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).
From a non-technical employee asking for a simplified explanation of the advantages of a 'turbulent head' for sales purposes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 14\3\ Scan023 | |
| Date | 1st November 1928 | |
| X7050 HS{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} To Wor.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} From BJ. Copy to Sg.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} Copy to Hs.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} Copy to Ev.{Ivan Evernden - coachwork} Turbulent Head. I expect it is because I am not technical that I have so far been unable to understand clearly what is the real advantage of the turbulent head, and would be very glad if you could get the technical people to explain it to me in a way that I should be likely to understand. Our Sales officials have some difficulty in explaining it to customers. Does it give more power with the same compression? Does it save petrol consumption in actual practice? What is the result of increasing the compression? If it reduces detonation, is this any advantage if it does not also reduce vibration, as on our present cars we consider that we have reached the maximum compression that we can accept in relation to vibrations, and if the turbulent head does not reduce vibrations, it will not enable us to increase the compression or obtain more power. We obtained a rough chart showing the dynamometer HP curves of the old standard head compared with the turbulent head which rather indicated that the turbulent was the worse of the two in regard to HP. Is this really so? BJ. | ||