OT: Interesting new idea, the six-stroke engine Options

[MattR]

QUOTE (Dr. Roger @ Feb 28 2006, 09:49 PM)

QUOTE (MattR @ Feb 28 2006, 10:26 PM) QUOTE (Dr. Roger @ Feb 28 2006, 06:23 PM) i'm still dreaming of the day when i have the time and money to pursue my dream of a commercially viable ogle / otto engine. (an engine that runs on vapor instead of atomized fuel) That system is a hoax. Gasoline has an associated enthalpy (stored energy). No matter what you do to the gas, you can only get so much energy out of its potential. Asking for a internal energy that doesnt exist defies so many laws of thermodynamics. There have been a bunch of articles I've read discounting the theory along with some schoolin'. matt loses 2 respect points. 1 for believing everything he reads and 2 for having a large penis. Bastard! just keep to yer learning boy and someday you just might get it. what did dingleberry do , delete his post?

I dont believe everything I read. I did read about the magical system that gets 120mpg with a carburator...

Its just physically impossible, unless you dont believe what the world of physics and engineering has to say about... anything.

Okay, lets assume thermodynamics is "wrong." Well, there is math to proove the theory. So now we have to assume calculus is "wrong?" I'm not quite willing to discount everything those old guys came up with hundreds of years ago quite yet...

[MattR]

QUOTE (Dr Evil @ Feb 28 2006, 09:49 PM)

QUOTE (MattR @ Feb 28 2006, 10:37 PM) This is a really interesting topic.  One thing I dont understand his how heat is lost in the vaporization of water.  The blurb specifically suggests the vaporization process is self cooling, but with my level of education, that doesnt quite make sense. Well, the heat energy must transfer to the lower energy component of the system, the water, in order to effect steam. It is the same concept (basically) as respiration (sweating). The water absorbs the heat energy, the heat energy excites the water molecules causing them to expand, the expanding water exerts some force on its container.

Okay. The heat from the combustion vaporizes the water. The latent energy released forces the piston down, doing some work (which benefits the system). Now we have a cooler combustion chamber from a cooler water pulling some heat from the combustion cycle. But the hot water leaves the combustion chamber. Whats to prevent it from staying vapor? A water distiller takes water vapor and turns it into liquid, but it requires an outside source to cool the water. A steam engine works because it consumes water (by expelling it).

[Dr. Roger]

QUOTE

That system is a hoax. Gasoline has an associated enthalpy (stored energy). No matter what you do to the gas, you can only get so much energy out of its potential. Asking for a internal energy that doesnt exist defies so many laws of thermodynamics. There have been a bunch of articles I've read discounting the theory along with some schoolin'.

matt:

atomized fuel obviously goes "bang" right?
does gas vapor go bang too? the correct answer is "yes".

which state of gasoline is being utilized in the leanest method?

answer is..........

[GeorgeRud]

No matter if it works out or not, it sure is interesting to hear that some of these "old guys" like Crower or the late Smokey Yunick are willing to experiment and try these ideas.

[LvSteveH]

The trick to this whole thing is to change how you think about "potential energy". We are used to seeing efficency referenced in terms of hydrocarbons, or more specifically how many are unburnt. A low emission vehicle is not necessarily highly efficient. The heat produced by an engine is lost energy, the more heat byproduct, the less efficient it is. All the steam system is doing is capitalizing on that loss. If you want to truly explore the potential energy of a gallon of gas, think nuclear (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/cool_shades.gif)

[Dr. Roger]

and, matt, please don't tellme fuel vapor doesn't work...

smokey eunick did it in his garage and his patentented prototype is in the smithsonian...

http://www.smokeyyunick.com/PressReleases/...Smithsonian.pdf

[Porcharu]

Here it is - It's F'ing brilliant! Using the energy normally wasted as heat to make power.
Now they need to get some high tech diesel people working on the water injection portion using todays trick direct injection sytems to control the water usage - this way you could control the engine temperature like you control A/F ratios on a modern gasser. Just make sure you don't run out of water!

I had the pleasure of meeting this old dude in Paso Robles 10-14 years ago that had just got a patent on his engine design that had no cooling system. He had stacks of patent drawings and it was very difficult to understand but I finally got it (don't ask me now - it had one spark plug and on carb for any number of cylinders and the whole engine rotated around the crankshaft). I'm sure he is gone by now. One of his stories was about when he brought it to GM and burned up a small 100hp dyno and was told by GM engineers that his engine didn't work.


