Go Back   EcoModder Forum > EcoModding > EcoModding Central
Register Now
 Register Now

Now available from EcoModder: ScanGauge II fuel economy gauge.  Click for details.  

Reply  Post New Thread
 
Submit Tools LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 01-25-2012, 03:23 PM   #1 (permalink)
EcoModding Apprentice
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: ellington, ct
Posts: 233
Thanks: 11
Thanked 19 Times in 14 Posts
6 stroke engine

Read about this idea awhile back somewhere on the interwebs.

For those that haven't heard of it, it is basically a 4 stroke ICE with a 2 stroke steam engine tacked on at the end.

The way it works is that after the normal 4 stroke sequence, the engine gets a qsuirt of water which immediately turns to steam due to the heat and pushes it through one more pair of strokes.

The guy that put this together says why throw away all that heat from combustion when you can make some steam out of it and put it to work.

The problem I see is you probably don't want that stream going through the cat and you would like to recycle it to cut water use which means an extra exhaust valve and port. Maybe you could use the same exhaust port and have a secondary valve down stream to dump the steam back into the loop. Doing this would aid in exhaust valve cooling.

The inventor was claiming some pretty high thermal efficiency if i recall and said that the steam cycle cooled things well enough to do away with any other cooling system.

I'll see if I can find the info on it.. Can't do it here due to this damn work firewall.


(Support Ecomodder.com & get rid of these annoying ads!)      
 
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-25-2012, 04:07 PM   #2 (permalink)
EcoModding Lurker
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Hamburg, New York
Posts: 49

The TACO - '011 Tacoma Base 4x4 single cab short bed
90 day: 21.42 mpg (US)
Thanks: 2
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Sounds fairly plausible, the problem I see would be that it would have to run like a normal 4 stroke untill the engine warms up, or if you ran out of water. If you removed the radiator I'm sure it would warm up quickly, but if you ran out of water to inject you'd need some sort of radiator to cool the engine so maybe a y-valve on the radiator hose so you could either run coolant through the radiator or just loop it back to the engine. Also it seems like a programming nightmare to have a cars computer switch from 4 stroke to 6 stroke on- the- fly. also, oil changes would probably have to be more frequent, due to water vapor leaking past the rings. But like I said it sounds plausible. If the theory works, that would mean a 4 cylinder engine would fire 1600 times at 1200rpm instead of 2400 times. That's a big difference! Also, I don't know the laws where you live, but here in new York if a vehicle is 25 or more model years old, it doesn't need a catalytic converter so a swap Into an older vehicle would be the best route
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-25-2012, 06:05 PM   #3 (permalink)
Master EcoModder
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: williamsburg, virginia
Posts: 2,061

Vulcan - '05 Vulcan 500 LTD
90 day: 60.08 mpg (US)

Mag Pearl - '011 Fiesta SE Hatch
90 day: 45.91 mpg (US)
Thanks: 108
Thanked 309 Times in 228 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by pete c View Post
Read about this idea awhile back somewhere on the interwebs.

For those that haven't heard of it, it is basically a 4 stroke ICE with a 2 stroke steam engine tacked on at the end.

The way it works is that after the normal 4 stroke sequence, the engine gets a qsuirt of water which immediately turns to steam due to the heat and pushes it through one more pair of strokes.

The guy that put this together says why throw away all that heat from combustion when you can make some steam out of it and put it to work.

The problem I see is you probably don't want that stream going through the cat and you would like to recycle it to cut water use which means an extra exhaust valve and port. Maybe you could use the same exhaust port and have a secondary valve down stream to dump the steam back into the loop. Doing this would aid in exhaust valve cooling.

The inventor was claiming some pretty high thermal efficiency if i recall and said that the steam cycle cooled things well enough to do away with any other cooling system.

I'll see if I can find the info on it.. Can't do it here due to this damn work firewall.
Crower 6 stroke.

Six-stroke engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

regards
Mech
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-25-2012, 06:29 PM   #4 (permalink)
Administrator
 
Daox's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Germantown, WI
Posts: 5,674

Daox's Paseo - '97 Paseo
Team Toyota
Last 3: 53.99 mpg (US)

Daox's Prius - '04 Prius
90 day: 54.91 mpg (US)

CM400E - '81 CM400E
Thanks: 185
Thanked 431 Times in 298 Posts
We have a few threads on this topic:

thoughts on Crower 6-stroke?

6 stroke engine idea?

6 stroke Tercel engine with electromagnetic valves
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-25-2012, 08:47 PM   #5 (permalink)
EcoModding Apprentice
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: ellington, ct
Posts: 233
Thanks: 11
Thanked 19 Times in 14 Posts
did a search and couldn't find them. probably because they were ancient.

i reserected one of them, so if a mod would kindly put this thread out of it's misery, i would appreciate it.
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-25-2012, 09:55 PM   #6 (permalink)
EcoModding Apprentice
 
JackMcCornack's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 151
Thanks: 4
Thanked 26 Times in 15 Posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by pete c View Post
did a search and couldn't find them. probably because they were ancient.
Type "6 stroke" in the -Search EcoModder.com- window right under the ecomodder logo. Click -Go-, and in 1/6 of a second, a page will pop up that says...

Results 1 - 10 of about 125 from ecomodder.com for "6 stroke". (0.17 seconds)

The concept is pretty ancient ('bout a hundred years since the first one) but the threads are still searchable. Which thread did you revive? The newest one (before this one) was started about a year ago.

Some six-strokes use hot air, some use steam. All the functioning ones I've heard of used conventional camshafts, except turning at 1/3 crankshaft speed instead of 1/2 (a la four-stroke). Some use injected water as the only coolant, in which case the weight of the injection water would be compensated by the non-weight on the non-radiator and non-coolant. To the best of my incomplete knowledge, the conventional cam six-strokes have a warm up phase where they just rest through strokes #5 and #6 (intake, compression, ignition, exhaust, nada, nada) until they're hot enough to get with the program (intake, compression, ignition, exhaust, squirt-expand, steam-exhaust).
__________________
Modding MAX, a Kubota-powered classic sports car
http://www.kineticvehicles.com
  Reply With Quote
Old 01-26-2012, 09:37 AM   #7 (permalink)
EcoModding Apprentice
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: ellington, ct
Posts: 233
Thanks: 11
Thanked 19 Times in 14 Posts
I did exactly that, jack. or at least I thought i did. i revived the crower six stroke thread. it's a good read.


(Support Ecomodder.com & get rid of these annoying ads!)      
 
  Reply With Quote
Reply  Post New Thread

Thread Tools





Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2012, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Content Relevant URLs by vBSEO 3.5.2
All content copyright EcoModder.com