I've obviously confused quite a few people, so here is a new post to post questions/answers.
Quench is a term to describe the "meeting place" where your piston comes very close to touching the cylinder head. By closing this distance to a very small margin, you can increase compression in the engine while REDUCING it's tenacity to detonate.
Since at least two people believe it's all only theory and nobody is really using it, I provide the following:
<img src="www.abqimportscene.com/phpBB2/attach/red_1011306243_cc_quench.jpg" border=0>
This is a picture of a 100% fully stock cylinder head with some color -- the head off my 98 project engine. The two areas that I have highlighted in green are FACTORY quench pads. Hyundai, just like nearly every other car manufacturer in the WORLD, uses quench to give better fuel economy, make their cars able to use lesser-quality fuel while still running high compression AND without detonating badly.
Here is a diagram of how quench works in our BETA engines -- and basically every other engine that also uses quench:
<img src="www.abqimportscene.com/phpBB2/attach/red_1011306282_diag_quench.jpg" border=0>
When the piston comes to Top Dead Center of the engine, it comes very close to the cylinder head. In stock form, that distance is aroun 0.068 inches (68-thousandths). The factory tolerances are loose like this because you want to factor in carbon buildup, heat expansion and basically just "safety".
However, if you're building up your own super-engine and aren't going to feed it cruddy gas or have it tuned badly (ie it isn't going to have huge carbon deposits) then you can bring these clearances WAY down -- 0.035" has been suggested several places.
That means there is less gap between your piston and cylinder head than there is gap in your spark plug. That very tight tolerance forces the air to violently rush out of those quench pockets, which causes turbulence, which causes the gasoline to keep itself "saturated" in the air and as such burn more evenly.
This also forces all that 'explosion' to happen over a smaller surface area on your piston, resulting in slightly more power.
Questions and comments are welcome, but this is NOT a theoretical situation -- manufacturers have been using this stuff for years.
-Red-
Quench is a term to describe the "meeting place" where your piston comes very close to touching the cylinder head. By closing this distance to a very small margin, you can increase compression in the engine while REDUCING it's tenacity to detonate.
Since at least two people believe it's all only theory and nobody is really using it, I provide the following:
<img src="www.abqimportscene.com/phpBB2/attach/red_1011306243_cc_quench.jpg" border=0>
This is a picture of a 100% fully stock cylinder head with some color -- the head off my 98 project engine. The two areas that I have highlighted in green are FACTORY quench pads. Hyundai, just like nearly every other car manufacturer in the WORLD, uses quench to give better fuel economy, make their cars able to use lesser-quality fuel while still running high compression AND without detonating badly.
Here is a diagram of how quench works in our BETA engines -- and basically every other engine that also uses quench:
<img src="www.abqimportscene.com/phpBB2/attach/red_1011306282_diag_quench.jpg" border=0>
When the piston comes to Top Dead Center of the engine, it comes very close to the cylinder head. In stock form, that distance is aroun 0.068 inches (68-thousandths). The factory tolerances are loose like this because you want to factor in carbon buildup, heat expansion and basically just "safety".
However, if you're building up your own super-engine and aren't going to feed it cruddy gas or have it tuned badly (ie it isn't going to have huge carbon deposits) then you can bring these clearances WAY down -- 0.035" has been suggested several places.
That means there is less gap between your piston and cylinder head than there is gap in your spark plug. That very tight tolerance forces the air to violently rush out of those quench pockets, which causes turbulence, which causes the gasoline to keep itself "saturated" in the air and as such burn more evenly.
This also forces all that 'explosion' to happen over a smaller surface area on your piston, resulting in slightly more power.
Questions and comments are welcome, but this is NOT a theoretical situation -- manufacturers have been using this stuff for years.
-Red-