https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COP9iGRUQV4
Pontiac also in 1969 built a concept Grand Prix using a steam power engine designated the SE 101. The SE 101 had its standard gasoline engine replaced with a 150 hp (112 kW) steam engine designed by GM engineering in conjunction with the Besler brothers.Negative aspects were the weight of the engine, 450 lb (200 kg) heavier than a V8, and cost being three times more expensive to make.
A few years ago, the now departed "High Performance Pontiac" magazine published pictures of this still existing GP. To fit the engine, the front fenders were extended out making a longer GP. Due to storage, the steam pistons have frozen up. Now, that is what I call Pontiac Excitment!
seppburgh2Steam powered prototype Pontiac also in 1969 built a concept Grand Prix using a steam power engine designated the SE 101. The SE 101 had its standard gasoline engine replaced with a 150 hp (112 kW) steam engine designed by GM engineering in conjunction with the Besler brothers.Negative aspects were the weight of the engine, 450 lb (200 kg) heavier than a V8, and cost being three times more expensive to make. A few years ago, the now departed "High Performance Pontiac" magazine published pictures of this still existing GP. To fit the engine, the front fenders were extended out making a longer GP. Due to storage, the steam pistons have frozen up. Now, that is what I call Pontiac Excitment!
If the weight of the engine at 450 lb was 200 kg heavier than the conventional V8 - I want to see the 10 pound V8. (200 kg = 440 pounds).
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACDIf the weight of the engine at 450 lb was 200 kg heavier than the conventional V8 - I want to see the 10 pound V8. (200 kg = 440 pounds).
I think he means the weight of the replacement for the V8: the whole steam plant including the generator and controls. (The condenser wouldn't count in 'engine weight' because it replaces the radiator, but the feedwater systems would.)
All this stuff came out of a brief, now-weird era in which fuel was cheap, but pollution becoming a political football. External-combustion systems promised a quick and relatively cheap way to reach targets difficult or impossible for contemporary IC-engined cars with acceptable operating flexibility. This is the same era that spawned a renaissance of ORC cycles, notably "Learium".
Three things killed this happy business: the oil price shocks, the development of IC engine pollution controls (especially development of microprocessors for engine control), and (somewhat later) the great effective price increases and cost decreases in automobile production. Once you have reliable and costed-down gasoline cars that start every time, have acceptable emissions and economy at the same time, and don't require lots of tinkering with water and its problems, there is very little place for conventional steam cars in transportation, and not many steam-car projects deliver as much or more driving excitement as can be achieved with a little aftermarket tinkering on BMWs or similar cars.
When it was all said and done, the GP steam plant was heavier then the standard 400 CI V-8. With the experimental BMW, the system set-up reminded me of the Vaiclain 4 cylinder compounds! Car and Driver had a one page write up on the BMW a few years ago. To add, there was also the coal-gas-powered buses in England during WW II. While not steam related, would give it honarable mention here: http://histomil.com/viewtopic.php?t=5531
Happy Turkey Day folks!
seppburgh2With the experimental BMW, the system set-up reminded me of the Vauclain 4 cylinder compounds!
But which Vauclain Compounds - surely the later balanced kind...
I remember discussing some of Freymann's results at one of the IASPP telephone meetings. It's certainly an interesting and expensive way to recover 15hp from residual exhaust heat via the Rankine cycle:
The strangest thing, to me, is that BMW is the company that already figured out the first best use of this kind of power (with fuel cells): use it to run the auxiliaries in the car, the same way that the little 4-cylinder APU on the SPV2000 was supposed to. (And might have, too, if the designers had figured out that the Northeast is full of fallen leaves much of the time ... but that's another story.)
There is a long, fascinating history of gas-producer cells on automobiles in the '30s and '40s. They work extremely well on charcoal, too (making the equivalent of water gas) which I wouldn't have seen coming unless it was described to me, let alone working rather well. The catch is that you really need side-valve or F-head engines to get this stuff to work (same as the Fish carburetor, really) and no modern high-speed engine geometry I know of is well-suited to that kind of fuel mixture...
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