[cajunfj40]

Hello again DieselJan

Hi Everyone involved
Thanks for helping me understand the limits and problems of this design, especially Cajunfj40. I never knew there was such high forces on the piston, wow. The problem was that I didn't know where to start to calculate these things, so I decided to just ask. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

Not a problem - I like to share.

I am into electronics and still think that the internal combustion engine's biggest gains will be mechanical or in the way the fuels is used. In my opinion electronics is there for "fine tuning" or making it possible. There is constantly gains made due to things being changed around the engine, but I still think a change in the operation of the engine will have a jump in gains.

Well, writing from the perspective of a mechanical engineer that's been studying efficiency gain concepts for over 25 years as a hobby, and who also favors mechanical changes because I understand them better than the other areas, the standard reciprocating piston engine design actually doesn't have much left in it for gains, IMHO. At least, this appears to be true for the two areas you focused on - spreading out peak combustion pressure load so that more of it can get to the crank in both normal and abnormal (knock/ping) operating regimes. kach22i found that fascinating pneumatic/hydraulic controlled mechanical "detonation relief" dynamic compression release device for the abnormal conditons, but that's an extremely complex way of solving a simple problem. The thing is, those conditions are abnormal for a reason. By changing things like intake mixture tumble and swirl, squish geometry, mixture profile in the cylinder, etc. the abnormal regime can be avoided entirely - and generally there are efficiency gains in doing those things as well. For general thermal efficiency, most of the mechanical gains are in lightening the rotating assembly, reducing the overall mass for faster warmup, lower viscosity oils to reduce drag, better finishing/tolerances to reduce friction, better tuning of intake/exhaust for the dominant operating RPM's, etc.

In terms of how the fuels are used, you are back to electronics, at least if you want a responsive engine that runs well/clean at several different operating regimes. Today's fast computation and multiple sensors allow real-time control of mixture, timing, cam phasing, valve timing, dynamic compression ratio, all sorts of things to keep the combustion process operating as efficiently/cleanly as possible.

Let me quickly explain the reason I said I am not interested in other technologies. I am actually open to any suggestions.
I have been reading on Ecomodder for about 4 years. Looking for modifications I can do to improve FE. It could have taken me 2 years if a lot of threads weren't "Hijacked/off topic". Take the Centurion build thread which is excellent and full of useful information, currently 63 pages. It could have been much shorter and condensed if it weren't for some people who want to add their one idea the whole time.

In another context, I moderate a weekly in-person informal discussion group. I also, as part of my job, run a technical update meeting. It takes a lot of work to keep a discussion focused on a single topic/agenda. I think this site does rather well wrangling a disparate group of enthusiasts with widely varying interests/knowledge bases/communication skills, etc. Sure, there are lots of digressions in threads. Topic drift is basically inevitable under those conditions if you don't have someone riding herd on a given thread. That and sometimes really interesting things come out of the topic drift, sometimes spawning new threads.

It's also free, as in you are not required to pay anything to be able to contribute to/gain from the site.

Just an suggestion. If you are very concerned with a certain topic, start a thread about it which can be discussed in detail. Then just comment in other people's threads with a link. This will benefit everyone reading ecomodder in future. So let's keep one topic/ one related topic per thread.

This is a decent suggestion overall, and might be worth working into a general "rule of conduct" for a FAQ/sticky on how to comment here, preferably with some general guidelines like when to start a new thread, how to split off into a new thread and/or how to request that the mods do a move/split. Unfortunately, it comes across a bit like CATFOTFIC when phrased like this as part of a general complaint about how the site is run/presented. I see the mods already splitting threads, moving them to different areas, etc. Making them the topic police in every thread is asking a bit much, IMHO. Maybe you could start a thread in Forum News & Feedback on creating a "how to comment" sticky? Possibly I've missed an existing FAQ - there may already be a general comment guidelines sticky beyond the sub-forum guidelines.

As you can see I have just hijacked my own thread.

See? Topic drift is inevitable. Even when you have total control over your own post.

Keep thinking up ideas, read widely in the available literature, and keep contributing - I found your post interesting. Even ideas that aren't practical generate lots of related thoughts/ideas. Threads that have an unworkable idea to start with can generate lots of avenues of exploration as folks chime in with other ideas, however tangentially related.

(and yes, I did add some emoji here, even though I generally avoid the things because I am not that swift at picking up how they are supposed to be used. )

Thanks,
-cajunfj40