Manifold

Manifold (pronounced man-uh-fohld)

(1) Of many kinds; numerous and varied:

(2) Having numerous different parts, elements, features, forms, etc.

(3) A copy or facsimile, as of something written, such as is made by manifolding (obsolete except in historic reference).

(4) Any thin, inexpensive paper for making carbon copies on a typewriter (archaic).

(5) In internal combustion engines, the part (1) of the exhaust system attached directly to the exhaust ports and (2) of the induction system attached directly to the inlet ports.

(6) In mathematics, a topological space that locally looks like the ordinary Euclidean space.

(7) The third stomach of a ruminant animal (an omasum) (US (mostly south of the Mason-Dixon Line)), usually in the plural.

(8) In computer graphics, a polygon-mesh representing the continuous closed surface of a solid object.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English adjective manifold (many times, in multiplied number or quantity), from the West Saxon & Old English manigfeald & manigfealde (monigfald was the Anglian variant) (various, varied in appearance, complicated; numerous, abundant), the construct being manig (many) + feald (fold).  From the Proto-Germanic managafalþaz came the common Germanic compound (the Middle High German manecvalt (manifold), the Icelandic margfaldr (multiple), the Old Frisian manichfald, the Middle Dutch menichvout & menigvoudig (various), the Danish mangefold (multiple), the German mannigfalt, the Swedish mångfalt (diversity) and the Gothic managfalþs), it’s thought perhaps a loan-translation of the Latin multiplex (multiply; having many forms) and the Old English also had a verbal form, manigfealdian (to multiply, abound, increase, extend), the meaning later extended to (the now obsolete) “make multiple copies of by a single operation”.  The adverb manigfealdlice (in various ways, manifoldly), was derived from the adjective.

The noun manifold was applied to the mechanical device (“a pipe or chamber, usually of cast metal, with several outlets”) from the mid-1850s and was a short-form (from engineer’s slang) of “manifold pipe” which had been in use since 1845 which originally was applied to the types of musical instruments mentioned in the Old Testament.  The familiar use to describe the components which are part of an internal combustion engine’s intake & exhaust systems dates from 1904 and applied initially to the pipe between a carburetor and the combustion chambers; the existence of exhaust manifolds was noted the following year.

Of manifold sins and wickedness: Lindsay Lohan smoking and smoldering.

 Among those first translating the Bible into English, manifold was a popular word and few phrases more concisely encapsulate the Church’s view of us than “manifold sins and wickedness”.  In the Book of Common Prayer (1549). the Church of England helpfully provided a general confession for those who knew they were wicked sinners (and of presumably greater significance knew that God knew) but had neither the time nor desire to list them all.  Once uttered, it invited God’s forgiveness.  The Book of Common Prayer became controversial within the more liberal factions of the Anglican communion because its more exacting demands were thought to be uninviting to a society which was changing while the Church was not.  However, despite many revisions (including some regionally exclusive to parts of the old colonial empire), sins and wickedness remain manifold in most editions. 

The General Confession from the Book of Common Prayer (1662 edition)

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker of all things, judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, against thy Divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.

We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable.

Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; for thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ's sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life, to the honour and glory of thy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The Duesenberg manifolds

1935 Duesenberg Supercharged J (SJ) dual cowl phaeton with coachwork by LaGrande, the lines made more rakish still by the use of a Rollston V-shaped windshield.

The Duesenberg Model J was admired for it power, exclusivity, speed and coachwork but one aspect which always draws the eye of nerds is the exhaust manifold.  The look most associated with the marquee is that with four flexible pipes emerging from the right side of the bodywork, a motif used not only by Duesenberg’s corporate stablemates Cord and Auburn but also, if less extravagantly, by Mercedes-Benz where it was a feature of many of the supercharged cars of the 1920s and 1930s.

1935 Duesenberg Model J Special Speedster (SSJ)

The official factory designation was always “Model J” and their documents referred to the supercharged cars as the “Supercharged J” but the latter is known universally as the SJ.  The public imagination was further stimulated in 1935 when a short wheelbase version of the SJ was announced.  The factory referred to it as the “Special Speedster” but people preferred SSJ although it was a rare sight as only two were produced before Duesenberg finally succumbed to the effects of the Great Depression.

Of manifold shapes and weaknesses

The original manifolds used with the Model J were a variety of eight-port (8-into-1 in motorcycle parlance) units made from monel (a high-strength alloy of nickel, and copper, blended with carbon, iron & manganese) which engineers called “sewer pipes” (in modern parlance they’re known also as “dump pipes”).  In terms of fluid dynamics they were efficient but, cast in one piece they were prone to cracking as the torsional forces to which they were subject tended to find the weakest points so they were redesigned as two-piece units (4-into-1) which better distributed the loadings.  This improved durability though the propensity for the cast monel to crack wasn’t wholly eliminated and the the eight-pipe design made difficult the installation of the vertically installed supercharger hardware, added to which the heat-soak from the manifold was undesirable so the system was redesigned to used siamesed ports which fed the distinctive four external exhausts.

Memel 8-into-1 "sewer-pipe" manifold on 1934 Duesenberg SJ with the centrally-mounted supercharger fitted between cylinders 4 & 5 (left), the two piece (2 x 4-into-2) monel sewer-pipe manifolds in 1934 Duesenberg J (centre) and 8-into-1 sewer-pipe emerging through the engine-compartment right-side panel (right).  The use of the apple-green color for engine components was a signature feature of the brand.

