letter of the alphabet' league.

 

Flat four means boxer layout. Inline four means four inline; doesn't
matter if it's on its side or not - the K100 series is a definite
longitudinal four.

 

Or flat twin. It's the opposed pairs of pistons that define a boxer layout,
whether 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 16.

 

Yes; and? I've never known the flat4 layout to mean anything else but
boxer.

 

Grimly Curmudgeon () gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying :

Strictly speaking opposing pairs of pistons in a boxer move in and out
simultaneously - so in a boxer twin, both pistons are at TDC together. The
(slightly tenuous, imho) logic is that of boxer's fists meeting at the
start of a round. Or something.

If they share a crankpin, then that's not going to apply - one will be at
TDC, the other at BDC.

All boxers are horizontally-opposed, not all HO are boxers.

 

So a true boxer engine is the Deltic I suppose.

 

From what I remember, in a Deltic the pistons had different TDC phasing
for better scavenging. So apparently not a boxer then

Mike

 

I chipped in with the Deltic first and I claim my £5.

 

Roger Hunt () gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

Is this a new definition of "horizontal"?

 

Oh OK ok. One pair of pistons could be, or all of them if the engine
were mounted in an unfeasible position.

 

Roger Hunt () gurgled happily, sounding much like they
were saying :

With a vertical crank?
That'd make one *hell* of a lawnmower...