Another Kill Switch Idea

[D.O.G.]

Originally Posted by wmjinman

Yeah, I think it would still need the heavier flywheel. Maybe more realistic to leave TWO cylinders running & only kill the other two. May get away with keeping the stock flywheel that way. And I know my Swift would run - barely - on 2 of the 4 cylinders, but not one.

Many years ago, my wife's 4 cylinder Gemini (Isuzu) snapped the camshaft in half so that only the front two cylinder's valves worked.
It idled OK and drove (just) on the flat, but couldn't fight it's way up any sort of hill.

[Diesel_Dave]

To give you an idea of how big flywheels need to be for single cylinder engines, here you go:



I got to see one of these run in person once. Quite the sight. Each flywheel is about 6 ft in diameter.

[jeff88]

Originally Posted by Diesel_Dave

To give you an idea of how big flywheels need to be for single cylinder engines, here you go:



I got to see one of these run in person once. Quite the sight. Each flywheel is about 6 ft in diameter.

First, thanks for the pic, now I get what you mean by HUGE!
Second, I don't see that as a problem, I think that will fit in my 'lil Corolla! HAHAHA
Third, what would that be for? A train of some sort?

Thanks for the help guys, it looks like I won't be able to do this project, at least not until I decide to design/build my own engine!

[Diesel_Dave]

The one I saw was used to generate 440v electricity for a remote grain elevator in the 1920's. BTW, despite weighing several tons, it only put out 125 hp. Shows you how far engine technology has come! I have an antique engine in my garage that I'm working on restoring that's form 1927. It's like 350 lbs and puts out 1.5 hp.

[Frank Lee]

To be fair, a flywheel for a one cyl. B&S will fit on your salad plate; one from a Honda Cub will fit in a cereal bowl.

[wmjinman]

I think Diesel Dave is joking with that picture. Look at all the single cylinder lawn mowers, generators, and such. They undoubtedly have heavier flywheels in relation to their size, but not comical proportions like in this picture.

I'm not sure if that's a steam engine or not, but it made me think of steam (I kinda have a "thing" for steam). But with pehaps not much more effort than your cylinder deactivation idea, a "steam-o-lene" design like Bruce Crower of Crower Cams came up with intrigues me.

What he does is has a special cam with additional lobes (convenient he's a cam manufacturer, huh?) that open the exhaust valves again, making it a 6-stroke engine instead of 4-stroke. Then there's an injector that squirts some water in at the start of the 5th stroke, which is the second power stroke - a STEAM power stroke.

So the engine goes like this:

> 1st stroke: Intake - intake valves open, piston moves down drawing in intake "charge"
> 2nd stroke: Compression - all valves closed piston moves up, compressing charge
> 3rd stroke: Power - all valves closed spark plug fires, fuel burn drives piston down
> 4th stroke: Exhaust - exhaust valves open, piston moves up, pumping exhaust out.

That's where a "regular" engine goes back to stroke 1, "intake". But in Crower's design, you get:

> 5th stroke: steam power - water is injected near TDC and heat causes steam, driving piston down again
> 6th stroke: steam exhaust - exhaust valve opens again due to 2nd cam lobe, piston moves up, pumping steam out.

And then you go back to stroke 1, Intake.

We always talk about all the waste heat in an internal combusion engine. This scheme uses the heat to make steam and more power. Cooling system could possibly be eliminated altogether. Imagine the "aero" possibilities if you didn't have a radiator you needed to get air to all the time!!!

Bruce calculated the potential efficiency improvement with his design, and it was substantial. Just going off my poor memory, it was something like 25% improvement in gas engines and even more - I wanna say 40% - in diesels!!! Patent pending, I believe...

[Diesel_Dave]

Originally Posted by wmjinman

I think Diesel Dave is joking with that picture.

It's possible I may have overstated things a wee bit

Obviously you wouldn't need something nearly that large, but it does illustrate the point.

BTW, it's actually not a steam engine, but rather one of the early diesels ("oil engines"). Given we we coming out of hte steam era, most early internal combustion engines bear a strong resemblence to steam engines. I've even seen one or two old antique gas hit and miss engines that we converted from steam engines.

[jeff88]

Originally Posted by wmjinman

I'm not sure if that's a steam engine or not, but it made me think of steam (I kinda have a "thing" for steam). But with pehaps not much more effort than your cylinder deactivation idea, a "steam-o-lene" design like Bruce Crower of Crower Cams came up with intrigues me.

