[blackshine007]

Somender Singh, he's the man who came up with the concept of making grooves in the combustion chamber to increase the burn rate efficiency to therefore ultimately making more power and better gas mileage. During the first phases of combustion, gasses expanding into the Groove with combustion forming a 'jet' aimed at the cylinder wall produces any extra turbulence lost from compromising the integrity of a flat squish area (and then some).The Groove 'seems' to create more mixing (turbulence) in the burning gasses, making sure that more of the fuel/air mixture gets to be completely burned before the exhaust ports open and the engine 'exhales' the used fuel/air mixture. By the way, a -surprising- amount of fuel/air mixture is NOT burned in every single stroke of your typical engine. It is allowed to exit through the tailpipe and is sometimes called pollution. It definitely is wasted fuel that you paid for with good money . Here's some pictures

This is a typical 2 valve head without the grooves and how it burns in the combustion chamber


Without grooves, the combustion is incomplete and unburned fuel remains in the cylinder. This unburned fuel is still expanding during the exhaust stroke. At the end of the exhaust stroke, the expanding unburned gases flow past the intake valve into the intake manifold, causing poor idle, carbon deposits and lower performance. Notice the areas left unburned. This is the extent of the flamefront.

With the modified heads, very little unburned fuel remains during the exhaust stroke. With less burning fuel to expand during the overlap period, the gasses flowing past the intake valve are reduced, resulting in improved idle quality even below 500rpm !
It has been conclusively proven that the Grooves are effective because of the additional benefits they allow: Higher compression ratio, less advance, lower idle speed and lower octane fuel. The difference in a tuned up Grooved engine is simple to understand. If the same tune, advance, and CR was used for an unGrooved engine, it probably wouldn't even start!

Eliminating Ping (also called 'knock' or detonation) allows for an advance setting that is much closer to Top Dead Center (TDC) to get more power from each stroke of the Piston. This quality of a Grooved engine also enables a higher compression ratio with the use of regular octane fuel, thus adding more improvements to the quality of combustion and preventing knock, or worse, 'pre-ignition'. It has been well known that higher compression makes a more efficient engine, that's why diesels work so well. The problem is, that increased compression (pressure) and high temperature also leads to a more volatile combustion chamber and you usually get 'knock', which means the air-fuel mixture in the cylinder is igniting before the spark plug fires.


Shown here are two different types of groove for illustration purposes only. Normally only one type of Groove is used (see photo).
This picture is of a 4 cylinder head which has the grooves cut into it


Here's a video of the grooves being made onto a 4 valve head
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Ss7slCT0Vpw

In case anyone wants to follow up on this new found technology, go to http://www.somender-singh.com/
As for myself, I will be doing it on my car as soon as I buy some new head gaskets. Well, in reality, it will more than likely be the beginning of next year.

[NDM]

hell mann I'm game, looks very easy to do. Theirs a lottt of info out their on this, and I'm suprised no one else brought this up before you. Let me know how it works and what cuts you do, please provide some quantitative data if possible too!

[stealth_626]

interesting stuff! first time ive heard of it actually, but im quite impressed.

thanks for the info blackshine let us know if u plan on doing it to ur 6... i would be very interested to see what ur experience with this would be like.

[blackshine007]

I'm a firm believer in performance and economy. I love how simple this will be, though it may take a few hours to tear the heads off, I'm more than positive that I'll like the end results. The best part of it all is that I'll possibly be able to pass emissions with flying colors by using premium and when doing normal driving, use regular. I think ya'll should get on the bandwagon too

[mrslcom]

It sounds amazing but is it actually proven that it works as expected?
If so, he should have patented such an ingenious design.

[XeNoMoRpH]

I'd like to see dyno sheets before and after the groove. I would also think the design of your heads would make difference in the effectiveness of the groove.

[blackshine007]

The link I provided, someone posted a dyno sheeet in it. One of those SBC guys posted it

[Norm Peterson]

Although I hadn't heard of this before, it looks like it's quite similar in function to the so-called "fire slots" cut through unusually tall piston domes. The same tight quench that promotes mixture turbulence and knock resistance during compression is perhaps too thin of a height to permit good flame front propagation once the fire has been intentionally lit.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the fire slot is more of a two valve pushrod engine tweak as well.

Assuming proper profile and adequate metal thickness, the only likely 'downside' might be a slight degradation in emissions performance as related to the combustion chambers' surface to volume ratio.


Norm

[NDM]

anyone try this yet ?