Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

Chin-Hsiu Li

Anil Kumar Sachdev

Yhu-Tin Lin

Alexander Millerman

Sherif Hussein El Tahry

Brian Daniel Kaminski

Thomas J Klakulak

An automotive reciprocating engine design is disclosed preferably including an extruded cylinder bore block with cylinder bores and a surrounding coolant passage extending from a top flat surface to a bottom flat surface; a cast, closed bottom, open top crankcase with vertical walls having flat upper surfaces; and a stamped metal mid-plate interposed in sealing relationship between the bottom surface of the cylinder block and the flat top surfaces of the crankcase. The crankcase contains bearing supports for a crankshaft and the mid-plate contains holes for connecting rods attached to pistons in the cylinder bores. The design facilitates low cost manufacture of strong, light weight components and easier assembly of the engine, and permits flexible manufacture of a family of engines with different displacements by substitution of a cylinder block of different length or of different bore diameter.

Modular engine architecture

An internal combustion engine has a connecting rod which interconnects the engine crankshaft with a piston. The connecting rod is a flexible member which has one section connected with the piston and another section connected with the crankshaft and a spring or lost motion member interconnecting the two sections. When the forces imposed on the flexible connecting rod are sufficiently high, the spring member will permit the two sections to approach each other, thereby shortening the length of the flexible connecting rod and increasing the volume in a combustion chamber formed between the piston and an engine cylinder in which it is reciprocably disposed.

Flexible connecting rod

A cylinder block, often a siamese cylinder block, for an internal combustion engine having a heat pipe located in each of the common walls between adjacent cylinders where at least one of the ends of each heat pipe extends into the cylinder block coolant passage such that heat emanating from each cylinder flows into an adjacent portion of one or more heat pipes and flows through the pipes by continuous evaporation and condensation of the pipe's working fluid into the engine coolant.

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Bloomfield Hills, MI, United States of America

Chin-Hsiu Li