The externally-routed pipe-work is regarded as one of the most charismatic features of the big Duesenbergs and still it’s associated by many with the presence of a supercharger but some of the SJs used the monel manifolds and, for the most flamboyant, the factory anyway offered the look as a retro-fit option for US$1000 (at a time when a new Ford V8 could be purchased for US$505).  Because of the fragility of the monel pipes and the fashion for the external ducting, only a handful of supercharged cars with the original manifolds are thought to survive.  To those who make a fetish of intricacy, the monel sewer-pipe manifolds are thought the most photogenic of all.

Carburetor

Carburetor (pronounced kahr-buh-rey-ter or kahr-byuh-yey-tor)

(1) A device for mixing vaporized fuel with air to produce a combustible or explosive mixture for use in the cylinder(s) or chambers of an internal-combustion engine.

(2) In the slang of drug users, a water pipe or bong; a device for mixing air with burning cannabis or cocaine (rare since the 1970s and then usually in the form “carb” or “carby”).

1866: From the verb carburate, from the Italian carburate (to mix (air) with hydrocarbons”), an inflection of carburare & the feminine plural of carburato.  As a transitive verb carburet was used mean “to react with carbon”.  Strangely, the exact origin of the word is uncertain but it was likely a portmanteau of carbon (in the sensor of a clipping of hydrocarbon) + burette (a device for dispensing accurately measured quantities of liquid).  The construct was carb (a combined form of carbon) + -uret (an archaic suffix from Modern Latin) (uretum to parallel French words using ure).  The earlier compound carburet (compound of carbon and another substance; now displaced by carbide) was from 1795 and it was used as a verb (to combine with carbon) after 1802.  The use with reference to the fuel systems used in the internal combustion engines of vehicles dates from 1896.  Carburator, carbureter and carburetter were the now obsolete earlier forms and the standard spelling in the UK, Australia & New Zealand is carburettor.  Carb & carby (carbs & carbies the plural) are the the universally used informal terms (gasifer was rare) and although most sources note the shortened forms weren’t recorded until 1942 it’s assumed by most they’d long been in oral use.  Outside of a few (declining) circles, “carb” is probably now more generally recognized as the clipping of carbohydrate.  Carburetor & carburetion are nouns; the noun plural is carburetors.

One carburetor: 1931 Supercharged Duesenberg SJ with 1 x updraft Stromberg (left; the exhaust manifold the rare 8-into-1 monel "sewer-pipe") (left), 1966 Ford GT40 (Mark II, 427) with 1 x downdraft Holly (centre; the exhaust headers were referred to as the "bundle of snakes") and 1960 Austin Seven (later re-named Mini 850) with 1 x sidedraft SU.

Except for some niches in aviation, small engines (lawnmowers, garden equipment etc) and for machines where originality is required (historic competition and restorations), carburetors are now obsolete and have been replaced by fuel-injection.  There is the odd soul who misses the challenge of tinkering with a carburetor, especially those with the rare skill to hand-tune multiple systems like the six downdraft Webers found on some pre-modern Ferraris, but modern fuel injection systems are more precise, more reliable and unaffected by the G-forces which could lead to fuel starvation.  Fuel injection also made possible the tuning of induction systems to produce lower emissions and reduced fuel consumption, the latter something which also extended engine life because all the excess petrol which used to end up contaminating the lubrication system stayed instead in the fuel tank.

Two carburetors: 1970 Triumph Stag with 2 x sidedraft Strombergs (left), 1960 Chrysler 300F with 2 x Carter downdrafts on Sonoramic cross-ram (long) manifold (centre) and 1969 Ford Boss 429 with 2 x Holly downdrafts on hi-riser manifold.

Until the 1920s, all but a handful of specialized devices were simple, gravity-fed units and that was because the engines they supplied were a far cry from the high-speed, high compression things which would follow.  In the 1920s, influenced by improvements in military aviation pioneered during World War I (1914-1918), the first recognizably “modern” carburetors began to appear, the conjunction of adjustable jet metering and vacuum controls replacing the primitive air valves and pressurized fuel supply mechanisms allowed engineers to use a more efficient “downdraft” design, replacing the “updraft” principle necessitated by the use of the gravity-feed.  Between them, the “downdraft” and “sidedraft” (a favorite of European manufacturers) would constitute the bulk of carburetor production.  The next major advance was the “duplexing” of the carburetor’s internals, doubling the number of barrels (known now variously as chokes, throats or venturi).  Although such designs could (and sometimes were) implemented to double the capacity (analogous with the dual-core CPUs (central processing units) introduced in 2005), the greatest benefit was that they worked in conjunction with what was known as the “180^o intake manifold”, essentially a bifurcation of the internals which allowed each barrel to operate independently through the segregated passages, making the delivery more efficient to the most distant cylinders, something of real significance with straight-eight engines.  Few relatively simple advances have delivered such immediate and dramatic increases in performance: When the system was in 1934 applied to the them relatively new Ford V8 (the “Flathead”), power increased by over 25%.

Three carburetors: 1967 Jaguar E-Type (XKE) 4.2 with 3 x sidedraft SUs (left), 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/C with 3 x downdraft Webers (centre) and 1965 Pontiac GTO with 3 x downdraft Rochesters.

Advances however meant the demand for more fuel continued and the first solution was the most obvious: new manifolds which could accommodate two or even three carburetors depending on the configuration of the engine.  Sometimes, the multiple devices would function always in unison and sometimes a secondary unit would cut-in only on demand as engine speed rose and more fuel was needed, an idea manufacturers would perfect during the 1960s.  World War II (1939-1945) of course saw enormous advances in just about every aspect of the design of internal combustion engines (ICE) and carburetors too were improved but in a sense, the concept had plateaued and it was fuel-injection to which most attention was directed, that being something which offered real advantages in flight given it was unaffected by G-forces, atmospheric pressure or acrobatics, working as well in inverted as level flight, something no carburetor could match.

