CERLIST DIESEL

List’s loop-scavenged diesels were first used by the Austrian car and truck maker Graf & Stift in 1948. From 1952 to 1960, AVL licensed loop-scavenged diesels to Alfa-romeo (Italy), Janbacher (Germany), Ford Motor Company (Germany), Turner Manufacturing (England), Landini (Italy), Krupp and Mannesmann (Germany) to build engines for automotive, marine and stationary use. Each company had a slightly different variation on the theme and there would be other licensees later.

In the heyday of that mid-1950s movement, along comes an American named Peter Cerf. How and exactly when he connected with AVL is unclear, but by the end of 1956 he had formed the Cerlist Diesel Company in North Carolina to build List diesels under license. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the name “Cerlist” blended “Cerf” and “List.” Cerlist engines used the design features found in the European List engines but were updated for the American market by AVL with Cerf’s input. That process took 18 months and the result was a five-engine Cerlist family that shared the same basic 4-inch bore and 4.5-inch stroke. A 4.18-inch bore was also envisioned as a future power upgrade option, as was a turbocharger, but neither were implemented in production.

The lineup included a 2-cylinder inline (113 ci, 54 hp, 107 lb-ft), 3-cylinder inline (170 ci, 85 hp, 170 lb-ft), V-4 (224 ci,100 hp, 220 lb-ft), V6 (336 ci,150 hp, 340 lb-ft) and V8 (448 ci, 200 hp). All the engines were rated for a 3,000rpm intermittent maximum and 2,600 rpm continuous, plus they had a broad, flat torque band right up to redline. They all shared the same liners, pistons, rings, heads, Tri-metal bearings and a beltdriven Roots blower.

The block was cast from aluminum with four-bolt mains and a nodular iron crankshaft. The inline engines used a balance shaft. The pistons were Hypereutectic with six rings. Cerf and List toyed with both direct and indirect injection and either worked well with the basic design, but lower noise levels favored indirect injection. A major side benefit was multi-fuel capability. The Cerlist could run on #1 or #2 diesel, JP-4 jet fuel or gasoline with no tuning changes. In a 1959 SAE White Paper, Cerf presented a dyno graph that showed power

LOOPSCAVENGING: A METHOD WHEREBY THE ENGINE BREATHED THROUGH PORTS AND DIDN’T HAVE VALVES

AT ALL.

The Cerlist Model 2 cranked out 54 hp at ,3000 and 107 lb-ft at 1,900 rpm from 113 ci. This engine weighed in at 530 pounds and saw the most use as a stationary or marine engine.

Loop scavenging is a simple concept. Piston position uncovers the inlet (white arrows) and the exhaust ports (black arrows). The blower supplies constant airflow. After ignition, the piston moves down and uncovers the three exhaust ports first and much...