That's what my designer brother tells me

I heard in the '70s, Steiger made a prototype 2wd tractor and tested it on farms around the Deere factory/proving grounds to communicate to Deere to stay out of the 4wd market, or Steiger would enter the 2wd market. Guess the scare tactic didn't work.

 

I have a lot of experience with race engines as well as a degree in mechanical engineering, so I feel qualified to make the following statements:

There are a lot of inaccurate statements in the above Quote. I tried to check the referenced site but it is a map website.  

Most tractor engines do not have their valve on opposite sides of the cylinder. They are aligned length wise to simplify valve geometry.

There is not reverse flow since the valves are in the center of the bore.

The overlap is only at the end of the exhaust and start of intake cycle. While it does help draw in during intake, it does nothing for exhaust.

Just because it is crossflow does not allow more room for bigger valves or for more separation.

The exhaust flow in a normal tractor engine has to go vertically and turn to exit.

You can only way to greatly benefit from crossflow is to have the valves canted to opposite sides.

Cross-flow design does have several advantages, and it's disadvantages, but it's context-dependant.  Basically, EVERY V6 and V8 engine is a cross-flow design- exhaust manifolds on the outside, intakes on the inside.  There's a packaging necessity to the V-design- that included angle is precious real-estate.

An inline, especially an industrial engine, has some different character, and one of those is the camshaft position, and auxiliary power-take-off.  On an inline, the camshaft sits low, and close to the line of the block, with pushrods coming up one side of the bank.  A cross-flow head would have pushrods coming right through the area of either intake or exhaust porting... which makes for difficult plumbing in those castings.  By keeping the ports all on one side, the other is totally open for pushrods.  How is this different from a V?  Simple-  the V-engine's camshaft is in the valley, but higher up, and with the bore/stroke ratio of a V being opposite from an inline, the camshaft can be mounted farther from the crank centerline to the bonus of BOTH banks.

The biggest issue of intake and exhaust temperatures on a cylinder head, is what happens to the casting under that thermal differential.  Thin castings, low nickel, with large temperature differentials tend to crack pretty darned quick.  Efficiency from intake temperatures isn't such a big deal with respect to proximity of intake and exhaust runners-  the intake air is not spending enough time in the runner to gain substantial heat... and in industrial engines, exhaust heat is intentionally added to the intake charge immediately after the carb for purpose of turning those droplets into vapor.  Air charge temperature is really most important when dealing with pulling in air that is from some confined area on a really hot day.  Oxygen density can get pretty low if you're pulling in very hot air from within an enclosure... and if it's being turbocharged or supercharged, that mixture may wind up exceeding it's autoignition temperature well in advance of it's proper event point... the process of compressing the air increases it's temperature substantially, and THAT is a good reason to have an intercooler.

Industrial inlines, especially platforms designed for a variety of liquid and gaseous fuel options, will tend to 'like' being a common-side design, because the non-plumbing side will have a large open side reserved for ignition system or an injection pump... while at the same time, the plumbing side can be easily set up to integrate a turbocharger (er... 'altitude compensator').

An engine that runs overhead camshaft, doesn't have the pushrod issue, and very frequently, since the valves are acted upon only by rockers, having a 4-valve head, and cross-flow design, results in a very high volumetric efficiency at all speeds... the cross-flow design places intake and exhaust ports, particularly the valves, very close to the port discharge point, in that case, the port volume becomes 'too small' to yield any sort of 'tuning character' to the engine's power curve... it becomes a very free-revving engine.

Industrials generally aren't that way, and any inline industrial engine that has a lower end specifically designed for multi-fuel, will not be in any sort of operational application where wide span, flattish torque curve will be beneficial.

sigh, my head hurts from reading all the neat info in the replies....bad enough I can't member to pull the choke out on the D14 to start it NOW th ol brain is full of 'engine tech stuff' !This forum and it's members seem to know everything about everything.....

Assuming thats a true statement, what are the advantages there???

So would the 426 HEMI be considered to have the valves canted to the sides?(with the spark plug in the middle?) Maybe one of the reasons this engine was so successful on the racetrack? 

But then the 426 WEDGE actually did better on the dragstrip then the HEMI ever did so we could open up that can of worms lol.....

Yes the hemi is a crossflow. One of the best. The wedge never did better on the strip. It just predated it.

On the planters, they didn't invent that either. Jon Kinzenbaw (Kinze) did the research and found that most of the JD planter unit patents were copies on old designs by other manufacturers, and copied the JD planter unit exactly (after JD refused to sell him plater units). Of course JD sued Kinze over it, but Kinze won.

And the story of the planter lawsuit was also demonstrative of how they tried to steal and control the production of planters, originally made by someone else!

https://www.farm-equipment.com/articles/12094-the-rear-fold-planter-and-the-battle-that-ensued" rel="nofollow - https://www.farm-equipment.com/articles/12094-the-rear-fold-planter-and-the-battle-that-ensued

jd always hires crooked limousine lawyers, to steal what they cannot innovate!

And it wasn't just JD that was involved in this type of battle... there were plenty others.