Four carburetors: 1973 Jaguar XJ12 (S1) with 4 x sidedraft Zenith-Strombergs (left; the Jaguar V12 was unusual in that the carburetors sat outside the Vee), 1976 Aston Martin V8 with 4 x downdraft Webers (centre; Aston Martin-Lagonda originally fitted the V8 with fuel injection but it proved troublesome) and 1965 Ford GT40 (X1 Roadster 1, 289) with 4 x downdraft Webers (right, again with the "bundle of snakes" exhaust headers).

After the war, like the chip manufacturers with their multi-core CPUs in the early 2000s, the carburetor makers developed four-barrel devices.  In Europe, the preference for multiple single or two barrel (though they tended to call them “chokes”) induction but in the US, by the early-1950s just beginning the power race which would rage for almost two decades, for the Americans the four-barrel was ideal for their increasingly large V8s although sometimes even the largest available wasn’t enough and the most powerful engines demanded with two four-barrels and three two-barrels.  It was in the 1950s too that fuel-injection reached road cars, appearing first in a marvelously intricate mechanical guise on the 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL (W198) Gullwing.  Others understood the advantages and developed their own fuel-injection systems, both mechanical and electronic but while both worked well, the early electronics were too fragile to be used in such a harsh environment and these attempts were quickly abandoned and not revisited until the revolution in integrated circuits (IC) later in the century.  Mechanical fuel-injection, while it worked well, was expensive and never suitable for the mass-market and even Mercedes-Benz reserved it for their more expensive models, most of the range relying on one or two carburetors.  In the US, Chevrolet persisted with mechanical fuel injection but availability dwindled until only the Corvette offered the option and in 1965 when it was made available with big-block engines which offered more power at half the cost, demand collapsed and the system was discontinued, the big engines fed either by three two barrels or one very large four barrel.

Six carburetors: 1979 Honda CBX with six sidedraft Keihins (left), 1965 Lamborghini P400 Miura (prototype chassis) with 6 x downdraft Webers (centre) and 1970 Ferrari 365GTB/4 (Daytona) with 6 x downdraft Webers (right).

It was the development of these big four barrels which in the US reduced the place of the multiple systems to a niche reserved for some specialist machines and even the engineers admitted that for what most people did, most of the time, the multiple setups offered no advantage.  The research did however indicate they were still a selling point and because people were still prepared to pay, they stayed on the option list.  There were a handful of engines which actually needed the additional equipment to deliver maximum power but they were rare, racing derived units and constituted not even 1% of Detroit’s annual production.  Paradoxically, the main advantage of the multiple setups was economy, a six-barrel (ie 3 x two-barrel) engine running only on its central carburetor unless the throttle was pushed open.  As it was, the last of Detroit’s three-carb setups was sold in 1971, the configuration unable easily to be engineered to meet the increasingly onerous exhaust emission rules.

Eight carburetors: 1955 Moto Guzzi 500cm³ Ottocilindri V8 Grand Prix motorcycle with 8 x Dell'Ortos.  One carburetor per cylinder was long common practice in motorcycle design and the 1959 Daimler V8, designed along the lines of a motorcycle power-plant, was originally designed to be air-cooled and run 8 carburetors.  The production version was water-cooled and used 2 x sidedraft SUs.

Lindsay Lohan admiring Herbie’s carburetors (Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005)).

Polysphere

Polysphere (pronounced pol-ee-sfeer)

(1) In mathematics, a product of spheres.

(2) In mechanical engineering, a design of combustion chamber formed by the two shallow concave domes under the intake and exhaust valve seats.

1955: A compound word, the construct being poly + sphere.  Poly is from the Ancient Greek πολύς (polús or polys) (many, much), from the primitive Indo-European polhiús (much, many) from the root pele (to fill), akin to the Old English fela (many).  Sphere is from the Middle English spere, from the Old French spere, from the Late Latin sphēra, from the Classical Latin sphaera (ball, globe, celestial sphere), from the Ancient Greek σφαῖρα (sphaîra) (ball, globe), of unknown origin.  Despite spread of the myth by some medieval writes, sphere is not related to superficially similar Persian سپهر‎ (sepehr) (sky).  Poly, in modern English (especially in industrial and scientific application) use became a word-forming element meaning "many, much, multi-, one or more" with derivatives referring to multitudinousness or abundance.  It was equivalent to the Latin multi- and should properly be used in compounds only with words of Greek origin but this, etymologically slutty English ignores.  Polysphere is a noun and polyspheric is an adjective; the noun plural is polyspheres.

Chrysler, the poly, the hemi and the hemi which is really a poly

Chrysler didn’t invent hemispherical combustion chambers but they certainly made a cult of them.  In internal combustion engines of the mid-late twentieth century, the hemispherical combustion chamber was one of the best designs with with to provide an efficient burn-space while minimizing thermal loss and permitting the use of large diameter canted-valves to optimize intake and exhaust flow.  The early Chrysler Hemi V8s (1951-1958) were the most powerful of their generation but there were drawbacks.  To take advantage of the large valves at diverging angles, the valve train assembly was both bulky and heavy, needing two rocker shafts rather than the single units used with in-line arrangements.  Adding to the cost and complication were the inherently more expensive casting and machining processes required to produce the hemispherical shape of the combustion chambers in the cylinder heads.  To enable the mass-production of a less expensive V8 to use in their lower-priced lines, Chrysler created new cylinder heads with polyspheric (two shallow concave domes under the valves and named the “Poly”) combustion chambers and a less elaborate system of valve activation which needed only a single rocker shaft.  Although less powerful than the Hemis, the Polys were cheaper and lighter although it wouldn’t be until the 1960s that Chrysler standardized engines across their divisions; an early adoption of such economies of scale might have saved the corporation more money than retaining an exclusively Hemi-headed line would have cost.

