Harold Caminez: Internal Combustion Engine ~ US Patent #
1,714,847

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**Harold CAMINEZ**

**IC Engine**

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**Popular Science Magazine (August 1926)**



**"Amazing New Motor Runs without
Crankshaft or Gears"**

Possible revolutionizing of the
production of gasoline motors is seen in the invention of an
amazing type of engine that recently made a successful
airplane test flight at Farmingdale, LI. Its inventor is
Harold Caminez, formerly of the Engine Design Section, US Army
Air Service.

Internally, the novel motor is
constructed along radically different lines from other
aircraft engines. There is no crankshaft. Nor are there timing
gears.

In place of the usual crankshaft
there a plain, straight shaft on which is mounted a large
steel cam that is shaped like a figure 8. It is placed
directly in line with the centers of the cylinders so that it
engages with roller bearings mounted in each piston. These
roller bearings are specially built with large diameter outer
races. Four lightweight connecting rods or links are so
arranged on bearings in each piston that when the cam pushes
the pistons in two of the cylinders toward the cylinder head,
the links pull the other two pistons down and keep the roller
bearings in them in contact with the cam. These links are far
lighter than the connecting rods in the ordinary engine,
because their only function is to pull the piston down on the
intake stroke and they consequently do not have to bear any of
the strain of the power stroke.

Gasoline engines of the modern type
develop the most power when they are run at high speed, higher
in fact than is desirable for best efficiency with an airplane
propeller. The new Caminez engine takes care of this
difficulty in a most ingenious way. Because the cam is made
like a figure 8 the pistons make two complete strokes up and
down for each revolution of the shaft on which the cam is
mounted. In an ordinary engine, the pistons make one stroke up
and down for each revolution of the crankshaft. In other
words, the shaft of the new engine revolves at half the usual
speed. This means high and efficient speed for the pistons
combined with the most desirable speed for the air propeller.

Incidentally, this doubling up of
the piston strokes means that no gears are needed to run a
camshaft to operate the overhead valves. The main shaft of the
Caminez engine turns at the same speed in relation to the
piston movements as does the camshaft in the ordinary motor.
He new engine therefore gets along without camshaft or gears
to drive it.

But of still more importance from
the point of view of durability and smoothness of running is
the fact that the new engine is the first four-cylinder motor
that is inherently balanced mechanically so that there is no
vibration caused by the moving parts.

**Figure 1: Showing the Figure-8 Shaped cam, which is
rotated by round bearings mounted in each piston,
eliminating the crankshaft ~**

![](1campsci.gif)

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**US Patent 1,714,847**

**"Internal Combustion Engine"**

**Harold Caminez**

(28 May 1929)

![](1camusp1.gif)

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