Converting engine to 6-stroke
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irelandbiker
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I have decided to undertake this project and can only see one problem, the new camshaft which will have a radius 6mm bigger will be slightly too big, a part of the casing wall will have to be cut and welded it seems
camshaft or just the camshaft gear?
If just the camshaft gear, recalculate the ratio and find the lowest matching numbers;
then convert to chain drive, that way you can keep the crank case unmodified (or almost unmodified
)'sid
robbie
New member
This analysis is based on a false premise. Regardless of the efficiency of a steam boiler, and regardless of how much energy it takes to run an engine on steam, the heat is already being made in the internal combustion engine and being wasted out the exhaust pipe. Put one drop of water in the cylinder and it will add kinetic energy to the piston.
it's easy to say "based on false premise"
I haven't seen proof yet
Frankly I don't know.
I cannot say a six stroke is better or worse than a four stroke;
I simply can't.
Think about it this way:
if you add two strokes as intended, the fourth would be removing the pressure from the cylinder via your exhaust pipes.
The hottest part is the burned fuel, the hot gases are exhaled into the exhaust and muffler (both being heated no matter what follows next in the cylinder)
So, the heat peaked already, the cylinder is starting to cool down.
You add a water cycle and inject water into the cylinder...
Great...
Fifths stroke questions...
Now how much heat is left, how many joules of thermal energy are you able to transform into kinetic energy (turning water into steam) within this one stroke?
(within the ~0.017 seconds you have /based on 3600 rpm)
And, what is the exact amount of water that is transformed for that reason.
How much pressure can that much water produce without collapsing into water again, is that enough to actually move the piston down to BDP or close?
Now out with the steam.
Okay passive stroke, no big deal
.... you think!
You cooled the cylinder by a certain amount, what amount?
Will the steam condense at any one point in the cylinder (maybe the spark plug gap?)
Are any sensitive materials nearby, will the temperature still be high enough to get the next combustion as powerfull as the previous (and yes.. that IS important.. really important!)
Just think you shortened out the spark plug.. no spark no running engine;
or you loose combustion energy with every single stroke..
no matter how high the energy was with your first combustion
At one time there will be no more energy left and all you do is fill your cylinder with water
To raise the initial energy level you will need to add fuel and air, quite the opposite of what your goal was.
(basically what you do when starting an engine cold in the winter.. much more fuel is needed than a engine that ran for 45min in the summer
)And what I think has been forgotten already..
the main heat source (the combusted gas) is already gone, it heated the muffler, that energy is lost if you tap into the cylinder.
Well, you can run a steam pipe through the exhaust pipes and muffler and run a generator from that, but that's not a six stroke is it?
So...
if it'd be that easy to convert, then I do not understand why the big companies (not even the ones that are proud of energy saving engines) came up with an engine like that.
*shrugs*
I've seen many different engine layouts five stroke even
and all claim to be more eco friendly and fuel saving and whatnot.
Yet I don't know any car with one of those...
I really like to see someone trying, I really do,
I wish you (whoever wants to try) the best of luck, and the biggest possible success; honestly.
But I doubt there will be an effect that's even noteworthy
'sid
machinist@large
Active member
Sorry, the false premise is on your end; A] the #'s aren't there; and B] you need to go back to the turn of the last century, and look at the development of the internal combustion engine in agriculture, where the leading manufacturers of STEAM ENGINES looked at it, and passed it by on their way to building the last of the prairie giants using internal combustion technology. And with the number of designs that liked to over heat, adding water to the inlet charge was a common practice, STRICTLY TO CONTROL DETONATION. If they thought they could use steam to generate additional power, they would have been all over it.
I'm going to follow the advice several people have PM'ed me; arguing with internet "Experts" isn't worth it.....
EDIT: Once again, 'Sid beat me to the punch, and did a better job of it as well.....
robbie
New member
Let's not start insulting each other. I'm not trying to be an "expert", and I'm not saying that a 6 stroke engine is better than 4. I don't know anything about 6 stroke theory. I thought I made it pretty clear that I was addressing specific assumptions that had been made about 4 stroke superiority, efficiency, etc. The only assertions I made were that 4 strokes waste a lot of heat and that they use fuel to cool the cylinder. This is true, and it is also quite true that where there is wasted heat, with the right design you can harness it.
