Fairbanks-Morse Y-VA diesel engine

The Fairbanks-Morse Y-VA was a stationary two-cycle diesel engine introduced in 1924 by Fairbanks, Morse and Company at Beloit, Wisconsin. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers describes it as the first commercial version of a high-compression, cold-start, full diesel that the company developed without acquiring a foreign patent, and as an early full diesel with no precombustion chamber. It belonged to the Type Y family, whose vertical engines had been made since 1914 and whose crankcase acted as a pump for the scavenging air. Airless direct injection through differential needle valves kept the design simple, with few moving parts, all enclosed and automatically lubricated. It drove sawmills, cotton gins and stamping mills as well as electric generators in isolated communities, and a 75 horsepower example of 1924 on Useppa Island, Florida, is an ASME landmark. A Type Y Model 32 diesel replaced the style VA in 1925.