Rocker-Arm Piston Engine

I rather like the idea of compression ignition. In my Linear Piston idea, this was acheived by having one piston on each end of the rack. The one piston would continue to push the rack until it compressed the gas enough on the other side to make it ignite and repeat the effect. The problem was that there would almost certainly be gear lash from the gears on the rack to transmit the power, and the engine would probably last a matter of minutes. So I thought of something different.

For starters, the engine is a two cylinder two-stroke. Instead of a crankshaft, a rocker arm-type thing is used. There are two pistons side by side. The connecting rod of the left piston is mounted to the left side of the "rocker arm" on a bearing that allows it to turn somwhat, and likewise of the connecting rod on the right piston. When the "rocker arm" is completely level, both pistons are in mid-cycle. When it is turned up on the right, the right piston is at TDC. When it is turned up on the left, the left piston is at TDC. So that's pretty much how the engine opperates, it sort of wiggles.

But unlike a normal rocker arm, the axle is connected to the rocker arm itself, so that every action turns the axle. The only thing is that the axle is constantly changing direction everytime the other piston fires. But this is remedied the same way it was on the Linear Piston Engine: two freewheels. On one side it transfers power when the axle spins clockwise, on the other it transfers power when the axle spins counter-clockwise. The gearing to mesh these two freewheels together would be complicated but do-able.

So now the advantages. Well, there would be no large and heavy lump of metal known as the crankshaft. There would be no side-loading on the cylinder walls due to the changing angle of the connecting rod (since there are bearings on the "rocker arm" itself, the connecting rods can be fixed to the piston. But the biggest advantage is that the combusting piston will continue to push the opposing piston up until the charge combusts. This means a fuel like alcohol can be used for a very clean burning yet very fuel efficient engine.