What he does is has a special cam with additional lobes (convenient he's a cam manufacturer, huh?) that open the exhaust valves again, making it a 6-stroke engine instead of 4-stroke. Then there's an injector that squirts some water in at the start of the 5th stroke, which is the second power stroke - a STEAM power stroke.

So the engine goes like this:

> 1st stroke: Intake - intake valves open, piston moves down drawing in intake "charge"
> 2nd stroke: Compression - all valves closed piston moves up, compressing charge
> 3rd stroke: Power - all valves closed spark plug fires, fuel burn drives piston down
> 4th stroke: Exhaust - exhaust valves open, piston moves up, pumping exhaust out.

That's where a "regular" engine goes back to stroke 1, "intake". But in Crower's design, you get:

> 5th stroke: steam power - water is injected near TDC and heat causes steam, driving piston down again
> 6th stroke: steam exhaust - exhaust valve opens again due to 2nd cam lobe, piston moves up, pumping steam out.

And then you go back to stroke 1, Intake.

We always talk about all the waste heat in an internal combusion engine. This scheme uses the heat to make steam and more power. Cooling system could possibly be eliminated altogether. Imagine the "aero" possibilities if you didn't have a radiator you needed to get air to all the time!!!

Bruce calculated the potential efficiency improvement with his design, and it was substantial. Just going off my poor memory, it was something like 25% improvement in gas engines and even more - I wanna say 40% - in diesels!!! Patent pending, I believe...

That is an awesome idea! I was thinking about the theory of a 6 stroke engine like that last week, but I didn't think about steam! I wonder if there is a way to capture the steam, let it cool down to a liquid again (maybe at that point you would still need a radiator, or at least an intercooler) and then inject it again. You might have to put something like anti-freeze in for it to not rust anything and to keep the water from condensating out just like a 'normal' cooling system. Would the engine be hot enough to make the anti-freeze turn into steam with the water though? Also, I wonder if this would work with a turbo, where the steam would turn the turbo turbine rather than exhaust gases (or maybe both?).

[wmjinman]

Originally Posted by jeff88

That is an awesome idea! I was thinking about the theory of a 6 stroke engine like that last week, but I didn't think about steam! I wonder if there is a way to capture the steam, let it cool down to a liquid again (maybe at that point you would still need a radiator, or at least an intercooler) and then inject it again. You might have to put something like anti-freeze in for it to not rust anything and to keep the water from condensating out just like a 'normal' cooling system. Would the engine be hot enough to make the anti-freeze turn into steam with the water though? Also, I wonder if this would work with a turbo, where the steam would turn the turbo turbine rather than exhaust gases (or maybe both?).

Not sure the answers to all those questions, but they are good questions. The thing has been discussed on here before, but I'm not sure where. Some were claiming "unicorn" and citing no further word since the article in Popular Mechanix describing it as evidence it didn't really work.

As I recall, he anticipated needing a variable volume water injector to match the amount of heat the engine was producing at the moment, since that isn't a static number. He tested it on an old one cylinder diesel engine he had, because one cylinder is a lot simpler to test something like that on, and because diesels tend to be stouter due to their high compression, etc. I think he used the regular injector for the diesel to squirt the water in & drilled & tapped a new hole for a spark plug to fire the gas, then just put a carburetor in the intake path.

He fiddled around with it until he got it running really good, sent off for a patent, and, if I remember right, once the patent was in place, was going to try to find someone to sell the manufaturing rights to.

Seems like they did mention whether they should try to condense & recirculate the water (which would require a much more involved "exhaust system" though, right?), or rely on people being smart enough and reliable enough to know to fill the water tank as well as the gas tank. And of course, the "anti-freeze question" for those of us who get sub-freezing winters was brought up, too.

The discussion on here about why they aren't on the road yet (this article was several years ago, now) ranged from some evil oil company buying the "rights" & then "burying" it to having lubrication problems with the steam (steam engines have different - and in many ways, more severe - lubrication challenges), to having metal fatigue problems from the wider range of temperature fluctuations with it getting heated by burning gas & then cooled by vaporizing water dozens of times a second.

But who knows? In this age of "space age" materials and engineering, I can't imagine those problems being insurmountable. Personally, I thought it was one of the most brilliant ideas I'd ever seen!!