Inside Bruce Crower’s Six-Stroke Engine


By PETE LYONS

AutoWeek | Published 02/23/06, 9:35 am et



Bruce Crower has lived, breathed and built hot engines his whole life. Now he’s working on a cool one—one that harnesses normally-wasted heat energy by creating steam inside the combustion chamber, and using it to boost the engine’s power output and also to control its temperature.

“I’ve been trying to think how to capture radiator losses for over 30 years,” explains the veteran camshaft grinder and race engine builder. “One morning about 18 months ago I woke up, like from a dream, and I knew immediately that I had the answer.”

Hurrying to his comprehensively-equipped home workshop in the rural hills outside San Diego, he began drawing and machining parts, and installing them in a highly modified, single-cylinder industrial powerplant, a 12-hp diesel he converted to use gasoline. He bolted that to a test frame, poured equal amounts of fuel and water into twin tanks, and pulled the starter-rope.

“My first reaction was, ‘Gulp! It runs!’” the 75-year-old inventor remembers. “And then this ‘snow’ started falling on me. I thought, ‘What hath God wrought…’”

The “snow” was flakes of white paint blasted from the ceiling by the powerful pulses of exhaust gas and steam emitted from the open exhaust stack, which pointed straight up.

Over the following year Crower undertook a methodical development program, in particular trying out numerous variations in camshaft profiles and timing as he narrowed the operating parameters of his patented six-stroke cycle.

Recently he’s been trying variations of the double-lobe exhaust cams to delay and even eliminate the opening of the exhaust valve after the first power stroke, to “recompress” the combustion gasses and thus increase the force of the steam-stroke.

The engine has yet to operate against a load on a dyno, but his testing to date encourages Crower to expect that once he gets hard numbers, the engine will show normal levels of power on substantially less fuel, and without overheating.

“It’ll run for an hour and you can literally put your hand on it. It’s warm, yeah, but it’s not scorching hot. Any conventional engine running without a water jacket or fins, you couldn’t do that.”

Indeed, the test unit has no external cooling system—no water jacket, no water pump, no radiator; nothing. It does retain fins because it came with them, but Crower indicates the engine would be more efficient if he took the trouble to grind them off. He has discarded the original cooling fan.

So far he has used only gasoline, but Bruce believes a diesel-fueled test engine he is now constructing—with a hand-made billet head incorporating the one-third-speed camshaft—will realize the true potential of his concept.

Potential…and Questions
Crower invites us to imagine a car or truck (he speaks of a Bonneville streamliner, too) free of a radiator and its associated air ducting, fan, plumbing, coolant weight, etc.

“Especially an 18-wheeler, they’ve got that massive radiator that weighs 800, 1000 pounds. Not necessary,” he asserts. “In those big trucks, they look at payload as their bread and butter. If you get 1000 lb. or more off the truck…”

Offsetting that, of course, would be the need to carry large quantities of water, and water is heavier than gasoline or diesel oil. Preliminary estimates suggest a Crower cycle engine will use roughly as many gallons of water as fuel.

And Crower feels the water should be distilled, to prevent deposits inside the system, so a supply infrastructure will have to be created. (He uses rainwater in his testing.) Keeping the water from freezing will be another challenge.

But the inventor sees overriding benefits. “Can you imagine how much fuel goes into radiator losses every day in America? A good spark-ignition engine is about 24 percent efficient; ie., about 24 cents of your gasoline dollar ends up in power. The rest goes out in heat loss through the exhaust or radiator, and in driving the water pump and the fan and other friction losses.

“A good diesel is about 30 percent efficient, a good turbo diesel about 33 percent. But you still have radiators and heavy components, and fan losses are extremely high on a big diesel truck.”

Bottom-line, Bruce estimates his new operating cycle could improve a typical engine’s fuel consumption by 40 percent. He also anticipates that exhaust emissions may be greatly reduced. It’s all thanks to the steam.

“A lot of people don’t know that water expands 1600 times when it goes from liquid into steam. Sixteen hundred! This is why steam power is so good. But it’s dangerous…”

The danger of a boiler explosion has long been a factor in engineering—and in operating—steam powerplants of all kinds, and Crower is properly wary of the miniature boiler he has conjured up inside his test engine. That’s one reason he chose to use one originally manufactured as a diesel, for its inherent strength, though he installed a carburetor and ignition system so it could burn gasoline at first.

The original diesel fuel injector system now supplies the water spray to generate the steam-stroke.