The Hemi, 1951-1958 & 1964-1971 (left), the polyspheric, 1955-1967 (centre) and the new "Hemi" which is really a swirl Chamber, 2003- (right).

However, the Poly proved a cul-de-sac.  In an era of cheap petrol, larger capacity engines proved a more attractive route to horsepower than sophisticated combustion chamber design and the Hemis were retired in 1958, replaced by larger engines with wedge-shaped chambers, used by other manufacturers and much more suited to mass-production.  Consigned to the grave with the Hemis were almost all the Polys, only the 318 V8 (5.2 litre) retained as a rare oddity until 1967.  The Hemi would return, available between 1964-1971 as a 426 cubic inch (7.0 litre) race engine (there were also some reduced displacement versions to satisfy local rules) which, for homologation purposes would in 1966 be released in slightly detuned form detuned for street use.  The name however held such an allure that it was revived in 2003 for Chrysler's new (and perhaps final) generation of V8s although in the narrow technical sense, Hemi is now more a marketing than an engineering term because the twenty-first century combustion chambers are something of a hybrid of hemispheric and polyspheric, the general term describing them for the last fifty-odd years being swirl chambers, a design which makes possible a high out-output of power, low emissions and an economy in operation which would have been thought impossible to achieve as recently as the 1980s.

Lindsay Lohan with polyspheric hair.  Polyspheric hair styles are possible, the classic example of which is the symmetrical “twin dome” look which is difficult exactly to achieve and harder still to maintain for more than a brief time.  They’re thus seen usually only at photo-shoots or for one-off events but the design element is popular with asymmetric styles.

When Chrysler in 1964 introduced the 273 cubic inch (4.5 litre) V8 as the first of its LA-Series (that would begat the later 318, 340 & 360 (the V10 Magnum used in the Dodge Viper is also as descendent)), the most obvious visual difference from the earlier A-Series V8s was the noticeably smaller cylinder heads.  The A engines used as skew-type valve arrangement in which the exhaust valve was parallel to the bore with the intake valve tipped toward the intake manifold (the classic polyspherical chamber).  For the LA, Chrysler rendered all the valves tipped to the intake manifold and in-line (as viewed from the front), the industry’s standard approach to a wedge combustion chamber.  The reason for the change was that the decision had been taken to offer the compact Valiant with a V8 but it was a car which had been designed to accommodate only a straight-six and the wide-shouldered polyspheric head A-Series V8s simply wouldn’t fit.  So, essentially, wedge-heads were bolted atop the old A-Series block but the “L” in LA stood for light and the engineers wanted something genuinely lighter for the compact (in contemporary US terms) Valiant.  Accordingly, in addition to the reduced size of the heads and intake manifold, a new casting process was developed for the block (the biggest, heaviest part of an engine) which made possible thinner walls.  With the exception of the Hemis, the new big-block engines used wedge-heads and the small block polyspheres (the A-Series) were replaced by the LA except for an export version of the 313 (5.1 litre) which in small numbers was manufactured until 1965 and the 318, the last of which was fitted in 1967.  Confusingly, the replacement LA engine was also a 318, a product of carrying over certain components, both the 318-A & 318-LA sharing the same bore & stroke.  In an example of production-line rationalization, when Chrysler Australia bored out their 245 cubic inch (4.0 litre) Hemi-6 to create the 265 (4.3), the bore chosen was the same as the 318s so pistons could have been shared with the V8 although for technical reasons this wasn't actually done.  The Australian "Hemi" straight sixes used another variation of the combustion chamber in that chambers sat in upper third of the globe, hence the "low hemispherical" slang which wasn't wholly accurate but Ford's Boss 429 V8 had already been dubbed the "semi-hemi" and linguistic novelty was becoming hard to find.

Sonoramic

Sonoramic (pronounced sonn-o-ram-ick)

A form of enhanced induction for internal combustion engines; sometimes called cross-ram or long-ram induction.

1959:  A compound word constructed by engineers (apparently with no contribution from the marketing department), the construct being the Latin sonō (make a noise, sound) + the English ram + -ic.  Sonō was from the primitive Indo-European swenhe (to sound, resound) which was cognate with the Sanskrit स्वनति (svanati) (to sound, resound).  The more productive Latin derivative was Latin sonus (sound, a noise) from the primitive Indo-European swon-o, again from the root swenhe.  Ram was from the Old English ramm (in the sense of "battering ram", from the Old High German ram, thought probably related to the Old Norse rammr (strong) and the Old Church Slavonic ramenu (impetuous, violent).  The suffix -ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The engineers were influenced in their coining of sonoramic by the debut three years earlier of the sonogram (thereby creating sonogramic), a form of diagnostic imaging used in medicine.