History has many details, and it's multiple dimensions in CONTEXT.  Let's start with the basics:

One guy came up with a great idea- three-point hitch.  He patented it, but didn't have the capacity to make lots of them, so he partnered with a guy that made lots of (wimpy) tractors, but he had a big company, with a big legal budget.

Other companies saw this, and it was a good idea, but there was no way they'd ever survive a patent infringmenet suit, and there was no patent license option within reach, so they made their own versions... different enough to avoid an infrigment suit...

Another company came out with a live PTO... it was a great idea... one came out with live hydraulics... one came out with a wet hand clutch, one came out with high-low... another came out with high-neutral-low with wet clutch... there were mechanical lifts, high pressure hydraulics, automatic lifts, sequenced lifts, traction-assisting lifts, steering wheel controlled steering brakes, automatic clutches, hydrostatic drives...

And now you've got a mess of companies, each having their own pile of patents, and legal departments that protect them, and attack others, in order to hold their ground on their little segment of the market, and try to grab the other guys' market segment.

This is the kind of economic battle that has happened since 1930... and notice... not a single darned one of 'em had anything to do with actual building of tractors.

Companies came out with ideas, and patented them, and NEVER EVEN BUILT THEM... the patent's job was simply to prevent OTHERS from using an idea... ESPECIALLY... if that idea was close to, or even better than, an existing idea.

Then there's marketing, which includes creative financing, profit strategies, and obsolescence.  It all comes together as one business warfare.

Stealing patents happens in a variety of ways, but there's a process called War of Attrition that occurs in business... steadily wearing down of your competetor's resources until they cannot fight any longer... and patent infringement is one way to do it.

Let's say you have a great idea, but can't manufacture it in great volume, or get it to market soon.  I steal that idea, I make a very, very, very slight change in something irrelevant... like... I patent my version as different because I use a more expensive type of paint that 'should' be more durable in say... wind and rain.  I immediately start building my version of your idea, and I equal your price, or slightly undercut it, and I slam millions of them out onto the market.  I'm making money big-and-fast, and you're still struggling to get yours to the dealer.  You file suit for patent infringement, and advertise yours, then I countersue YOU for attempting to infringe upon mine, and a volley of discovery process documents, and commensurate legal fees for review time and motions follow.  Of course, mine came later, but I've got lots of cash-flow coming in, I'm getting all the sales, so you've got no war-chest to fight either side of a patent battle.

This is how it happens.   Is it right?  No... but the problem is, that boxing is not about how hard you can punch, how well you can land a punch, and not how hard punch you can take, but how long you can take punches and keep landing good punches... and sneaking one below-the-belt while the ref can't see it.

Business = War...  Dignified business is not often practiced.

I guess that's why one criminal can rape and murder someone, get a 20 year sentence, maybe serve 10 while the next criminal steals a few million from the wrong guy and ends up with 150 year sentence with no parole. That's very selective, wouldn't you say.........

 

That Kinze vs John Deere planter unit battle is more of the exception than the norm. Jon Kinzenbaw was just a little guy going up against the giant John Deere, and won. They probably could have bankrupted him and his lawyer if they really wanted to. This whole deal ended up costing JD a pile of money though, and it was really a unnecessary battle for JD to wage. It probably wasn't a good business decision for either party to get into this peeing match, but feelings were hurt on both sides and everybody was just trying to protect their egos.

NOT doubting your info at all, but am curious if you (or anyone else on here) knows who came up with the DD openers first  ? Possibly IH ??

Don't know who was first, but AC offered the option in 1959...

Wow !!, never gave Oliver an second thought until you brought it up . Makes sense since they had the moldboard plow dialed-in way back when

True, but his planter frames were setup to use JD, AC, or IH units. Now maybe all his customers were requesting JD units, but he could have went to AC or IH for units. Not having fooled with either a Max-Emerge or Kinze unit, are they that much better than the others? It was very risky for him to copy JD's "patented" unit, and could have very well bankrupted him had he lost the suit. JD could have also not settled and probably kept the suit tied up into appeals until Kinze went broke, if they so wished. 

Nothing warms my heart more than seeing somebody stick it to JD, and everybody likes a good David and Goliath story, but we are just hearing one side of the story. I know if we were the ones the "owned" the rights to the Max-Emerge, we wouldn't be really happy with somebody copying our work. I know, from people that own that era Kinze planters, that you can go to any JD dealer and get any part for the unit, they are that close.

Yes, I think it was Oliver. Oliver didn't patent it though. What got JD in trouble was they weren't candid with the fact that that the design was already in use (making it not qualifying for patent) with the patent office.

The two lawsuits were, one for Kinze coping the JD row unit, and the second one was a anti-trust suit brought by Kinze, saying that JD couldn't withhold sales of row units (had something to do with some anti-trust laws). 

I haven't read anything about JD coping the folding frame design. JD did offer to buy the design from Kinze, but he wanted $100 per planter royalty, and JD was offering something like $20. Jon said later that was were two fools met, he was a fool for offering $100, and they were a fool for not taking the offer.