In November 2002 Singh actually received one such permission from a manufacturer to test his modification on its engines. The manufacturer was Briggs and Stratton, and the engines were two 149cc side valves. Singh borrowed $3,000 and drove the 500 miles to the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) test facilities in Pune, but day after day, his test was delayed. He waited in a cheap hotel for two weeks, pacing, smoking, burning money. “It was a very frustrating experience,” Singh says, wringing the tension from his graying temples with permanently grease-stained fingers. “Sometimes it was like a bloody test of will.”
Finally he was allowed to bring his engines and hook them to a Benz EC-70 dynamometer with a five-gas analyzer and a Benz gravimetric fuel-measuring device. A week later, he got his results. According to ARAI, at between 2,000 and 2,800 rpm, Singh’s modified engine used between 10 and 42 percent less fuel than its unmodified twin, with no appreciable losses in torque or power. And, as he suspected, it ran cooler too—as much as 16°C cooler.
This, it would seem, represented success on a massive scale. With record-high gas prices at the pump and intimations of global warming encroaching on the front page, the world’s auto manufacturers are investigating every option to simultaneously comply with federally mandated fuel-economy standards yet continue to feed the market for ever larger vehicles. This spring GM and Ford announced a joint investment of $1 billion to develop their own version of a six-gear automatic transmission already popular in Europe, to achieve perhaps a 4 percent increase in fuel economy. Singh’s invention, in contrast, offered five times that fuel savings.
Unfortunately for Singh, Briggs and Stratton wasn’t interested in fuel economy—it wanted better emissions. And according to the test, Singh’s modification made emissions slightly worse. Things looked dire: Singh had lost his only sponsor and blown his money on a test that was essentially useless.
“The problem is, it’s a side valve,” explains Steve Weiner, a 35-year Porsche race-tuning veteran and the owner of Rennsport Systems in Portland, Oregon. “Nobody’s been using those things in our world since the 1950s. Not even on lawn mowers. They’re hugely inefficient and dirty.”
According to Weiner, what Singh needs to prove his concept is a standard, scientific A:B test, on a standard engine, “preferably something mainstream—a high-efficiency ****box even—and dyno testing with a five-gas analyzer. Then he needs to take one of his modified cylinder heads, swap it out on the same engine, and dyno test that. A to B. Even if the emissions don’t go down a whisker, if there’s an increase in fuel economy—my god, that’s a win. If you can even find that, the world’s your oyster. Whether it’s valid in the U.S. or not.”
In short, what Singh needs to prove his ideas to the world is a test he can neither afford nor gain access to. It’s a simple fact, simple enough to diagram on a child’s chalkboard, and it’s driven him to the point of mania. He screws the green ring round and round his finger, then grabs himself by the face. “This bloody country,” Singh spits. “We have millions of dollars and millions of people for puja [a Hindu festival], but when one bloody inventor wants to get a simple engine tested . . .”