50 Fun Facts About Diesel Engines

In which European capital was Rudolf Diesel, the diesel engine's German inventor, born to Bavarian parents?

Paris was home because his father, a bookbinder from Bavaria, had settled there to make leather goods. The family was deported to England when the Franco-Prussian War broke out.

Which German airship crossed the Atlantic on four Daimler-Benz diesel engines, each with sixteen cylinders?

Hindenburg carried each diesel in its own engine car outside the hull, where a mechanic stood watch at all times to carry out orders sent from the control car.

Which American beer baron bought the rights to build Rudolf Diesel's engines in the United States?

Adolphus Busch, co-founder of Anheuser-Busch, set up the Diesel Motor Company to assemble the engines in America, having licensed the rights for the US and Canada in 1897.

Which carmaker was caught in 2015 using hidden software to cheat American emissions tests on its diesel cars?

Volkswagen fitted the software to about 11 million cars worldwide and later pleaded guilty to criminal charges, in a scandal that was soon nicknamed Dieselgate.

A small diesel engine shown at a world's fair in 1900 ran unnoticed on which plant-based fuel?

Peanut oil was tried at the French government's suggestion, and Rudolf Diesel wrote that the engine worked so well on it that very few people were aware of the switch.

The world's largest reciprocating engine, the Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C diesel, was built to drive which vessels?

Container ships get the fourteen-cylinder version, which stands 13.5 metres high, is more than 26 metres long and weighs over 2,300 tonnes.

What ignites the fuel inside a diesel engine, which unlike a petrol engine has no spark plugs?

Hot compressed air does it: squeezing the air in the cylinder raises its temperature until the injected fuel ignites, which is why engineers call the diesel a compression-ignition engine.

Which tank, the most-produced of the Second World War, was powered by a V12 diesel engine?

The T-34 ran on diesel fuel that was less flammable than petrol; earlier Soviet tanks with petrol engines had often burst into flames when hit.

In which famous American race did an early Cummins diesel car run the whole way without a single pit stop?

The Indianapolis 500 entry of 1931 was a Duesenberg fitted with an 85-horsepower marine diesel, and it finished the race on a single tank of fuel at an average of 86 mph.

Which carmaker's R10 TDI became the first diesel-powered car to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans?

Audi won with the R10 in 2006, about six months after unveiling the car, and it went on to take three Le Mans victories in all.

In which Belgian port did Rudolf Diesel board the steamer Dresden on the night he vanished at sea?

Antwerp was the start of an overnight crossing to a business meeting in London; by morning his cabin was empty, and his hat and folded overcoat lay beneath the afterdeck rail.

The first 170 examples of the Mercedes-Benz 260 D, the pioneering production diesel car, served only as what?

Taxicabs made up that whole first batch, built as landaulets in 1936 and 1937; the car's four-cylinder engine produced just 45 bhp.

Which pencil-shaped device in a car's diesel engine helps it to start in cold weather?

Glow plugs are mostly fitted to smaller engines; larger heavy-duty diesels use flame-start systems instead.

Which compound makes up about a third of the diesel exhaust fluid sold as AdBlue, the rest being water?

Urea breaks down into ammonia in the hot exhaust, and a catalyst then uses it to turn smog-forming nitrogen oxides into plain nitrogen and water.

The first commercial diesel engine went to work in 1898 at a Bavarian factory making which product?

Matches were the business of the Kempten plant where the engine was installed, in the same year that Rudolf Diesel became a millionaire.

Which Dutch-devised device let late-war U-boats run their diesel engines just below the surface?

The snorkel was at first viewed by the German navy only as a way to bring fresh air aboard; it saw no need to run the diesels under water.

What do truckers call the compression-release retarder that makes a slowing diesel rig growl loudly?

The Jake brake is named after Jacobs, its first maker, and its jackhammer-like bark has led many towns in the United States, Canada and Australia to ban it within their limits.

Germany's first fast diesel train ran from Berlin and was nicknamed, after its destination, the 'Flying' what?

The Flying Hamburger, a two-car diesel-electric set, is credited with establishing the fastest regular railway connection in the world in its time.

Which British Rail diesel express, in service from 1976, was also known as the High Speed Train?

InterCity 125 was named after its 125 mph top service speed, and one set reached 148 mph between Darlington and York in 1987, a world record for diesel trains.

Which country built Selandia, often called the first large ocean-going diesel ship, for a 1912 maiden voyage to Bangkok?

Denmark's East Asiatic Company ran her without a funnel, venting the exhaust through a mast, and Winston Churchill came aboard when she called at London.

Which German engineer's name is given to the spark-ignition counterpart of the Diesel cycle?

Nicolaus Otto built the first working four-stroke engine, a stationary machine that burned gas rather than liquid fuel.

Carl von Linde, the Munich professor who gave Rudolf Diesel his first job, made his name in which technology?

Refrigeration made Linde's fortune, and the young Diesel began his career helping him build an ice plant before running one of his research departments.

Which exhaust-driven device, patented by Swiss engineer Alfred Büchi, forces extra air into a diesel engine?

The turbocharger proved itself in 1925, when Büchi fitted it to ten-cylinder diesels and lifted their output from 1,750 to 2,500 horsepower.

Which American main battle tank is unusual in being driven by a gas turbine instead of a diesel engine?

The M1 Abrams got its 1,500-horsepower turbine after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made one a requirement over the Army's objections.

What colour is the dye added to low-tax diesel sold in Britain for tractors and construction machinery?

Red diesel carries a much lower tax than road fuel, so British authorities regularly carry out roadside checks to catch drivers misusing it.

