From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Modifications to the Continental Phantom II air silencer to improve high-speed performance.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 19\1\ Scan139 | |
| Date | 13th November 1931 | |
| W/S. PN.{Mr Northey} From Ha/Lid.{A. J. Lidsey}. c. to Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} EP.{G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer} c. to Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} By.{R.W. Bailey - Chief Engineer} CONTINENTAL P.II PERFORMANCE. With reference to the fact that the Continental P.II cars do not on the average show an improved high speed performance over the average P.II standard car, it may be remembered that when a test was recently carried out on two cars on Brooklands with the carburetter air silencer removed an improvement of between 1 1/2 and 2 m.p.h. lap speed was obtained. It is of course not permissable to remove the whole of the air silencer, but we suggest that you try (on one or more of your Continental type cars) removing all the inner tubes from the air silencer, leaving only the top and bottom castings and the outer tube in position. By this means we should anticipate that the maximum speed of the car would be increased by 1.5 m.p.h. As against this there is the point to be considered whether the increased suction noise is permissable on a car of this type. In our opinion the noise increase is not objectionable when considered on a sports car. We do not anticipate that you will be able to appreciate any appreciable increase in performance other than maximum speed over a timed stretch of road or on Brooklands track. You will appreciate the difficulties to be overcome in order to obtain even a small advance in maximum speed, as an example, the recent Brooklands demonstration on using a high geared axle, only a small increase in maximum speed was obtained with a very appreciable drop in acceleration. Any simple method by which we can gain even a slight increase without any serious disadvantages in other directions appears to be worthy of extended trial. Ha/A.J.Lidsey. | ||