Fluid dynamics and resonant conditions

1960 Chrysler 300F with long-ram Sonoramic 413 cid (6.8 litre) wedge V8.

All else being equal, increasing the volume of the fuel-air mixture (energy input) flowing through an internal combustion engine increases power and torque (energy output).  This can be done with an external device such as a supercharger, or resonance can be created in the induction system by designing a passage which uses the physics of fluid dynamics to increase pressure in specific spaces.  Obviously uninvolved in the engineering, Chrysler’s marketing people claimed in 1960 that the Sonoramic was new technology but it’d been used in racing engines for years, the mathematical equations determining acoustics & resonance having been published by German physicist and physician Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821–1894) in an 1863 scientific paper.  Indeed, the concept had before been used on road cars but always in a discrete manner but what Chrysler did in 1959 with the long-tube ram-runners was make a dramatic fashion statement in designer colors.

Representation of fluid dynamics under specific resonant conditions.

Essentially, the Sonoramic is an implementation of Sir Isaac Newton's (1642–1727) first law of motion, more commonly known as the law of inertia: “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion” and it’s the second part which Sonoramic exploited.  During the intake cycle of an engine, the fuel-air mix flows through the intake manifold, past the intake valve, and into the cylinder, then the intake valve shuts.  At that point, the law of inertia comes into play: Because the air was in motion, it wants to stay in motion but can’t because the valve is shut so it piles up against the valve with something of a concertina effect.  With one piece of air piling up on the next, the air becomes compressed and this compressed air has to go somewhere so it turns around and flows back through the intake manifold in the form of a pressure wave.  This pressure wave bounces back and forth in the runner and if it arrives back at the intake valve when the valve opens, it’s drawn into the engine.  This bouncing pressure wave of air and the proper arrival time at the intake valve creates a low-pressure form of supercharging but for this to be achieved all variables have to be aligned so the pressure wave arrives at the intake valve at the right time.  This combination of synchronized events is known as the "resonant conditions".

Long and short-tube Sonoramic intake manifolds.

Most of the Sonoramics produced were long-tubes with a tuned internal-length of thirty inches (760mm), generating prodigious quantities of mid-range torque, ideal for overtaking under highway conditions.  These characteristics were ideal for road cars but also built were a small number of the so-called short-tube Sonoramics, a somewhat misleading term because they shared the external dimensions of the standard devices, the difference being that only a fifteen-inch (380mm) length of the internal passages were resonance-tuned and this, at the expense of mid-range torque, produced much more power high in the rev-range making them more suitable for competition.  Used by Chrysler to set a number of speed records, these were the most charismatic of the breed and a handful were built with manual gearboxes.  At auction, in November 2010, the sole 1960 Chrysler 300F short-tube Sonoramic convertible with the Pont-a-Mousson 4-speed gearbox, sold for US$437,250.

1960 Chrysler 300F long-ram Sonoramic 413 cid (6.8 litre) wedge V8.

The first four generations of the 300 letter series had used increasingly larger versions of the Hemi V8 and the 1958 300D (with a 392 V8) even offered the novelty of a very expensive fuel-injection option but, unlike the mechanical systems offered by Mercedes-Benz, Chevrolet and a handful of others, the Bendix "Electrojector" system used a rudimentary computer which proved unreliable and most were returned to the dealer to be retro-fitted with carburettors.  The Hemi, heavy and expensive to produce, was in 1959’s 300E replaced by the larger capacity, wedge-head 413 which matched it for power but lacked the mystique, something substantially restored in 1960 when the 300F debuted with the sexy Sonoramic.  Ram Induction today is common, although contemporary designs, integrated with fuel-injection systems, are not as photogenic as the original Sonoramics.  As well as raw aluminium, the tubes were available in the designer colors of the time, red, gold and blue; red ones are thought most cool.

Republic P-47 Thunderbolt test-bed with XI-2200 V16 (1945).

Chrysler’s interest in ram tuning was an outgrowth of the desire to exploit the findings of research undertaken during the war developing very high-performance piston engines for fighter aircraft.  This had culminated in the XI-2220, a 2,220 cubic inch (36.4 litre) V16 aero-engine which, rated at 2450 horsepower, was tested in a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, an appropriate platform given that the P47 was then the biggest, heaviest single-engined fighter ever to enter service (among piston-engined aircraft it still is).  Although the indications were that close to 4000 horsepower was achievable (at least for short durations), with the advent of the jet engine the days of the big piston-engined fighters were nearly done.  The V16 project was cancelled, a fate suffered also by the other outstanding big aero-engine of that last generation: the Napier-Sabre H24.

XI-2220, V16 aircraft engine (1944-1945).

The lessons learned however would be applied on the ground instead of in the skies because although big capacity piston engines had mostly been rendered obsolete for aircraft, a few generations of some just a bit smaller were about to start roaming American roads.  The cars and their engines would be like nothing before seen, Chrysler adopting for their new 331 cubic inch (5.4 litre) V8 in 1951 the V16’s hemispherical combustion chambers, a feature it would use for most of that decade and the next and such was the aura of the name that it’s used still, even if things are now a bit less hemispherical than before.

Chrysler A-311 V8 experimental engine.

The new Hemi V8 had obvious performance potential and the engineers experimented with the tuned-length induction system used on the V16 before the final supercharger/turbocharger combination was adopted.  So successful was the ram-tuned engine (named A-311) that attempts were made to contest the 1952 Indianapolis 500 but the race’s sanctioning body understood the implications the remarkable new powerplant would have on their carefully-curated ecosystem of owners and sponsors and declared it didn’t comply with the rules, even tweaking them a bit to ensure it never would.

Ramcharger Club’s 1949 Plymouth with extreme ram-charging.

