TheSamba.com :: View topic

Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:14 am

I've been dreaming up ideas for a 40 hp type 1 engine that doesnt involve to much modification to the engine. I think this guy is onto something with his dual poston 20hp steam motor's. If you could just get the pistons from him and attach them to the crank case and shaft with some modification and work out the timing issues involved in making it compatible with the type 1 and 4 firing order i think it could be a good plan.
http://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/20hpengine.htm

Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:38 am

How would you heat the water to make steam? :(

Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:09 pm

Howard 111 wrote: How would you heat the water to make steam? :(

Big old OIL fired boiler.........

Dale

Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:11 pm

Quote: Howard 111 wrote:
How would you heat the water to make steam? Sad

Big old OIL fired boiler.........
Well with today's boiler technology, you can get away with a small flash boiler that would fit within a bus engine compartment. Saab came up with one back in the day for their steam engine that was able to heat the water up in less than a minute. But would run on compressed air till steam was available. I still need to run some math though on required psi to rpm with this steam cylinder bore before i could figure out what size boiler was needed

Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:32 pm

If I had the time, money and skills I'd be making a VW based 6 stroke gasoline/steam engine.

As for the external combustion thing, I guess I don't see the point.

Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:57 pm

Four cylinder steam engines are rare, and complicated enough that only very large machines tend to have them (Think Titanic or USS Texas). Two cylinders opposed or three cylinders and upright would be easier to design and build from scratch then trying to start with a 4-cylinder VW engine and could easily provide 40hp. The main problem with using VW parts is this: In a multi piston steam engine the size of the individual cylinders differs by a VERY wide margin so a VW crankcase and cylinder heads are impractical. A steam engine revs a whole lot slower then a gas one so you'd have a very slow car, not a good selling point. Or the fact that next to hydrogen tanks or nuclear reactors a boiler would be the most unsafe device you could put in a car. Not that there aren't cars with boilers in them but I have yet to see one of them in person. It would have one thing in its fovour though and this is that its always possible to run the engine off coal or even wood, mummies, dead hookers etc. Basically anything that will burn hot enough. If it was me I'd buy a used low pressure steam turbine from ebay and run it off junk mail and phone books but I wouldn't mind seeing a dead hooker powered VW :idea:

Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:54 am

The motor is too small to generate much power. Probably only about 7 HP.

Here is an interesting book if you are really going to try it.

http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks2/homan/index.html

Here is a book on how to make the boiler. It is a very good book for sheetmetal guys too. shows simple layout. It is from 1944 so it is written kind of in strange english.

http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks10/boilm/index.html

Sun Jul 27, 2008 11:55 pm

Here's a link to an article on a lightweight and compact steam engine that was built to power a Stearman biplane. It's a V-configured double expansion and it was small enough to fit in the aircraft but powerful enough to push it around at a decent airspeed. If another was ever built there wouldn't be a problem fitting the engine itself into a Bus engine compartment. What's more, it was rated at 150HP. An off the shelf low pressure steam turbine would still be more viable though
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/11/03/worlds-first-steam-driven-airplane/
Lindsay Books are great; they have a WW2 era manual on how to build and install a charcoal gas generator for your car though I'm not sure if its still in print. They also have books on how to make a plastic injection molding machine, metal turning lathe and a charcoal fired smelter