In a lot of cases the status quo is maintained not because of superior methods, but simply because it's the way things are done. I'm sure there are better ways to design engines. There has always been a better way. Incidentally, if water is used to control detonation, then you might assume that it increases efficiency by reducing fuel use, because the standard way to control detonation is by adding extra fuel which is intended not to be burned.
I learned a long time ago not to argue with "experts", too. It seems to me that long term wrench turners sometimes become design engineers in their own minds, based on their knowledge of big block V-8s or whatnot. I have my own credentials, too. I'm a licensed aircraft mechanic, I fix my own cars, I built my own house, I grow my own food, and I even engineered, built, and marketed my own harmonica amps. I'm no dummy, but I know that doesn't make me a 4 stroke design engineer, or an "expert" in anything. However, I always try to keep an open mind. Experiments have been done showing an increase in efficiency when adding water mist to the induction charge of a 4 stroke car engine. Please don't ask me for proof. The experiments I recall were done before the internet was available, and I don't feel like doing research for skeptics. Although you may imagine a guy tossing a bucket of water on the spark plug (right, Sid?) this was a finely calibrated system, much like the calibration involved in a carburetor fuel jet. If you want to know how it works, look it up.
I hope people keep coming up with new ideas. Sometimes they hit on a good one. But then again, most times they don't. You never know until you try.
In a lot of cases the status quo is maintained not because of superior methods, but simply because it's the way things are done. I'm sure there are better ways to design engines. There has always been a better way. Incidentally, if water is used to control detonation, then you might assume that it increases efficiency by reducing fuel use, because the standard way to control detonation is by adding extra fuel which is intended not to be burned.
I learned a long time ago not to argue with "experts", too. It seems to me that long term wrench turners sometimes become design engineers in their own minds, based on their knowledge of big block V-8s or whatnot. I have my own credentials, too. I'm a licensed aircraft mechanic, I fix my own cars, I built my own house, I grow my own food, and I even engineered, built, and marketed my own harmonica amps. I'm no dummy, but I know that doesn't make me a 4 stroke design engineer, or an "expert" in anything. However, I always try to keep an open mind. Experiments have been done showing an increase in efficiency when adding water mist to the induction charge of a 4 stroke car engine. Please don't ask me for proof. The experiments I recall were done before the internet was available, and I don't feel like doing research for skeptics. Although you may imagine a guy tossing a bucket of water on the spark plug (right, Sid?) this was a finely calibrated system, much like the calibration involved in a carburetor fuel jet. If you want to know how it works, look it up.
I hope people keep coming up with new ideas. Sometimes they hit on a good one. But then again, most times they don't. You never know until you try.
rocketkart
Active member
can i ask what the H... is a 6 stroke?
Yeah well, I'd still love to ask you for sources though...
See, I've seen websites advertising almost anything, some claim to have credentials that I cannot verify in any way (or disprove of course)
There's this five stroke website for example claiming that the engine they "threw together" has an efficiency of about 45% for a gasoline engine..
great isn't it? (keeping in mind that modern 4 strokes tend to be around 36% and smaller diesel engines around 42%)
And that without variable cams and nifty stuff like that.
really impressive,
then there's the next page asking for money for further research, and a hint that "a big german car company secretly builds their own prototype and 'we' need to beat them to it to have a commercial success"...
and looking closely into they're chronicles... the website was unchanged since 2005. except for a small "News" addition two years ago...
Hmmm
Yes, that sounds legit to me.. I send 'em all my money before that "big german company" gets all the credits...
Experiments "before the internet" (so more than twenty years ago) have been made;
that's good.. that's even better...
why is 20 years not enough to make this thing a success?
And please don't tell me a BP/Shell conspiracy is going on
I'm sure it's possible to calculate the ideal amount of water to inject into cylinder, but I'm not too sure that you and I could do it.
