Converting a VW classic Beetle's engine to run on steam
 

Currently I am building a fire tube high pressure boiler that is fueled by biomass and utilizes a wood gasifier fire box design. Want a steam engine to run off of the boiler. The end goal is to be able to build a automobile that runs off of biomass.
I was planning on converting a VW classic Beetle's engine into steam because their engines are fairly cheap, easy to modify, simple, and air cooled. Air cooled engines i believe are the easiest to convert into steam.

How would I go about converting a VW Beetle's Engine into a steam engine? All ideas and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

well, it doesn't need a compression stroke, so you might want a cam with twice as many lobes and no overlap.

Also you need to plumb hot high pressure high volume steam to the intake ports, the same sorts of heat and pressure are needed as during regular combustion to make a similar amount of power.

Need some sort of throttle to control the steam being sent to the motor.

it might need more lube, maybe the oil control rings can be augmented, dunno.

I'm sure it's been done though,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE5Ob...layer_embedded

I saw on Planet Green where a wood gasifier was used to run a small 4 cycle engine. The "gas" was ported directly into the intake stream and the engine ran good. Of course, everything works great on TV. :D

The big issue with steam: SAFETY!

In the U.S. in the mid 1800's, most shipwrecks causing many lost lives were steam-powered paddle-wheelers on the Mississippi river that exploded because of pressure problems in the steam engines.

Made sure to have a really good system for PRESSURE RELIEF!

Every home water heater has a temperature and pressure relief valve built right into it.

There were plenty of steam cars in the early 1900s. It would be interesting so see what they used for pressure control at that time.

Anyways, a steam car sounds like lots of fun, but please do keep safety in mind! :thumbup:

Ben, Google “flash boiler” ;)

A Monotube or flash boiler is the most efficient, lightest, and safest boiler. It is easy and inexpensive to construct. It produces steam as it is needed, it does not store the steam. Most old steam cars used a “Doble flash boiler”.

Check-out this modern steam engine that also uses a built-in flash boiler: Cyclone Power Technologies - How It Works

-Mark

Flash boilers are pretty cool. The engine in that link looks really interesting.

From Octopus Trainers first post, it sounds like he is considering converting a internal combustion engine to a steam engine.

There are safe ways to deal with steam systems. I just wanted to throw the big warning out there because steam is one of those things that is FAR MORE powerful than people give it credit for - especially if somebody is doing any sort of home-brew system! :rolleyes:

That link for the Cyclone steam engine is way cool. I can see many advantages. I like the radial engine design and closed loop steam system.

One of the main problems in converting an internal combustion engine to steam is the totally opposite approaches that steam and IC engines take toward heat loss from the cylinders. In a IC engine combustion is taking place in the cylinders, so they are designed to extract heat from the cylinder walls to keep the cylinders from overheating. But with a steam engine, combustion takes place away from the cylinders and, since any heat loss from the cylinder wall reduces engine efficiency, they are designed to minimize heat loss from the cylinder walls. So as as a minimum, you are going to need to get rid of the air cooled engine's cooling fins and insulate the cylinders to hold in the steam's heat as it enters and is expanded in the cylinders.

Its hard to build a very efficient steam engine from an IC engine because of this excessive heat loss and the single cylinder size makes it difficult to impliment the multiple (douple, triple, or quadruple) expansion cylinder sequence that is needed to produce an efficient steam engine. Each subsequent expansion step needs a piston of larger surface area to utilize the lowered steam pressure of each steam expansion.

Not if you have some EV components to cool off, or want some AC.. I doubt it would get that cold though, it's steam, not straight compressed air. Wouldn't you want to ensure that the steam is converted back to water for the exhaust stroke? or is this going to be open loop? Closed loop could be better, maintaining a static pressure in the system would help combustion efficiency. Or help it combust efficiently? lol

Either way you might want to consider running water+antifreeze in the crank instead of oil, because water WILL make it past the piston rings. Better to make a system of it than draining out a milkshake every 3k miles. Too bad the motor isn't made of stainless.

I don't remember if old VWs use a chain or a gear to drive the camshaft. If it's a chain you may be able to use the original cam by using a smaller sprocket on the cam to match it's speed with the crankshaft and open the valves twice as often. I would consider a different way to supply oil pressure to the engine. The crank driven oil pump won't supply much pressure at low engine speeds when the engine starts to turn. The intake valve is designed to hold pressure on the cylinder not keep steam out. It might be ok if the valve spring pressure is greater than the steam pressure.

the smaller cam gear is a neat idea, but the lobes would need about twice as much duration to get it to be efficient, otherwise they are only open half a stroke. good point about the intake valve

There have been people who converted gas engines to compressed air engines by replacing the spark plugs with an air injector, you could do the same thing with steam, other then the water issues.
Really, you would be better off buying a steam engine or building one from the ground up and installing it in your car.

Unfortunately, I'm with Ryland. You'll be far (far far ad infinitum) better off just taking out the old engine and buying a steam one or starting from scratch with plans for a purpose-built steam engine.

I started my quest to make my truck fossil-fuel free by looking into steam. Safety and engineering aspects of it made it not worth the effort. There is a whole heck of a lot of work to to do make it work. Even if you get the original engine converted, you'll still have safety and power issues. It will be a vehicle that technically runs, but is weak and inefficient. And to get a purpose-built steam engine to work with whats left of your drive train would be an engineering and machining feat in itself. It only took me a couple hours to scrap the idea entirely. :)

The only advantage over a gasifier would be using pretty much any fuel in any size I wanted. So I finally settled on modifying gasifier designs to match my needs. My major hurdle is making the gasifier work well with my fuel size (regular split wood). I've all but given up making the wood a standard gasifier size, so I'm now on to modifying the burn chamber fit the split wood. I started a thread here. Good luck!

if using a gasifier couldn't you use the produced gas in a traditional motor? Just like doin an LPG conversion. :)

VW Steam Conversion
 

I am designing and building a VW parallel twin steam engine. I have discarded and blanked off 2 of the RH side cylinders. This still gives the same number of power impulses. I suggest that you get in touch with Steam Automobile Club of America -- A club dedicated to the preservation of steam automobiles.

In their extensive library they have available a full set of working drawings for complete VW steam conversion, a super design and a really capable car, will outperform standard Beetle. I was fortunate enough to meet the builder, Peter Barrett before his untimely death, a real gem.

I am delighted to report that Peter's steam VW now resides with a friend of mine in the south of England. I will put it on this site should he take it to any rallies in GB in the summer. The camshaft is of little use as it runs at half engine speed so the OHC with tooth belt drive has to be grafted on. The cams run up to 5,000rpm hence no push rods etc, a potential disaster. All steam traction has to have a minimum of 2 pressure reliefs.

Well said Mark, zero risk of explosion. Again there are full sets of drawings available for a steam generator as used on Peter Barrett's car. Keep me informed, best of luck.

Steaming Leeming