Sunbeam Manitou - Paris 1919 120220 p181

The Sunbeam Manitou was an

aero-engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...

produced by

Sunbeam A sunbeam, in meteorological optics, is a beam of sunlight that appears to radiate from the position of the Sun. Shining through openings in clouds or between other objects such as mountains and buildings, these beams of particle-scattered sunl ...

. Unsuccessful as an aero-engine, it is best known for having powered the

Sunbeam 350HP The Sunbeam 350HP is an aero-engined car built by the Sunbeam company in 1920, the first of several land speed record-breaking cars with aircraft engines. Design The car was fitted with a purpose built 18.3-litre V12 engine based on a hybrid ...

racing car.

Development

The Manitou was a further development of the V-12 Maori III. Work on it began by

Louis Coatalen Louis Hervé Coatalen (11 September 1879 – 23 May 1962) was an automobile engineer and racing driver born in Brittany who spent much of his adult life in Britain and took British nationality. He was a pioneer of the design and development of inte ...

in 1917. It used aluminium blocks rather than cast iron, cast in blocks of three cylinders, a typical Sunbeam feature. Bore was increased to 110 mm, but stroke remained at 135 mm. The

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

s were at a 60° vee, with twin overhead camshafts on each bank operating four valves per cylinder. There were two

Claudel-Hobson Claudel-Hobson was a series of British carburettors manufactured by H. M. Hobson Ltd. Introduced in 1908, they were widely used on British car and aircraft engines in the early 20th century. Applications included Sunbeam automobiles as well as ...

carburettor A carburetor (also spelled carburettor) is a device used by an internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine. The primary method of adding fuel to the intake air is through the venturi tube in the main meterin ...

s and two

British Thomson-Houston British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England, and founded as a subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE) of Schenectady, New York, United States. They were kno ...

(BTH)

ignition magneto An ignition magneto, or high-tension magneto, is a magneto that provides current for the ignition system of a spark-ignition engine, such as a petrol engine. It produces pulses of high voltage for the spark plugs. The older term ''tension'' ...

s. For aircraft use a reduction gear was fitted. The engine developed 300 hp at 2,000 rpm, later increased to 325 hp. Only one engine was produced before the end of the First World War, as the factory was busy with the vibration and other problems with the

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

engine, and it was very nearly cancelled. As was not unusual for a Sunbeam engine, it was only ever fitted to a single aircraft for trials, a

Short 184 The Short Admiralty Type 184, often called the Short 225 after the power rating of the engine first fitted, was a British two-seat reconnaissance, bombing and torpedo carrying folding-wing seaplane designed by Horace Short of Short Brothers. It ...

seaplane, and never went into production. After the war and Sunbeam's financial problems in the war-surplus glutted aero-engine market, they were offered to the less-critical powerboat market, again not an unusual move for Sunbeam. During the war 840 had been ordered, but only 13 were delivered before cancellation of the order.

''Maple Leaf''

Sunbeam saw the market in racing powerboats as a solution to the post-war glut and weak market. Four were fitted to the boat '' ' Maple Leaf V' ''.

Specifications (Manitou)

Sunbeam 350HP

Beaulieu National Motor Museum Sunbeam 350 pk 15-10-2011 13-00-32

The engine's only noteworthiness came when it was fitted to

racing car in 1920. This car was later bought by

Malcolm Campbell Major Sir Malcolm Campbell (11 March 1885 – 31 December 1948) was a British racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times, using vehicles called ''Blue Bird'', including a 1 ...

, set

land speed record The land speed record (or absolute land speed record) is the highest speed achieved by a person using a vehicle on land. There is no single body for validation and regulation; in practice the Category C ("Special Vehicles") flying start regula ...

s and was named to become one of Campbell's ''Blue Bird''s. In typical Coatalen fashion, he redesigned the engine substantially even though this was just a one-off with no other likely sales. The twin-cam four-valve head was replaced by the single-cam three-valve head, possibly from the

. An increase in bore to 120 mm allowed space for these larger valves. Another change affected the stroke, also a technique from the

, where it had been responsible for the engine's failure. A multi-cylinder V engine offers little length for connecting rods. Coatalen's usual solution was to use articulated connecting rods, where one rod runs on the crankshaft journal, but the other acts indirectly, through a journal on the other rod. The difficulty is that this gives a slightly different piston stroke for each bank, leading to unbalance and possible vibration problems, as with the Arab. Stroke was thus 135 mm on one bank and 142 mm on the other.

Specifications

References

{{Sunbeam aeroengines

Manitou Manitou (), akin to the Iroquois ''orenda'', is the spiritual and fundamental life force among Algonquian groups in the Native American theology. It is omnipresent and manifests everywhere: organisms, the environment, events, etc. ''Aasha ...

1910s aircraft piston engines