The research however continued and, although it’s not clear to what extent their efforts received factory-support, in the late 1950s some young engineers formed the drag racing-focused Ramchargers Club using, somewhat improbably, a 1949 Plymouth with a particularly extravagant implementation of the technology, the surrealistically tall intake manifold, a device built for dynamometer testing and never intended for a moving vehicle.  The dubbed the Plymouth "High & Mighty".  Bizarre it may have looked but the cartoon-like Plymouth achieved results which vindicated the approach and the system was introduced on 1960 Plymouths, Dodges and Chryslers, the highest evolution of Sonoramic offered on the Chrysler 300 letter series cars until 1964.  Interestingly, while it was only Plymouth which used the Sonoramic name, Dodge labelling the system D-500 Ram Induction and Chrysler simply Ram Induction, all of them are commonly referred to as Sonoramics.

Lindsay Lohan enjoying the effects of fluid dynamics.

Not content with applying the science of fluid dynamics only to the induction system, the Ramchargers used it also for the exhaust headers.  Rather than additional power, the commendably juvenile quest was for noise, the exaggerated, trumpet-like tubes using the megaphone principle which increases volume by raising acoustic impedance.  The desired result was achieved and although there's no record of anyone with a decibel-meter taking a reading, the old Plymouth was said to be spectacularly loud.  Megaphone exhausts were subsequently banned.    

Chrysler Slant Six with Hyper-Pak.

Chrysler didn’t restrict the ram induction idea to the big-block V8s, using it also on the short-lived Hyper-Pak performance option for the 170 cubic inch (2.8 litre, 1959-1969) version of their Slant Six, the engineers taking advantage of the space afforded by the angled block to permit the curvaceous intake runners nearly to fill the engine bay.  The Hyper-Pak’s life was limited because it was a victim of its own success.  Although less suitable for street use because it turned the mild-mannered straight-six into something happiest at close to full throttle, in the race events for which it was eligible it proved unbeatable, dominating the competition for two years, compelling the sanctioning body cancel the series.  Although it was the longer lived 225 cubic inch (3.7 litre, 1960-2000) version which gained the Slant Six its stellar reputation for durability and the ease with with additional power could be extracted, there's always been a following for the short-stroke 170 because of its European-like willingness to rev, the characteristics of the over-square engine (unique among the slant-six's three displacements (170-198-225)) unusually lively for a US straight-six.  Despite some aspects of the specification being modest (there were only four main bearings although they were the beefy units used in the 426 cubic inch Street Hemi V8), for much of its life it used a tough forged steel crankshaft and high-speed tolerant solid valve lifters, it was a famously robust engine.  Despite that, after the Hyper-Pak affair, Chrysler showed little interest in any performance potential, knowing the US preference for V8s, something which doomed also Pontiac's short-lived single overhead camshaft (SOHC) straight-six (1966-1969).  A version of the 225 with a two-barrel carburettor (rated at 160 horsepower, an increase of 15 over the standard unit) was offered in some non-North American markets where V8 sales were not dominant and it proved very popular in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Central & South America.  Only when tighter US emission regulations forced its adoption did a two-barrel 225 appear in the home market but it was installed to minimize power losses rather than seek gains.

Dump

Dump (pronounced duhmp)

(1) To drop something or let fall in a mass; fling down or drop heavily or suddenly.

(2) To empty the contents of something (by tilting, overturning etc).

(3) To dismiss, fire, or release from a contract.

(4) In informal (and very common) use, to end a relationship with someone (especially a romantic partner), used mostly when the action is one-sided although there are many mutual dumpings, even if some are technically retrospective.

(5) Suddenly to transfer or rid oneself of some responsibility, task or duty.

(6) In the slang of boxing (1) to knock down an opponent & (2) intentionally to lose a match.

(7) In commerce (1) to put (goods or securities) on the market in large quantities and at a low price without regard to the effect on market conditions or (2) deliberately to offer goods in large quantities or at prices below the cost of production & distribution in an attempt to drive out competition.

(8) In international trade, to sell (goods) into foreign markets below cost in order to promote exports or damage foreign competition.

(9) In computers, (1) to print, display or record on an output medium the contents of a computer's internal storage or the contents of a file, often at the time a program fails, later to be used to debug or determine the cause or point of failure or (2) as screen dump, to print or create an image file of the screen’s display.

(10) Of precipitation (rain, hail & (especially) snow), heavy downfalls.

(11) In historic use, a small coin made by punching a hole in a larger coin (called a holey dollar and issued in both Canada and Australia).

(12) A deep hole in a river bed; a pool (a northern England regionalism).

(13) In slang, to kill; to arrange or commit murder.

(14) To fall or drop down suddenly.

(15) To throw away, discard etc something.

(16) In informal use, to complain, criticize, gossip, or tell another person one's problems (often as “to dump on”); to treat with disrespect, especially to criticize harshly or attack with verbal abuse.

(17) In vulgar slang, an evacuation of the bowels; to defecate (often as “take a dump”; men especially fond of the phrase “huge dump”).

(18) An accumulation of discarded garbage, refuse etc; a tip or landfill site, also called a dumpsite or dumping-ground.

(19) In military use, a collection of ammunition, stores, etc, deposited at some point, as near a battlefront, for distribution (ammo dump, fuel dump etc).

(20) In mining, a runway or embankment equipped with tripping devices, from which low-grade ore, rock etc., are dumped; the pile of stuff, so dumped.

(21) In informal use, a place, house or town (even a state or entire country according to some) that is dilapidated, dirty, or disreputable.

