Expansion Chamber - History

History

Expansion chambers were invented and successfully manufactured by Limbach, a German engineer, in 1938, to economize fuel in two stroke engines. Germany was running short of petrol, which was at that stage produced using coal and sewerage transformation. An unexpected bonus was that the two stroke engines using tuned exhausts produced far more power than if running with a normal silencer. After the end of the second world war, some time passed before the concept was re-developed by East German Walter Kaaden during the cold war. They first appeared in the west on Japanese motorcycles after East German motorcycle racer Ernst Degner defected to the west while racing for MZ in the 1961 Swedish Grand Prix. He hid the blueprints under his racing leathers and defected during the race by riding off the track and claiming asylum. He did not finish the race. He later provided the blueprints to Japan's Suzuki.

Read more about this topic:  Expansion Chamber

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.
    Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
    Thomas Paine (1737–1809)