I'm not even sure that you could scale that experiment,
say from a 200cc cylinder to a 400cc cylinder because there is a lot more to consider than just the volume.
I'd be clueless where to even start to make one or two combustions with a six stroke.
So yeah.. I have exactly no idea about six stroke engines..
I know barely enough to repair a four stroke (with having a manual handy)
But I do know, that IF something in automotive industry IS a great idea,
it doesn't take two decades to make it a commercial success
So I doubt there's a benefit...
But I really hope I'm wrong...
less fuel for more power... I'd love that.
'sid
robbie
New member
Believe it or not, it takes a long time for innovative technologies to find their way into cars. Airplane engines had rolling cam followers in the 1920s. It was a big deal when they appeared in high end cars over 50 years later. And you still don't find them in most cars. Do you remember how long it took for everybody to finally switch over to electronic ignition and fuel injection?
To be clear, I am not saying that water injection technology has been optimized for general use and that there is a conspiracy to keep it away from us. That would be silly. The car companies don't have a lot of motivation to innovate, even if there are quite a few people experimenting at home. They tend to bring out new technologies when the law mandates better performance in some way.
Regarding sources and data and things that happened before the internet, that's another problem. I remember in 1995 when I first got on the internet, it was a bunch of interesting people posting interesting things for everybody to look at. For several years, more and more of this kind of interesting information was added, but before too long the internet became commercial, and the commercial content soon eclipsed the part with interesting information. In the old days, you would do a web search and not find a ton of stuff because it wasn't there. Now you do a web search for information and all you find is vendors selling off-the-shelf products. There's a lot of stuff I just don't feel like looking for because it's too much trouble.
To be clear, I am not saying that water injection technology has been optimized for general use and that there is a conspiracy to keep it away from us. That would be silly. The car companies don't have a lot of motivation to innovate, even if there are quite a few people experimenting at home. They tend to bring out new technologies when the law mandates better performance in some way.
Regarding sources and data and things that happened before the internet, that's another problem. I remember in 1995 when I first got on the internet, it was a bunch of interesting people posting interesting things for everybody to look at. For several years, more and more of this kind of interesting information was added, but before too long the internet became commercial, and the commercial content soon eclipsed the part with interesting information. In the old days, you would do a web search and not find a ton of stuff because it wasn't there. Now you do a web search for information and all you find is vendors selling off-the-shelf products. There's a lot of stuff I just don't feel like looking for because it's too much trouble.
well you do misinterpret the time frames here I'm afraid...
A car in developement in the 30s and fourties had a development time of almost a full decade (up to eight years AFAIK)
that dropped to five in the sixties and seventies.. and it was still four to five years in the late eighties.
Now it takes not more than 18 month from initial planning to finished car in your local showroom sometimes.
Mainly because you can run your simulations on virtual cars, engines and stuff on your home computer.
(well a beefed up home computer and some expensive software)
It should be easy to get a reasonable computer analysis for such engine within no more than 10 days for a bigger car company.
And if that analysis is promising, it takes maybe two month to test an actual engine (just regular bench tests of course)
So the last twenty years.... I don't know if any company is interested, but I'm almost sure at least one or two looked into it already.
Rolling rockers?
Honestly.. that's a bad example...
they were not really necessary with an overhead cam that was already available at that time for high performance engines..
or upright valves for non high performance applications (what you would call flatheads or L engines)
So yeah.. rolling rockers are better than ordinary rockers, but there have been better options already in 1920 so that wasn't considered to be important enough to implement
And fuel injection.. well that took really a long time, earliest mechanical systems I know in a car was 1965 or something, 1970 for fully electronic injection systems
But I think the main cause for that was money.
A pocket calculator in the seventies could easily cost you around 200 bucks and an electronic injection system was only used in really expensive cars, because the controller alone was the price of a mid sized motorbike.