(22) In merchandising, a bin or specially made carton in which items are displayed for sale.

(23) In surfing (of a wave) to hurl a swimmer or surfer down.

(24) To compact bales of wool by hydraulic pressure (Australian and New Zealand).

(25) A mournful song; a lament; a melancholy strain or tune in music; any tune (obsolete).

(26) A sad, gloomy state of the mind; sadness; melancholy; despondency (usually in the form “down in the dumps”).

(27) Absence of mind; reverie (now rare).

(28) Heavily to knock; to stump (Scottish, obsolete).

(29) A thick, ill-shapen piece (UK, archaic).

(30) A lead counter used in the game of chuck-farthing (UK, archaic).

(31) A type of dance (obsolete).

1300–1350: From the Middle English dompen & dumpen (to fall suddenly, plunge), from the Old Norse dumpa (to thump, strike, bump).  The modern senses of the transitive verb and noun are unknown prior to the nineteenth century and may either be from another source or are an independent expressive formation.  There may have been some Scandinavian influence such as the Norwegian dumpa (suddenly to fall) which may also be linked with other Germanic forms such as the Middle Low German dumpeln (to duck) and the Danish dumpe (suddenly to fall).  The use in the sense of “hole used for the disposal of unwanted items by burying” was a development of the Scots dump (hole in the ground), the Norwegian dump (a depression or hole in the ground), the German Low German dumpen (to submerge) and the Dutch dompen (to dip, sink, submerge), something obviously not unrelated to the early fourteenth century meaning “throw down or fall with force, drop (something or someone) suddenly” which didn’t exist in Old English.  The modern use is actually most modern, the sense “unload en masse, cause to fall out by tilting up a cart etc” not recorded until it emerged in American English by 1784 while that of “discard, abandon” dates from 1919.  The use in economics to describe “export or throw on the market in large quantities at low prices” was first noted in 1868 in the context of anti-competitive practices.  A dumping ground was first documented in 1842 although the term may earlier have been in oral use.  Dump & dumping are nouns & verbs, dumped is a verb, dumper & dumpage are nouns and dumpy is an adjective; the noun plural is dumps.

By 1865, the noun dump was understood as place “where refuse is dumped, piled or heaped; a repository of refuse matter” and applied originally to extractive mining as a development of the verb, the use extending to sites for discarding domestic rubbish by 1872, the earlier “dumping-ground” common by 1857.  The meaning “any shabby or dilapidated place” dates from 1899 while the use by the military to describe places for the “collection of ammunition, equipment etc, deposited at a convenient point for later distribution” was a product of World War I (1914-1918), noted first in 1915 and possibly a development from soldiers’ slang although the later war-time slang to mean “act of defecating” appears to be of civilian origin, noted first in the US in 1942.  The dump-truck was first so described in 1930s and although truck had for decades been used to dump stuff, the name was derived from the use of hydraulic rams to enable to load more quickly to be emptied by raising the load bed or freight compartment at an acute angle.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, 2011.

The “Dempster-Dumpster trash-hauling mechanism” remains familiar as the modern “dumpster”, a large, mobile container designed to be removed by a truck and taken away so the contented could be dumped in a dump, the container quickly reused.  It was patented by the Dempster brothers of Knoxville, Tennessee who ran an operation manufacturing waste collection vehicles (which would eventually include the Dempster Dumpmaster and Dempster Dinosaur).  The Dempster-Dumpster system achieved success by creating a system of mechanically emptying standardized metal containers which had been perfected between 1935-1937.  The concept of the dumpster (a standardized design able to be stored, re-used and transported efficiently) later influenced the development of container shipping.  The name dumpster became generic and was itself linguistically productive: “dumpster diving” (1979) described the practice of scavenging from dumpsters while “dumpster fire” was a figurative reference to a situation at once calamitous, foul and either insoluble or, if fixable, not worth the effort.  In use, a “dumpster fire” is similar to a “train wreck” or “shit show” but different from a “hot mess”, hot messes worth fixing because they remain in essence, desirable.  The use of “dumpster fire” spiked in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election, used not only by both camps but also disillusioned neutrals.

The noun landfill dates from 1916 was a euphemism for dump although unlike some of the breed, it was at least literally true.  The adjective dumpy (short and stout) was from circa 1750 and the origin is undocumented but many etymologists assume it was linked to dumpling (mass of boiled paste (also “a wrapping in which something is boiled”)) which dates from circa 1600 and was from the Norfolk dialect, again of uncertain origin but the source may be Germanic or simply from “lump” (and there are those who argue dumplings were probably originally “lumplings”).  Lump was from the Middle English lumpe, from a Germanic base akin to the Proto-Germanic limpaną (to glide, go, loosely to hang).  “Humpty Dumpty” was a French nursery rhyme hero (it seems first to have been translated into English in 1810) and in the late eighteenth century it had been used to mean “a short, clumsy person of either sex”, presumably a reduplication of Humpty (a pet form of Humphrey (which was used of mandarin Sir Humphrey Appleby in the BBC Television comedy Yes Minister) although a humpty-dumpty in the 1690s was originally was a drink, a cocktail of “ale boiled with brandy” which probably tasted better than it sounds.  The construction was based presumably on hump and dump but the basis has eluded researchers.  In the late twentieth century, “hump & dump” was repurposed to describe the practice (habit, calling, tactic, whatever) of enticing a woman in order to enjoy sex and immediately afterwards leaving, never to ring or call.  It’s subsequently be claimed by bolshie women for much the same purpose; the variations included “fuck & chuck”, “pump & dump:, “jump and dump” and “smash and dash”.

