American Ingenuity at its Finest

[Jeff Higgins]

Found almost exclusively in Wyoming. I first saw one of these in the 1980's when I was there hunting. The guy who was letting us hunt his land had one in a shed. I took pictures then, since I was so impressed, but, alas, all these years later they are lost in some shoebox under the stairs or something. Fortunately, one of our intrepid Pac West R Gruppers is currently in Wyoming, riding the WBDR on his KTM. He ran across one of these things and was thoughtful enough to send pictures, so now I can finally share them with you.

What we have here is a big block Ford V-8. It has been converted to a low pressure natural gas pump. One bank of cylinders is still a four cylinder engine, the other bank is the pump. It runs on the very gas it pumps, bleeding off enough for that. The right side still looks very much like an engine, because it is, but take a good look at the left side. These things run for years, even decades, with almost no maintenance, at a fast idle of about 1,500 rpm. Very cool stuff, and what a testimony to American ingenuity.

[ErVikingo]

That is awesome! Thanks for sharing

[Scott Douglas]

Way back in the very late '60's when I was in high school, one of the guys in my auto shop class turned a Hemi into an air compressor. His Dad designed some popit valves and had the heads machined to accept them in place of the intake valves. Four cylinder air compressor that worked pretty well from what I heard.

[aschen]

Elegant repurposing of existing components, great common sense engineering

[herr_oberst]

A perpetual motion machine! Kinda!

I'd never heard of this ever. It should be taught in schools.

[A930Rocket]

Thanks for sharing. Was this a company that built these or something cobbled up on on the job?

[pavulon]

I think steam engines are ultra efficient and ultra reliable at low RPM too. But there is the small issue of needing water to do their thing.

[id10t]

Originally Posted by pavulon

I think steam engines are ultra efficient and ultra reliable at low RPM too. But there is the small issue of needing water to do their thing.

Water that is released as steam is a lot more replenishable than oil products... question becomes though what is heating the water to steam?

[aschen]

almost all electricity generated is via steam engine technically since a turbine is a heat engine. I would be suprised if a piston steam engine could beat the thermal efficiency of a turbine though. Maybe in a very tiny operating limit. They will both have a fundamental peak efficiency limited well under 100 percent.

At first I was trying to work out how you would make the camshafts to turn half the engine into a compressor, but I suppose they probably just use check valves on that half of the engine and the compressor valves operate passively and "two stroke".

[island911]

Originally Posted by aschen

almost all electricity generated is via steam engine technically since a turbine is a heat engine. I would be suprised if a piston steam engine could beat the thermal efficiency of a turbine though. Maybe in a very tiny operating limit. They will both have a fundamental peak efficiency limited well under 100 percent.

At first I was trying to work out how you would make the camshafts to turn half the engine into a compressor, but I suppose they probably just use check valves on that half of the engine and the compressor valves operate passively and "two stroke".

camshaft? hmmm... Wouldn't a check-valve off the sparkplug hole do it?

Exhaust pumps out past the exhaust valve
Power stroke pumps out the sparkplug hole

[aschen]

yes exactly my point, just took me a min to get there.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by aschen

almost all electricity generated is via steam engine technically since a turbine is a heat engine. I would be suprised if a piston steam engine could beat the thermal efficiency of a turbine though. Maybe in a very tiny operating limit. They will both have a fundamental peak efficiency limited well under 100 percent.

At first I was trying to work out how you would make the camshafts to turn half the engine into a compressor, but I suppose they probably just use check valves on that half of the engine and the compressor valves operate passively and "two stroke".

?

Are you saying that all of the electricity generated by turbines is from steam?

I think that is not the case. I know that, at least in some cases, the spin of shaft in the center of the turbine is what generates the bulk of electricity created by the turbine.

But there is some electricity generated by steam, because the exhaust of the turbine has water pipes snaked through it to create steam, and that steam is used to create more electricity. And then, in some cases, the steam is used as well, not to generate more electricity, but to do work.

I worked for a company that generated electricity. At the time, it almost exclusively ran turbines on natural gas. I was in one particular plant that generated power for a chemical plant. The shaft of the turbine (technically, there were several turbines at this plant) created most of the power, then the exhaust was used to create steam to create more power, and then after the steam was used to create power, it was piped to the plant that used it to do things like open and close valves and do work.

[aschen]

yeah definitely almost all is an exaggeration, quite a bit of wind/solar in the mix as well, "a lot" would have been a bit more earnest

just think its interesting steam engine isnt entirely an ancient relic if you are strict about the term

[pavulon]

In the situation at issue, the fuel for the steam engine is (of course) natural gas--not unlike a steam engine powered crude oil pump.

[cockerpunk]

it likeley can't rev any higher on account of the crankshaft not being set up for 4 cylinder operation.

not that it needs to.

[asphaltgambler]

Speaking of BB 460 Ford's- I remember Mercury Marine sawing a 460 in half ( long-ways ) to create a large displacement 4 cyl in board engine. I saw one in an older boat circa mid-80's and said that thing looks like half of a BB Ford.......
...because it was ....

[dlockhart]

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

it likeley can't rev any higher on account of the crankshaft not being set up for 4 cylinder operation.

not that it needs to.

True, it really doesn't need to rev any higher. Keep in mind, though, that the rods and pistons are still there on the "other" side. The crankshaft assy, including all pistons and rods, should be as well balanced as it is in any V-8. It will, however, not be an "even fire" four, firing once every 180 degrees. It's going to have an off cadence miss, or dead stroke, that may induce some vibration. Not an issue at only 1,500 rpm, and it may very well have an extra heavy flywheel to boot.

[unclebilly]

A company called Ironhorse compression used to make those. I think they were actually a Canadian Company… so is it American ingenuity or Canadian Inginuity?

They worked really well, my brother had several in the gas field he used to operate 20+ years ago.