I think the original price for a K-jetronic computer 1972 was 2200 DM around here.. the price for a Honda CB 450 K1 was 2000 DM 1970
So yeah.. no one would have bought small to midsized cars anymore
But I understand what you say about the net..
it's full of info and search engines list them the wrong way around (profit first, content last) sometimes, very true.
Well irelandbiker, has decided to give it a try.
I hope that we will have the chance to see what he can achieve with his approach.
Maybe we will have a better idea afterwards
'sid
A car in developement in the 30s and fourties had a development time of almost a full decade (up to eight years AFAIK)
that dropped to five in the sixties and seventies.. and it was still four to five years in the late eighties.
Now it takes not more than 18 month from initial planning to finished car in your local showroom sometimes.
Mainly because you can run your simulations on virtual cars, engines and stuff on your home computer.
(well a beefed up home computer and some expensive software
)It should be easy to get a reasonable computer analysis for such engine within no more than 10 days for a bigger car company.
And if that analysis is promising, it takes maybe two month to test an actual engine (just regular bench tests of course)
So the last twenty years.... I don't know if any company is interested, but I'm almost sure at least one or two looked into it already.
Rolling rockers?
Honestly.. that's a bad example...
they were not really necessary with an overhead cam that was already available at that time for high performance engines..
or upright valves for non high performance applications (what you would call flatheads or L engines)
So yeah.. rolling rockers are better than ordinary rockers, but there have been better options already in 1920 so that wasn't considered to be important enough to implement
And fuel injection.. well that took really a long time, earliest mechanical systems I know in a car was 1965 or something, 1970 for fully electronic injection systems
But I think the main cause for that was money.
A pocket calculator in the seventies could easily cost you around 200 bucks and an electronic injection system was only used in really expensive cars, because the controller alone was the price of a mid sized motorbike.
I think the original price for a K-jetronic computer 1972 was 2200 DM around here.. the price for a Honda CB 450 K1 was 2000 DM 1970
So yeah.. no one would have bought small to midsized cars anymore
But I understand what you say about the net..
it's full of info and search engines list them the wrong way around (profit first, content last) sometimes, very true.
Well irelandbiker, has decided to give it a try.
I hope that we will have the chance to see what he can achieve with his approach.
Maybe we will have a better idea afterwards
'sid
machinist@large
Active member
If you have the R&D work under control, and know that your CAD data for the sheetmetal is correct, you can have all the major stamping dies for the major body panels of an automobile in your hands in ~6 months or less, here in North America. That's for the class A body panel dies; the brackets that hold widgets under the dash seem to in the ~2 month window here these days...
That's what my neighbors still in Tool & Die tell me anyways; then they start begging me to go back into that mess. Apparently that type of time line has all of us sane people looking for other lines of employment......
That's what my neighbors still in Tool & Die tell me anyways; then they start begging me to go back into that mess. Apparently that type of time line has all of us sane people looking for other lines of employment......
Poboy kartman
Senior Moments Member
Water injection was a big deal 20 years ago. What happened and why? IDK.
Allow me to point to some theoretical possibilities. First off- this was touted as a gas saving device. Gas was like 50 cents a gallon or something- so maybe the interest just wasn't high enough. Maybe the company manufacturing the device had the patent locked up but did a poor job on delivering a reliable product giving the whole technology a bad name.
Maybe it worked well but in long term use undesirable side effects outweighed the benefits of fuel savings. (Especially @ $.50 pg).
Or maybe, like so many fuel saving gizmos, the fuel savings were inflated, the "proof" was carefully controlled experiments and basically legalized lying.
But- Even if we give it every consideration and conceed it was an overwhelming success for the sake of argument- we are still left with very much an apples and oranges scenario here. It's one thing to use water vapor to alter the characteristics of a combustion charge and quite another to introduce water after the fact.
Allow me to point to some theoretical possibilities. First off- this was touted as a gas saving device. Gas was like 50 cents a gallon or something- so maybe the interest just wasn't high enough. Maybe the company manufacturing the device had the patent locked up but did a poor job on delivering a reliable product giving the whole technology a bad name.
