Visible flathead combustion

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Andy

Well-known member
This guy is nuts. He put a plexiglas head on a B&S engine and photographed the combustion. I was onboard until the acetylene.
The swirl was a little unexpected. Very strong.
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"See Through Engine - 4K Slow Motion Visible Combustion" you tube
 
VERY COOL!! I bet all the Flathead gurus would have LOVED to had this technology back in the day when developing heads.
Scott
 
Many of these studies were done in the WWII time frame. These films were used in the engine performance classes when I was in college. Very interesting stuff! The film rate was something totally unbelievable, but don't remember it at the moment. It was possible to watch the flame front progress and detonation start under certain conditions.
 
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I saw a glass cylinder engine 15-20 years ago courtesy of Professor Heywood at MIT. He fitted a straight rod off the center of the existing piston and moved the valvetrain and piston to the top of the cylinder. The straight rod eliminated the side to side thrust of the piston in the bore. Through high speed photography, he was able to demonstrate swirl and tumble of the air fuel mixture as well as flame propagation. I found his class and related films very interesting.
 
That was a very cool video. Now I'm thinking....where can I get a set of plexiglass heads for my '35 21 stud engine??:D:D;);)....NOT
 
at speedy bills museum in nebraska they have one of smoky yunicks (spelling?) daytona 500 motors from about 1964 or so, and smoky drilled a hole in each header about an inch from the block so he could see the color of the flame leaving the block. rumor was this was some super smoky speed trick and next year every one had holes in they're pipes , not knowing why they were there!
 
I was waiting to see if he turned on the oxygen along with the acetylene. That could have been interesting.
 
I've been using a device called a Color-Tune to adjust my carbs for years. It was popular in the 70's or 80's and really helpful when tuning SU's on British engines. It is used in place of the regular spark plug and the top has a glass/pyrex area where you can see the color of the actual detonation. While it seems a lot less sophisticated than more modern exhaust gas analyzers, you can tell empirically what is really going on in the chamber and see carb adjustments results. I think they are still available. If interested, you might Google it.
 
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