In addition to producing extra power, the injected water cools the piston and exhaust valve, which suggests to Crower that he could raise the compression ratio. “I’ve done this many times on regular engines: 15-to-1 on gasoline for the first five seconds works pretty good until you get some chamber heat and then suddenly it gets into pinging. But with the chamber being chilled, I bet 12-, 13-to-1 will be no problem on cheap fuel.

“So what we can maybe do is have fuels that aren’t quite as good…It’ll save a nickel a gallon not having to keep three grades going.”

As for his hope of lowering emissions, Bruce speculates the steam might purge “cling-on hydrocarbons” out of the combustion chamber. “This thing may turn out to be so clean that you won’t have to have a catalytic converter.

But he admits that’s unknown, saying “there’s a lot of experimenting still to be done.” Which prospect makes him smile. He thrives on this kind of challenge.
Bruce’s Background
“You’ve kinda got to be in the cam business and know the dynamics of engines,” Bruce Crower says about how the idea occurred to him. And he certainly has that background.

He was building and racing hot rods (and hot bikes), manufacturing speed equipment and operating his own speed shop in his home town of Phoenix when he was still a teen.

After moving to San Diego in the 1950s, among other exploits he dropped a Hemi into a Hudson and drove it to a 157-mph speed record at Bonneville.

Inevitably, the inventive and inexhaustible Crower built up a major equipment business in superchargers, intake manifolds, clutches and, especially, camshafts. He’s also credited with first suggesting a rear wing to Don Garlits—in 1963, three years before Jim Hall’s winged Chaparral. Bruce Crower is now in Florida’s Drag Racing Hall of Fame.

Crower actually had introduced a wing two years earlier, during practice on Jim Rathmann's 1961 Indianapolis car—five years before Jim Hall’s winged Chaparral. Bruce had been crewing at the Speedway since 1954 (Jimmy Bryan, second place), and had been part of Rathmann's 1960 victory effort. He was likewise on the winning teams in 1966 (Graham Hill) and 1967 (AJ Foyt). Three decades later, in 1998, Eddie Cheever won with Crower cams.

Bruce even produced his own complete Indy engine, a flat-8 that didn’t quite make the field in 1977 and then was rendered obsolete (due to its width) by the advent of ground-effect tunnels. But the Crower 8 and its automatic clutch did win an SAE award for innovation.

Today, Crower Cams and Equipment Company employs about 160 people in five facilities, and manufactures not only cams but crankshafts and connecting rods—including titanium rods for (unnamed) Formula One customers.

Bruce Crower can’t be called retired now, but he’s happy to let the company he founded “roll along” while he “plays with cars.” That’s how he looks at the intensive R&D work he carries out in the privacy of his 13-acre horse property near the rural community of Jamul.

One of several projects is building up Honda S2000 engines for the Midget raced by his granddaughter, Ashley Swanson. (“I think she’s on par with Danica Patrick,” says the proud grampa.)

But his prime focus is proving his six-stroke engine is as revolutionary as he believes it is. “I’ve been trying to find something wrong with the whole basic idea for almost a year,” he says, “but I think we’re going to have a very marketable item.”

Then he adds philosophically, “If it turns out to be great, fine. If it doesn’t, it’s just another year out of my life that I’ve had a lot of fun doing something.”

[MattR]

QUOTE (Dr. Roger @ Feb 28 2006, 10:32 PM)

and, matt, please don't tellme fuel vapor doesn't work... smokey eunick did it in his garage and his patentented prototype is in the smithsonian... http://www.smokeyyunick.com/PressReleases/...Smithsonian.pdf

I see the "hot vapor engine" with no description.

What is a "hot vapor engine"? Is that the same as the frog carburator advertised in the back of popular mechanics in the 50s?

[MattR]

Thanks for the article Porscharu!

Its a very interesting read.

[Andyrew]

FYI On dad 944 turbo race car, he ran an water injection mix and although it didnt do much for performance, he upped the boost and after he took apart the engine (probably 10k miles later) there was no carbon on the pistons at all, walls were clean, ect.. but the engine had blowby and little compression (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif) so a higher compression engine is going in... bigger turbo, more boost.. Im shooting for 350rwhp..

[MattR]

QUOTE (Andyrew @ Mar 1 2006, 12:30 AM)

FYI On dad 944 turbo race car, he ran an water injection mix and although it didnt do much for performance, he upped the boost and after he took apart the engine (probably 10k miles later) there was no carbon on the pistons at all, walls were clean, ect.. but the engine had blowby and little compression (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif) so a higher compression engine is going in... bigger turbo, more boost.. Im shooting for 350rwhp..

water injection mix? care to elaborate?