Maybe it worked well but in long term use undesirable side effects outweighed the benefits of fuel savings. (Especially @ $.50 pg).
Or maybe, like so many fuel saving gizmos, the fuel savings were inflated, the "proof" was carefully controlled experiments and basically legalized lying.
But- Even if we give it every consideration and conceed it was an overwhelming success for the sake of argument- we are still left with very much an apples and oranges scenario here. It's one thing to use water vapor to alter the characteristics of a combustion charge and quite another to introduce water after the fact.
robbie
New member
Regarding time frames in car manufacturing: Factory tooling time is not the same thing as the time it takes for new technologies to appear in cars.
Regarding the likely reasons why you don't see water injection in cars: To work properly, the best thing to use would be distilled water, to avoid leaving deposits in the engine.
Gasoline is carefully metered into the engine. You allow only the amount needed to run the engine but not the amount that cools the cylinder. Then you carefully meter the correct amount of water to achieve the same cooling, resulting in a savings in gasoline. This savings is negated by up-front distillation cost or the cost of catalytic additives to cause unwanted substances to precipitate from solution. The problem of normal cruddy water is why this process doesn't work in the real world market.
Regarding the likely reasons why you don't see water injection in cars: To work properly, the best thing to use would be distilled water, to avoid leaving deposits in the engine.
Gasoline is carefully metered into the engine. You allow only the amount needed to run the engine but not the amount that cools the cylinder. Then you carefully meter the correct amount of water to achieve the same cooling, resulting in a savings in gasoline. This savings is negated by up-front distillation cost or the cost of catalytic additives to cause unwanted substances to precipitate from solution. The problem of normal cruddy water is why this process doesn't work in the real world market.
machinist@large
Active member
Grasp at many straws as you want; if ANY of the claims were actually as CHEAP as you claim from an engineering stand point, why do ALL the major automakers that build or import cars and trucks into the US still suffer from gas guzzler taxes on certain model's?
An old quote from my industrial hydraulics instructor, who was a Master ASE certified automotive instructor as well; he was discussing the snake oil motor oil additives. "If any of that
actually helped improve your mileage (when the OEM's are fighting it out for every 1/10 mpg increase they can get), this would be factory required at every oil change.".The OEM's get fined for their under acheavers, so why do they keep them around? Just so you can claim they're hiding break through technology? You can bet they've looked at almost anything you can drag out/ dredge up, and if they could use it, they would be all over it.
Pat my friend, no need to scream
It's always the same with things like that...
Someone claims to have made a breakthrough and the believers will not accept that that was a false reading, a misinterpretation or simply fraud..
I do not think that injecting water is on the same level as a GEET system (which is fraud)
but I think it's simply not nearly as beneficial as some believe it is.
A false reading in one experiment could have caused that.
Just like everybody though spinach was "healthy" and "has alot of iron" because someone misplaced the decimal once!
And, just as a note:
We can buy destilled water at every single gas station around here (relict from the seventies where it was necessary to refill batteries every once in a lifetime)
So destilled water availability cannot be the problem I think.
They could even add it to the gasoline at a certain percentage and split it in the fuel pump if they wanted to...
Recalculating the amount of water for a specific temperature and engine load shouldn't be a problem with cars today either,
the computers controlling the injection system already read ambient temperature levels and even humidity sometimes.
One more calculation shouldn't be a problem at all.
I'm really sorry robbie, I know that you just want to find a plausible explanation for that invention to be not in modern cars already... or even mentioned in any serious automotive context yet.
But after 20 years there is almost no explanation left.
So if that concept was successfully tested in automotive industry,
it's fair to assume that by now it's working perfectly, all gas and water amounts are perfectly metered on the fly and the everything runs nice and safe.
Water supply as mentioned isn't an issue, neither is gas supply obviously,
so.. where is that protoype?
'sid
It's always the same with things like that...
Someone claims to have made a breakthrough and the believers will not accept that that was a false reading, a misinterpretation or simply fraud..
I do not think that injecting water is on the same level as a GEET system (which is fraud)
but I think it's simply not nearly as beneficial as some believe it is.