Which element has been almost eliminated from road diesel fuel since the 1990s to cut pollution?

Sulfur had to go so that modern exhaust-cleaning equipment could work, but the refining that removes it also strips out the fuel's natural lubricating agents.

What is the two-word name for tuning a diesel pickup so that it belches black smoke on purpose?

Rolling coal is sometimes aimed at hybrid and electric cars as an anti-environmental protest, and it breaks clean air laws in some jurisdictions.

Which RAF officer, who set the outright land speed record in ThrustSSC, drove the JCB Dieselmax past 350 mph?

Andy Green took the diesel record at Bonneville in 2006 in a car with two tuned JCB engines, one driving the front wheels and the other the rear.

Which stainless-steel streamliner made a diesel-powered 'Dawn-to-Dusk' dash from Denver to Chicago in 1934?

The Pioneer Zephyr covered 1,015 miles non-stop in 13 hours 5 minutes, a run that inspired the film The Silver Streak.

The troubled Oldsmobile V8 diesel of 1978 reused a petrol engine's pattern for which parts, which then failed?

Head bolts laid out for a petrol V8 could not cope with a diesel's far higher compression; the engine was dropped after the 1985 model year, its reputation ruined.

Which rating measures how readily diesel fuel ignites, playing the role that octane plays for petrol?

Cetane number rises as the delay between injection and ignition shortens, so a higher figure means the fuel lights more promptly in the cylinder.

What is the term for a diesel engine overspeeding on its own lubricating oil, even with the fuel shut off?

A runaway draws its fuel from an unintended source, so it has to be stopped by starving it of air, with a cover held over the intake.

Which German firm introduced the first inline injection pump for motor vehicle diesel engines in 1927?

Bosch injection equipment went on to feed the Mercedes-Benz 260 D, the first diesel passenger car built in series.

Which American car giant began building two-stroke diesel engines in 1938 under the Detroit Diesel name?

General Motors had bought the Winton engine firm in 1930, after its research chief Charles Kettering purchased two Winton diesels for his yacht.

Rudolf Diesel wanted his engine to approach the ideal cycle named after which French physicist?

Sadi Carnot's cycle reached Diesel through a lecture by Carl von Linde, who noted that steam engines turned only 6 to 10 percent of their heat into work.

Which substance in diesel fuel forms solid crystals in deep cold, clogging filters in a problem called gelling?

Wax particles start to appear below the fuel's cloud point, which is why winter diesel is specially blended to keep flowing in freezing weather.

Which plug-in device, fed from car-park outlets in cold countries, warms a diesel engine before a winter start?

Block heaters are common in Canada, Russia and Scandinavia, and standby diesel generators carry them too, so that they reach full power quickly in an emergency.

The World Health Organization's cancer agency lists diesel exhaust as a proven cause of tumours in which organ?

Lungs take the damage: US government scientists found that miners heavily exposed to diesel fumes ran three times the cancer risk of those lightly exposed.

Which alcohol, the cheapest available, is most often reacted with vegetable oil to make biodiesel?

Methanol turns the oil into methyl esters, the usual form of the fuel, in a reaction first carried out on vegetable oil in 1853, before Rudolf Diesel was born.

Which traditional Southeast Asian tinder-lighting tool was Rudolf Diesel shown as a student of Carl von Linde?

A fire piston kindles a scrap of tinder held in a small cavity at the end of its plunger; Linde had acquired his example in Southeast Asia.

Which fuel injection system on modern diesel cars stores its fuel at pressures of more than 2,000 bar?

Common rail injection sprays the fuel as a larger number of smaller droplets, which is what brings its gains in power and fuel consumption.

Because a diesel engine's power is set only by how much fuel is injected, it traditionally lacks which intake part?

A throttle valve restricts the air reaching a petrol engine, and going without one is part of why diesels use so little fuel at city speeds.

In railway jargon, what two-word term means the diesel engine itself inside a diesel-electric locomotive?

The prime mover turns a main generator, and the electricity produced feeds the traction motors geared to the wheels.

Which type of early oil engine, pioneered by Englishman Herbert Akroyd Stuart, is also known as a semi-diesel?

Hot-bulb engines were started by heating the bulb with a blow torch or similar flame; once running, combustion kept the bulb hot enough to ignite the fuel.

Which Japanese firm launched what it calls the world's first practical small diesel engine in 1933?

Yanmar's founder, finding that Rudolf Diesel had no tomb or monument, later dedicated a memorial garden to him in the Bavarian city where the engine was developed.

Which country's navy launched the first diesel-engined submarine, named Aigrette, in 1904?

France gave Aigrette a 150-horsepower diesel for surface running and an electric motor for travelling submerged, a pairing that became standard for submarines.

Which British diesel engine maker, founded in Peterborough in 1932, was bought by its customer Massey Ferguson?

Perkins was set up by Frank Perkins and Charles Chapman to build high-speed diesels, and Massey Ferguson, its largest customer, bought the firm in 1959.

In which Bavarian city, his father's home town, did Rudolf Diesel develop and test his first engines?

Augsburg's Maschinenfabrik gave him the chance to test and develop his ideas from 1893 to 1897, under its director Heinrich von Buz.

In the British fuel term DERV, the initials stand for 'diesel-engine' followed by which two words?

Road vehicle completes the name, which marks out ordinary taxed pump fuel from the dyed, low-tax kind sold for farm and site machinery.

Which Soviet city, where a Kharkiv diesel engine factory was evacuated in wartime, was nicknamed Tankograd?

Chelyabinsk's tractor works took in the evacuated Kharkiv and Leningrad plants, and the nickname it soon picked up simply means Tank City.