[Andyrew]

windshield washer fluid... certain kind has a large percentage of alcohol... and is recommended by the company to use...

[johannes]

Sounds like a brilliant idea to increase efficiency.

[Porcharu]

QUOTE (MattR @ Mar 1 2006, 12:31 AM)

QUOTE (Andyrew @ Mar 1 2006, 12:30 AM) FYI On dad 944 turbo race car, he ran an water injection mix and although it didnt do much for performance, he upped the boost and after he took apart the engine (probably 10k miles later) there was no carbon on the pistons at all, walls were clean, ect.. but the engine had blowby and little compression (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif)  so a higher compression engine is going in... bigger turbo, more boost.. Im shooting for 350rwhp.. water injection mix? care to elaborate?

Oh come on now! You don't know what water injection is? Do a search for water injection and Ricardo or better yet get a book from pre-WW2 engine tech. Water injection is amazing stuff that is WAY overlooked and underused today. Odd when a $100 water injection setup can kill a $1000 intercooler for performance - ever see an intercooler get the charge air temp under ambient? It's easy with water.

Heres a good write up with more math and chemistry than most people want.
water

Look at the VW head sliced up too, that's me when I'm even more bored than waiting for Andy to upgrade 914club.nonclub (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/beer.gif)

[guiltless]

QUOTE (MattR @ Feb 28 2006, 10:02 PM)

QUOTE (Dr Evil @ Feb 28 2006, 09:49 PM) QUOTE (MattR @ Feb 28 2006, 10:37 PM) This is a really interesting topic.  One thing I dont understand his how heat is lost in the vaporization of water.  The blurb specifically suggests the vaporization process is self cooling, but with my level of education, that doesnt quite make sense. Well, the heat energy must transfer to the lower energy component of the system, the water, in order to effect steam. It is the same concept (basically) as respiration (sweating). The water absorbs the heat energy, the heat energy excites the water molecules causing them to expand, the expanding water exerts some force on its container. Okay. The heat from the combustion vaporizes the water. The latent energy released forces the piston down, doing some work (which benefits the system). Now we have a cooler combustion chamber from a cooler water pulling some heat from the combustion cycle. But the hot water leaves the combustion chamber. Whats to prevent it from staying vapor? A water distiller takes water vapor and turns it into liquid, but it requires an outside source to cool the water. A steam engine works because it consumes water (by expelling it).

Who really cares what the vapor does after it leaves the combustion chamber, unless you have a turbo after it. Just send everyhing on out the back.

As far as the whole diesel concept goes, it seems to me that you might have a hell of a time cooling the chamber without cooling the element that keeps everything going.

Just my not quite as educated opinions. But I guess thats what I get for being a buisness major instead of an engineer.

[Porcharu]

QUOTE (guiltless @ Mar 1 2006, 02:05 AM)

As far as the whole diesel concept goes, it seems to me that you might have a hell of a time cooling the chamber without cooling the element that keeps everything going. Just my not quite as educated opinions. But I guess thats what I get for being a buisness major instead of an engineer.

The spark plug keep everything going (and compressed fuel and oxygen) - your car starts when it's cold (I hope) Making steam isn't going to make anything "cold"

[Porcharu]

QUOTE (Andyrew @ Mar 1 2006, 12:30 AM)

FYI On dad 944 turbo race car, he ran an water injection mix and although it didnt do much for performance, he upped the boost and after he took apart the engine (probably 10k miles later) there was no carbon on the pistons at all, walls were clean, ect.. but the engine had blowby and little compression (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif) so a higher compression engine is going in... bigger turbo, more boost.. Im shooting for 350rwhp..

Where was the water/alcohol injected? Into the compressor or after the intercooler? It can make a huge difference. Most people are chicken and go after the compressor.

[redshift]

The vast expanses of the universe are negatively charged plasma.

If that doesn't work for you, try ZPE.


M

[bd1308]

QUOTE (redshift @ Mar 1 2006, 05:04 AM)

The vast expanses of the universe are negatively charged plasma. If that doesn't work for you, try ZPE. M

Miles, if you're into astronomy at all...

there's a huge supernova that's occuring right now, i'm gonna look at it tonight, I missed the point of greatest brightness tho (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/sad.gif)

b

[ClayPerrine]

It sounds like a good idea, but I am not an engineer. If it works, this would look cool with steam coming out of it.....



(IMG:http://thekneeslider.com/images/tailgunner.jpg)