{"id":514,"date":"2007-02-10T14:26:30","date_gmt":"2007-02-10T04:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=514"},"modified":"2007-02-26T20:38:33","modified_gmt":"2007-02-26T10:38:33","slug":"steam-engine-conversion-for-small-ic-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/?p=514","title":{"rendered":"Steam engine conversion for small IC engine"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been a number of projects over the years to convert internal combustion engines (petrol engines) to work on steam, either for vehicles or, more widely, for small generators.<\/p>\n

Some use a bash valve, welded onto the piston of a small two-stroke motor, such as this steam conversion of a Motobecane<\/a> moped.<\/p>\n

\"Steam<\/a><\/p>\n

But Lynx Steam Engines <\/a>discuss in detail how to convert a small four-stroke motor to work on steam or compressed air, to run electricity generators, mowers ec – perhaps even small karts. Their approach is a good one, keeping it simple, and making minimal modifications. This one requires modification to the cam by smoothing the cams to round, and adding a valve lift lobe to the correct timing (90 degrees between inlet and exhaust) by adding round-headed screws 90 degrees apart on the cam. And there is some discussion on the site on making a steam generator that complies with various laws on pressure vessels (best to get it made by a certified boilermaker) to produce a near silent engine that won’t disturb the neighbours. These would not be self-starting motors, but seem like a good beginners project using off-the-shelf components.<\/p>\n

\"Steam<\/a><\/p>\n

The 90 degree valve timing is consistent with the model steam engines I have previous tried making, and seems to be a good standard – with teh main variation being in the cut-off or ‘dwell’ of the valves – ie how long they stay open once opened. The beauty of this design is it uses low temparature, low pressure saturated steam, making it no more dangerous than a kettle, and able to operate without having to worry about separating the oil from the steam when you re-use it.<\/p>\n

I also like the way Lynx engines have put their concept into practices as an apporpriate technology project to power a coffee producing firm in Nigeria, using waste biomass as fuel, rather than expensive petrol.<\/p>\n

Cheers
\nJerry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been a number of projects over the years to convert internal combustion engines (petrol engines) to work on steam, either for vehicles or, more widely, for small generators. Some use a bash valve, welded onto the piston of a small two-stroke motor, such as this steam conversion of a Motobecane moped. But Lynx […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,10,13,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diy","category-journal","category-motorcycling","category-steam","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lostbiro.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}