What about those 3 wheel car/motorcycle things they ride around in asia?  But i dont think you could call those trucks...  

http://suzuki.off-road.com/suzuki/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=277664  

I worked at a suzuki motorcycle dealer in the early 80's and a guy came in wanting to buy some 2 stroke oil for his truck. low and behold he was driving a 2 stroke suzuki samuri from canada.  It had a 3 cyl watercooled 2 stroke,the only one i've seen  

I own one just like the pic above, just yellow, it was a fun toy until the rear end went out.  

There are also a few new two stoke engines in alot of the stihl chainsaws, leaf blowers, and weed eaters. They use a gears to drive the valves but they work awesome  

maddog20:
I worked at a suzuki motorcycle dealer in the early 80's and a guy came in wanting to buy some 2 stroke oil for his truck. low and behold he was driving a 2 stroke suzuki samuri from canada.  It had a 3 cyl watercooled 2 stroke,the only one i've seen

I remember reading about them when they came out. They were very early models before the 4 cyl 4 stroke "Sammi" came out.  

There's an awful lot of "Strokin" goin on here...  

Hi all,

the two stroke diesel was once a perfect mix of mechanical simplicity, very good efficiency and excellent power to weight ratio. But it is very polluting and is outclassed by modern four stroke engine designs, which benefit greatly from control electronics and finely tuned injection systems. I know of no production car in which a two stroke diesel was ever used, but in trains, large trucks and even planes their use was widespread.
I know, that's got little to do with four wheelers, but there is such interesting info available on large two stroke diesels that i just can't help wanting to share it with you.

Two names contributed greatly in 2-stroke diesel development, that of engineer and aircraft designer Hugo Junkers and that of General Motors, after having bought the Winton engine factory and taking their 2-stroke design to great heights. GM has built series of 567, 645 and 710 cu.in capacity per cylinder and sold the resulting engine types in "slices", ranging from 4 to 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 up to 20 cylinders in Vee shape. Such engines powered many American diesel-electric locomotives and are fitted in many heavy generator-sets. Due to stringent emission norms, further development was stopped and GM currently invests in the 4-stroke H-series, which is very clean and economical.

The line that Junkers set in, was an attempt to fly long distance on diesel fuel, for WW II Germany had to import oil and higher destillates like petrol were scarce commodities reserved for higher purpouses, like hi-octane fighter planes or petrol road vehicles. Junkers chose an opposed piston design with multiple crankshafts, the first of which was the Jumo 205 engine, with 6 cylinders and 12 pistons. By dividing the explosion blow over two piston heads, these and their crankshafts could be lighter, greatly improving the power to weight ratio compared to conventional line type engines with a single crankshaft. The Jumo's crankshafts were gear-synchronised and used ports both for inlet and exhaust. Troubles because of the cylinders near the exhaust ports getting much hotter than the ones near the cool inlet ports, were eventually solved by slightly different shapes and/or adapted metallurgy.
Junkers took the design principle very far, up to a version with 4 crankshaft connecting 4 rows of cylinders, housing 48 pistons altogether. This engine was the Jumo 223, but it never went into series.

Others got onto Junker's idea however. Fairbanks Morse built large two crankshaft engines (i believe it's called OH 38 1/8), which also powered locomotives (like the Trainmaster) and various classes of US submarines. The Russians secretly copied the FM-design for their own locomotives. In England, the Napier engine factory tried multi-crankshaft designs as well. Theirs is the one with 3, which is built in triangle-shape and is called "Deltic". It was made with 9 cylinders and 18 pistons or with 18 cylinders and 36 pistons. British Rail fitted the Class D9000 (later Class 55) diesel locomotive with two D18-25 engines, which made them the most powerful diesel locos at their time of introduction. Deltic blocks also powered torpedo boats and the New York Fire Department multistage centrifugal pump truck "Superpumper". Even today you can still witness Deltic blocks in action, since locomotives 55016 and 55019 have been preserved in running order and are featured in many railway society events in England. There is a great website by Andy Slater (www.brdw.co.uk) that even has an mp3 sound archive. Search for Class 55, download all samples listed there, connect your PC to a good set of speakers and enjoy!  