A false reading in one experiment could have caused that.
Just like everybody though spinach was "healthy" and "has alot of iron" because someone misplaced the decimal once!
And, just as a note:
We can buy destilled water at every single gas station around here (relict from the seventies where it was necessary to refill batteries every once in a lifetime)
So destilled water availability cannot be the problem I think.
They could even add it to the gasoline at a certain percentage and split it in the fuel pump if they wanted to...
Recalculating the amount of water for a specific temperature and engine load shouldn't be a problem with cars today either,
the computers controlling the injection system already read ambient temperature levels and even humidity sometimes.
One more calculation shouldn't be a problem at all.
I'm really sorry robbie, I know that you just want to find a plausible explanation for that invention to be not in modern cars already... or even mentioned in any serious automotive context yet.
But after 20 years there is almost no explanation left.
So if that concept was successfully tested in automotive industry,
it's fair to assume that by now it's working perfectly, all gas and water amounts are perfectly metered on the fly and the everything runs nice and safe.
Water supply as mentioned isn't an issue, neither is gas supply obviously,
so.. where is that protoype?
'sid
Poboy kartman
Senior Moments Member
I think I figured it out! Gas is cheaper. A 12 oz. bottle of water costs $1.50, and you get a gallon of gas for @ $3.50.
machinist@large
Active member
I think I figured it out! Gas is cheaper. A 12 oz. bottle of water costs $1.50, and you get a gallon of gas for @ $3.50.
:toetap05: :toetap05: :toetap05: And the price from your kitchen tap is???? :toetap05: :toetap05: :toetap05:
machinist@large
Active member
Pat my friend, no need to scream
I'm sorry 'Sid, and to Doug as well; it's just that I've had one of those weeks where the supposed intellectual's at my current job have really made me ponder just how our species has survived up to this point; things like "I couldn't get the tool out of the spindle because you don't know how to mix the cutting fluid (coolant) properly". (I'm being read this by someone who has had the exact same job for over 20+ years, with someone in high management standing there). I then ask him to refresh my memory of the interlock procedure that you need to use to to orient the spindle, and enable the power drawbar in "manual" mode....
Apparently,, this person thinks you are just supposed to be able to walk up to the machine, and no matter what mode it's in, or what it's doing at the time, you just hit the button (for drawbar release) and it's supposed to hand you the tool.
If it was that easy, he would be dead long before now.
The machine in question is a Haas VF8 vertical CNC machining center, with a Cat 50 spindle, two speed gear drive transmission, and a continuous operational red line of 10,000 RPM.
Now, do you think a machine that uses tooling that can weigh up to 20 lbs (~10k), and can spin it up to 10,000 rpm will just hand you the tool if you don't know enough to just hit the "hand" mode (manual set up) key?
I won't lose any sleep over it, but I think my day's on first shift are #'ed.......
firemanjim
Just kartin' around....
Pat, 20lb tools? LoL.....My 14" long, 3" threading bar ,in the block, weighs in at 32lbs..... I chane out each tool after a cyce. With this thing, I got to stand up on the cabinet rail and put my knees on the bed way to steady my self just to put that one on and off. Unfortunately its the only bar Ive tried that wont chatter on a 0(spring) pass ,or any thing less than like .005 per side..... Hated that d@mn machine till I figured it out..... Its a Fanuc .....
As far as this topic goes..... All I have to say is this...... IF THERE WAS ANYTHING OF SIGNIFICANT VALUE TO DOING THIS ALL THE TOP AUTO MAKERS would have it figured out BY NOW and we would all have one in the driveway..... Its not gonna happen, not now,not tomorrow, not ever....... just not feasible.....
As far as this topic goes..... All I have to say is this...... IF THERE WAS ANYTHING OF SIGNIFICANT VALUE TO DOING THIS ALL THE TOP AUTO MAKERS would have it figured out BY NOW and we would all have one in the driveway..... Its not gonna happen, not now,not tomorrow, not ever....... just not feasible.....- Status