An American, Charles Knight, developed a sleeve valve that worked before this. In 1908 he already was working with Daimler, who showed a prototype in 1909, and had a production model by 1910. They bought rights to his design for the sleeve valve engine until 1920.
It produced more power for it's size and consumed less fuel doing so. With the improvement in fuels, compression and power production, the engine type fell out of favor because the now higher heat production rose beyond the then current metalurgy's ability to handle it. It would be interesting to revive a sleeve valve engine with todays materials, such as ceramic coatings on exotic alloys. I'd bet we won't see a new version.
Linear Mode