The sounds that two stroke diesels make, are something special. The GM blocks have inlet ports and exhaust valves, they sound not much different from four strokes. I keep using the BRDW-website's sound archive as a reference here; when you listen to samples of Class 57 or Class 66, you can hear a GM 645-12 and a 710-12. The number of explosions are double that of a four stroke, so at the same rpm they will sound one octave higher. These blocks run at only 900 rpm, but what a sound! They have gear coupled centrifugal blowers, not the turbo types, so you hear the fan whine go up in sync with the engine, from stationary to higher rpm.
The Deltics have exhaust ports and these sound a bit trumpet like, since the ports slots release very sharp and violent blasts of gas at the moment the passing cylinders start to expose them. That distinctive sound is also typical of older Detroit diesel designs, the Tilling-Stevens TS3 block in Commer trucks and various other exhaust port two strokes mounted in e.g. US city buses, freight trucks and navy landing craft. The Deltics also have gear driven centrifugal blowers, the sound of which is drowned out by the sharp exhaust sound. Deltic locomotives were also called "Lancasters" because of the drone of their twin blocks, which reverberated across valleys long after they had passed. Also typical was the gear whine, since there are many built-in phasing gears to synchronise the three cranskshafts. In the D9019 sound sample in which it pulls away from a station, you can hear this whine go past you, through the louvres in the locomotive's engine room sides.

The GM blocks with exhaust valves sound a bit like blocks with exhaust ports when Roots blowers are fitted. The passing lobes snap up air very violently, which sounds a bit siren-like. So the TS3 block, which has both exhaust ports and a Roots blower, sound especially sharp and tinny. You can hear one in a Hitchcock classic (Frenzy), in which the killer noticed that his strangled victim, which he dumped in a bag on a Commer potato lorry, got hold of his tie pin which as a trace can lead back to him when found by the police. So he hides under the lorry canvas and starts to search all bags to get his pin back, while the lorry gets underway.

And since we're at it and i've led you astray miles from this forum's original intention already, do have a listen at the Clas 56 sound clips as well. They're from V16 Ruston Paxman engines running at 750 rpm, with double turbochargers, cranking out some 3,500 hp. The clip where a newly rebuilt block is started up by the auxiliary generator (which doubles as a starter motor) is especially worthwhile. Absolutely marvelous sounds, they put Chevy and Harley block sounds a bit in the shade!

The reason that two stroke diesels are no alternative nowadays, can't be better illustrated by the thick blue fumes that Deltic locomotives emit, which they even did when factory new. The block design used a lot of oil, which accumulated unburned in the silencers whenever the engines idled at station stops. When pulling up, the silencers heated up again and the oil started to burn up, resulting in tremendous smoke. If it hadn't been for special limited allowances for enthusiast's railway trips in England, these locomotives would have been forbidden to run long ago. Also not widely publicised were the many failures the blocks suffered initially (like failed compression and scraper rings, cracks in cylinder liners and broken piston rods or crankshafts) many of which were related to metallurgy and as yet unknown or misunderstood stresses. Much the same history as with the Wankel engine, which only got much better after Mazda gained sufficient practical knowledge about them.

Greetings from Holland! Gerhard  

nice bit of info gerhard!  

Yea the GM build Detriot Diesel was a 2 stroke engine, now the old 2 strokes to my knowlage are not built anymree and were never available in any sort of passenger vehical or light truck. they were medium and heavy duty diesels for larger trucks construction equipment ans farm equipment. they are still pretty commen though and you cant beat the sound. you can put a Detroit in a pick up. a 6V53 will fit in a fullsixe truck. look up Detroit Diesel pick ups on youtube  

emissions aside, i think a scaled up version of the cr 500 dirtbike motor scaled to a 350 small block or 383 would make such a powerfull off road engine, especially for sand or mudd.