internal combustion engine

15 Articles

Ride-on Tracked Vehicle Is A Stout Metal Build

January 13, 2022 by 17 Comments

When we think of tracked vehicles, we normally think of tanks, or perhaps heavy construction machinery. Meanwhile the average member of the public is left out of the fun. [Bob] of [Making Stuff] won’t be one of them, however, having put together a ride-on tracked vehicle for his own enjoyment.

The machine is welded together from plenty of steel, making it more than tough enough to soak up the punishment of off-road duty. The design features four suspended buggy wheels on either side running inside rubber tracks, with a cogged drive wheel at the front. Propulsion is thanks to a 440 cc DuroMax engine good for a full 18 horsepower and 26 ft-lbs of torque, driving the tracks through a differential mounted up front.

The design has one major issue at the moment. The heavy engine is mounted ahead of the front wheel inside the tracks, which means the vehicle wants to nosedive at the slightest provocation. Such an event would be highly uncomfortable for the rider, so mods are needed, either by scooching the engine back a little or pushing the wheels forward.

We look forward to seeing [Bob] fix the issues and get the machine driving soon. We’ve seen other tracked builds before, too – often on the smaller scale. Video after the break.

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Norway Leads The Charge To Phase Out Internal Combustion; China And The UK To Follow

December 7, 2020 by 194 Comments

Climate change promises to cause untold damage across the world if greenhouse gas emissions continue at current levels for much longer. Despite the wealth of evidence indicating impending doom, governments have done what humans do best, and procrastinated on solving the issue.

However, legislatures around the world are beginning to snap into action. With transportation being a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions — 16% of the global total in 2016 — measures are being taken to reduce this figure. With electric cars now a viable reality, many governments are planning to ban the sale of internal combustion vehicles in the coming decades.

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Mazda Investing Big In Advanced Gasoline Tech With Skyactiv-X

October 20, 2020 by 124 Comments

Electric cars, as a concept, were once not dissimilar from the flying car. Promised to be a big thing in the future, but hopelessly impractical in the here and now. However, in the last ten years, they’ve become a very real thing, with market share growing year on year as new models bring greater range and faster charging times.

With their lower emissions output and ever-improving performance, one could be forgiven for thinking that traditional combustion engines are all but dead. Mazda would beg to differ – investing heavily in new technology to take the gasoline engine into the next decade and beyond. Continue reading “Mazda Investing Big In Advanced Gasoline Tech With Skyactiv-X” →

Gas Powered Blender Packs Real Grunt

October 16, 2020 by 17 Comments

Whether you’re into fruit smoothies or icy blended cocktails, a blender comes in handy when preparing these beverages in the kitchen. But, if a small electric motor can do the job well, a noisy combustion engine can certainly do it louder. This is demonstrated ably by this project from [JT Makes It].

The build is a steel-framed contraption, mounting a small gas engine of the type you’d typically find in a weed trimmer or other garden tool. It’s attached to a shaft allowing it to spin a blender blade at up to 41,000 rpm when unloaded. A stout metal container is mounted on top, along with a plexiglass lid to ensure the contents of the bowl don’t escape when the blender is in action.

It’s a fun build, and one that has no trouble turning a bucket of apples into mush in under 60 seconds. More realistically, [JT] is able to whip up several litres of blended cocktail without major effort, which would be great for parties. Though, we do imagine the burning oil and gas fumes does somewhat spoil the taste sensation. We’ve seen similar hacks before, like this nitro-fuelled pencil sharpener. Video after the break.

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3D-Printing Wankel Engine From Mazda’s Beloved “Rotary Rocket”

December 30, 2018 by 30 Comments

Although there was briefly a company called Rotary Rocket, the term is much better known as a nickname for the Mazda RX-7 — one of the few cars that used a Wankel, or rotary, engine. If you ever wondered how these worked, why not print a model? That’s what [Engineering Explained] did. They printed a 1/3 scale model and made a video explaining and demonstrating its operation. The model itself was from Thingiverse, created by [EricThePoolBoy].

One thing we really liked about the model was the use of lights to show the different stages of combustion. Cool air intake is a blue light, hot air is red, and so on. It really helps visualize what’s happening. You can watch the video below.

If you haven’t seen a Wankel before, it is a clever design. It has very few moving parts and offers very smooth power transfer and high power to weight ratio. The downside, though, is that the engine deliberately burns oil to lubricate and seal, so it is difficult to meet emission standards and requires a lot of oil. The fuel efficiency of current designs is not very good either, especially since manufacturers will often trade fuel efficiency for better emissions.

If you’d like to read more about the Wankel, check out our earlier post (and the 165 comments attached). We also looked at — or rather through — another Wankel earlier this year.

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4-Stroke Clock Fires On All Cylinders

February 11, 2018 by 8 Comments

We love a good clock build around here, especially if it tells time in a unique way. This 4-stroke digital clock designed by [lagsilva] takes the checkered flag in that category. As it displays the time, it also demonstrates the operation of an internal combustion engine. The numbers take the form of pistons and dance an endless repetition of intake, compression, combustion, exhaust.

The clock’s digits are made from two LED matrices driven by an Arduino Uno and a couple of MAX7219 driver boards. The dots that form the digits move up and down the matrices in 1-3-4-2 firing order. As each piston-digit reaches top dead center, its number lights up. This makes it easy to see the firing order, even at higher RPM values.

Our favorite thing about this clock is the variable RPM setting. There’s a 10k pot around back that adjusts the speed of the pistons between 100 and 800 RPM, and it’s configured to accurately represent piston movement at each increment. Floor it past the break to watch the clock rev up and slow back down.

Although it’s difficult to read the time at 800 RPM, it’s awesome to see a real-time visualization of cylinder movement at the average idle speed of a passenger car. We think it might be neat to rev the engine another way, like with an arcade throttle lever or a foot pedal.

If you like the idea of a constantly-moving clock but prefer an analog readout, take a minute to look at this clock without a face.

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Garbage Can RC Car Engine Powers Ridiculous Pencil Sharpener

December 30, 2015 by 19 Comments

Christmas has come and gone, and no doubt garbage cans are filling with toys that got but a single use before giving up the ghost. If you scrounge around, you might get lucky and score a busted RC car so you can be like [Mike] and build a completely unnecessary nitro-powered pencil sharpener.

This is one from the [Tim The Tool Man Taylor] “more power” files. To be fair, [Mike] acknowledges as much right up front, and as a learning tool for these super-powerful internal combustion engines, we think it’s a pretty cool project. After dealing with a seized cylinder on what looks to be a VX .18 engine rated at about 1.1 horsepower, [Mike] learns the basics of starting and controlling the engine. Once coupled to a pencil sharpener that clearly isn’t engineered to work at a bazillion RPM and jury-rigging a damper for the clutch, [Mike] fires up the engine and races through a pack of 10 pencils in record time.

As silly as this hack seems, it could come in handy if you decide to go into the colored pencil jewelry market at production levels.

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