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Fiero Brick wrote:I know that this is an older thread, but I felt the need to comment on Smokey Yunick's "hot vapor cycle engine" as I have seen the car, engine, homogenizer parts, etc., first hand.
As much respect as I have for that crafty devil, I do not believe the engine ever actually produced 250 horsepower. The mileage figure I can swallow, but due to the restrictions some of the parts imposed upon the intake, the heat shed into the intake charge (with no evidence of any sort of bypass for keeping the charge cool under high load), and the lack of evident modifications that would be necessary for the extremely weak block to hold up to any substantial power. The owner of the vehicle has no intentions of restoring it to full function with Smokey's system installed or putting it on a dynamometer. The car will run, but none of the homogenizer is plumbed in or functional. For all I could tell when it was running, it seemed like a typical, if particularly sluggish, Fiero iron duke.
Off topic: this forum is great, I think it might just be the most interesting automotive forum or information source I've come across. I've spent a large portion of the last three days reading threads and expanding my general knowledge of automotive engineering. I think it just might be the only thing that has made me actually want to have a greater grasp of mathematics since I was 13. And I've spent every year since then struggling with (high school) or avoiding (college) it entirely.
How? There isn't a system in place for that engine that would actually capture and utilize the lost heat, except in such a way as to improve fuel economy by making the intake charge less dense through preheating. However, the process used to improve fuel economy is extremely detrimental to engine life and reliable power production.flynfrog wrote:
Why i have no proof that it did put out 250hp it wasnt so much he was running lots of boost like a turbo engine he was simply making the engine lose less energy through heat.
If you add up what that engine was losing in heat before and after we would know the answer.
If i remember correctly the intake charge was still about the same density the differnece was that the fuel did not have to heat up from 36 F to 1600F it came in at 400F those wasting less power to heat the fuel.Fiero Brick wrote:Thanks for the welcome!
How? There isn't a system in place for that engine that would actually capture and utilize the lost heat, except in such a way as to improve fuel economy by making the intake charge less dense through preheating. However, the process used to improve fuel economy is extremely detrimental to engine life and reliable power production.flynfrog wrote:
Why i have no proof that it did put out 250hp it wasnt so much he was running lots of boost like a turbo engine he was simply making the engine lose less energy through heat.
If you add up what that engine was losing in heat before and after we would know the answer.
Like I said, I can believe the mileage claims. A Fiero with the 2.5 liter i4 iron duke and the economy geared 4 speed can already get mileage in the high 30's. I just don't think an engine with 500*F intake temperatures can produce 100 horsepower/liter without melting its pistons and exhaust valves. I think Smokey was just making an estimate about the power it could potentially produce, assuming he figured out how to keep the engine from eating itself.
That's something I can agree with you on. I would worry about having my motorsports ethics corrupted from close contact, though.NickT wrote: Its a real shame the views of the man himself cannot be included in this forum discussion. I for one would love to have had the opportunity to work with the guy to better understand his ideas.
stop thinking of it as making 150 more hp think of it as not losing 150 hpFiero Brick wrote:I think reliability is a perfectly valid point on which to be critical of any engine, prototype or not. What would you say if I claimed to have car that got 60 miles per gallon and produced 500 horsepower, and it turned out that I had stuck a 450 shot of N2O on a 250cc motorbike engine?
About pre-heating to improve vaporization of the fuel, yes, that could improve fuel economy. However, I remain doubtful that low boost and a dramatically heated intake charge, in spite of much improved fuel atomization, will cause a 100 horsepower engine to become a 250 horsepower engine without nuking itself. A typical turbocharger setup on such an engine would require something north of 2.5 bar (22 psi above atmospheric) to produce 250 horsepower.
That's something I can agree with you on. I would worry about having my motorsports ethics corrupted from close contact, though.NickT wrote: Its a real shame the views of the man himself cannot be included in this forum discussion. I for one would love to have had the opportunity to work with the guy to better understand his ideas.
I think I'll hold off replying to this thread until someone can explain how the engine could produce 250 horsepower in a way that jives with my understanding of the internal combustion engine. If you change my understanding of the internal combustion engine, I guess that would work, too.
[IMG:800:600]http://www.lazyforums.net/uploadfiles/P ... dium)_.jpg[/img]Ciro Pabón wrote:Just a photo to show how far could Yunick's incredible out of the box thinking go...