Crooked Hillary dumping on deplorables, Georgia, 2016.

Big buses have long been used by politicians for their campaign tours.  They offer lots of advantages, being offices and communications centres with at least some of their running costs offset by a reduction in staff travel expenses.  Additionally, with five large, flat surfaces, they are a rolling billboard although that can be good or bad.  In 2016, one of crooked Hillary Clinton’s campaign buses was photographed in Lawrenceville, Georgia dumping a tank full of human waste onto the street and into a storm drain.  The local news service reported that when police attended the street was “…was covered in toilet paper and the odor was noxious”.  Hazmat crews were called to clean up the scene and the matter was referred to the environmental protection division of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources.  The Democratic National Committee (DNC) later issued an apology, claiming the incident was “an honest mistake.”  Using the word “honest” in any statement related to crooked Hillary Clinton is always a bit of a gamble and there was no word on whether the dumping of human excrement had been delayed until the bus was somewhere it was thought many deplorables may be living.  If so, that may have been another “honest mistake” because Gwinett County (in which lies Lawrenceville) voted 51.02% Clinton/Kaine & 45.14% Trump/Pence although the symbolism may not have been lost on much of the rest of Georgia; state wide the Republican ticket prevailed 50.38% to 45.29%.

Dump has been quite productive.  A “dump-pipe” is part of the exhaust system in an internal combustion engine; a “brain dump” or “info dump” is the transfer of a large quantity of information or knowledge from one person (or institution) to another, although it’s also used in the slang of those working in the theoretical realm of the digitizing of human consciousness; a block dump was an image contains the sectors read from an original floppy diskette or optical disc; “dump months” are those periods during which film distributers & television programmers scheduled content either of poor-quality or of limited appeal; a “dump job” was either (1) the act of moving a corpse or some incriminating material from the scene of the crime to some un-related place, preferably remote & deserted or (2) the abandonment of an unfinished task for which the abandoner might be expected to take responsibility, especially in a fashion that makes it likely that one or more colleagues will take on its completion; the “mag dump” was military slang for the act of firing an entire magazine-full of ammunition from a fully-automatic weapon in a single burst; “dumpsville” could be either (1) the figurative location of a person who has been dumped by a lover or (2) a description of an undesirable town or other locality; to be “down in the dumps” is to be depressed, miserable and unhappy.

An electrically controlled exhaust system "cut-out", the modern version of the old, mechanical, "by-passes".  All dump-pipes work by offering exhaust gasses a "shortcut" to the atmosphere.

In internal combustion engines (ICE), there are both down-pipes and dump-pipes.  Their functions differ and the term down-pipe is a little misleading because some down-pipes (especially on static engines) actually are installed in a sideways or upwards direction but in automotive use, most do tend downwards.  A down-pipe connects the exhaust manifold to exhaust system components beyond, leading typically to first a catalytic converter and then a muffler (silencer), most factory installations designed deliberately to be restrictive in order to comply with modern regulations limiting emissions and noise.  After-market down-pipes tend to be larger in diameter and are made with fewer bends to improve exhaust gas flow, reduce back-pressure and (hopefully) increase horsepower and torque.   Such modifications are popular but not necessarily lawful.  Technically, a dump-pipe is a subset of the down-pipes and is most associated with engines using forced aspiration (turbo- & some forms of supercharging).  With forced-induction, exhaust gases exiting the manifold spin a turbine (turbocharger) or drive a compressor (supercharger) to force more of the fuel-air mixture into the combustion chambers, thereby increasing power.  What a dump-pipe does is provide a rapid, short-path exit for exhaust gases to be expelled directly into the atmosphere before reaching a down-pipe.  That makes for more power and noise, desirable attributes for the target market.  A dump pipe is thus an exit or gate from the exhaust system which can be opened manually, electronically, or with a “blow-off” valve which opens when pressure reaches a certain level.  In the happy (though more polluted) days when regulations were few, the same thing was achieved with an exhaust “by-pass” or “cut-out” which was a mechanical gate in the down-pipe and even then such things were almost always unlawful but it was a more tolerant time.  Such devices, lawful and otherwise, are still installed.

Grab from a Microsoft Windows system dump.  Although dumps contain much, of the thousands of lines one might contain, only a small string of text in one line might be relevant and users may need some assistance to interpret the result. 

In computing, a system dump is typically a commitment to a file of what exists in memory (random access memory (RAM) or on a paged volume) and they’re created usually at points of failure, creating essentially a snapshot of what was happening either at or immediately prior to the unfortunate event.  The contents of a system dump can be used to identify errors and debug programs.  A “stand-alone dump” program (a SAD or SADMP) produces a dump occupied by either (1) a system that failed or (2) a stand-alone dump program that failed.  Either the stand-alone dump program dumped itself (a self-dump) or the operator loaded another stand-alone dump program to dump the failed stand-alone dump program.  It’s less ominous than it sounds and together, the stand-alone dump program and the stand-alone dump together form what is known as the stand-alone dump service aid.  The significance of the element “stand-alone” is that the dump is performed separately from normal system operations and does not require a system to be in a condition for normal operation.  It means that except in cases of catastrophic failure (especially if involving the total loss of mains & UPS (uninterruptable power supply) power, it should be possible always to create a high-speed, unformatted dump of central storage and parts of paged-out virtual storage on a tape device or a direct access storage device (DASD).  The stand-alone dump supplies information which can be used to determine why the system or the stand-alone dump program failed.