| Throughout WWII, Army Air Corp/Forces Engineering Division Power Plant Laboratory and the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics Engine Laboratory pursued two tantalizing holy grails – forged radial engine cylinder heads and fuel injection. The forged cylinder heads required very large drop forges that were simply not available due to other war-effort priorities. Fuel injection, particularly direct-into-the-cylinder fuel injection, also remained elusive until almost the end of hostilities. Engine manufacturers got by with fuel injection into the supercharger eye (such as by Bendix), but this created a large volume of compressed fuel/air mixture, whose explosion could be catastrophic if a backfire occurred. The Bulova Watch Company, with facilities at Valley Stream, Long Island, New York, and Woodside, Lone Island, New York, was granted an experimental purchase order for fuel injection systems and a production contract to produce the Bendix fuel injection pump. As we shall see, this did not go as planned. This report was released during October 1946. |
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