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Matt, at lunch I ran this thread by my facility's steam/HVAC expert. He came up with several thoughts:
1. Just running a pipe through the water wouldn't transfer enough heat. You would need a heat exchanger because you need to create HIGH PRESSURE steam to drive a piston. Then, if you were able to tranfer enough heat to make steam there might not be enough heat left to fire off the catalytic converter. Add in the restriction in the exhaust you'd be creating and it would be very tricky.
2. You'd have to carefully control the steam flow to balance engine speed. Meaning, if you are using too much steam to drive that part of the engine the IC side will use less fuel, which will make less heat = less steam.
3. High pressure steam is dangerous! A piping leak or vessel rupture can burn or kill. People are certified to run steam boilers and other similar systems for a reason.
4. The crankcase for the steam portion of the engine would need to be isolated from the IC crankcase, otherwise the steam/water that WILL get past the piston rings will condense and ruin the oil.
He was intrigued enough by the idea to agree that a parallel hybrid design using exhaust powered steam to drive a separate steam engine could occassionally add power for hills and acceleration, but the wieght of such a system would be a genuine concern.
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