Re: alfa-digest V8 #339

[Scott Fisher <sfisher71@domain.elided>]

--- Pottree@domain.elided wrote:
> In a message dated 01/05/2002 1:26:40 AM Pacific
> Standard Time, 
> owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:
> 
> 
> > The Saabs are so smooth because they are two
> > strokes--twice the firing frequency per crank
> > revolution compared with a four stroke.
> 
> Once long ago I had a Saab and didn't notice its 4
> being significantly smoother in operation than 
> similar 2L jobs[...]

The original message was about two-stroke,
three-cylinder Saabs, the kind that Eric Carlsson used
to toss around the forest tracks of Europe in the
early Sixties.  By the time Saab had made their own
4-cylinder 2-liter, the two-stroke three cylinders
were winding down in popularity (though I believe the
last of the 96 series were still available, at least
in Europe, when the 99s were being sold -- I am
scarcely a Saab expert, however, and can only barely
spell Aktiebolaget -- did I get it right, Tess?)

Two-strokes have some inherent characteristics that
make them -- interesting, at least, to the motorhead. 
Power on every down stroke, for starters, gives them
torque out of proportion to displacement; a
distinctive "ring-ding-ding" exhaust note is something
an enthusiast seems either to love or hate; and the
ones I've driven tend to be optimized for high-RPM
operation ("well, the clutch slips till you reach
somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 RPM," said Jim Hall
as he was giving us the drill on the racing kart in
the school I attended in the late '80s, "but power
doesn't really come on till you hit about 11,000, and
it doesn't peak till 14 grand.")

As Eric Storhok says, two-strokes have some inherent
environmentally unfriendly features, and are not
currently being seriously considered by any major
automaker.  But they're fun, distinctive, and an
experience that the adventurous might well want to
seek out in some form or other.

--Scott Fisher
  Tualatin, Oregon
  where my only 2-stroke motoring has been on the
river
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