Sleeve valve

The sleeve valve is a type of valve mechanism for piston engines, distinct from the usual poppet valve. Sleeve valve engines saw use in a number of pre-World War II luxury cars and in the United States in the Willys-Knight car and light truck. They subsequently fell from use due to advances in poppet-valve technology, including sodium cooling, and the Knight system double sleeve engine's tendency to burn a lot of lubricating oil or to seize due to lack of it. The Scottish Argyll company used its own, much simpler and efficient, single sleeve system (Burt-McCollum) in its cars, a system which, after extensive development, saw substantial use in British aircraft engines of the 1940s, such as the Napier Sabre and Bristol Hercules and Centaurus, only to be supplanted by the jet engine.