WEIRD STUFF! CROWER STEAM-O-LENE ENGINE: From Two-Stroke To Four-Stroke To Six-Stroke; Crower Combines Gasoline And Steam Into One Engine

76-year-old Bruce Crower has been in the engine business his whole life. He built his reputation making camshafts for race cars. Now,  Bruce is trying to design his own engine. And it is totally innovative. Bruce wants to harness the heat energy that is normally wasted in an internal combustion engine to create steam inside the combustion chamber. That steam would then be utilized to boost the engine’s power output.

Crower’s Steam-O-Lene engine is a six-stroke engine. Two extra strokes are added to the customary internal combustion engine four-stroke Otto cycle, which makes a six-stroke engine. A third down-stroke is a “steam stroke” and a third up-stroke exhausts the expanded steam while venting heat from the engine. The engine cold starts on the Otto cycle, coasting through the fifth and sixth strokes for a short period. After the combustion chamber temperature reaches approximately 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 øC), a mechanical operation phases in the fifth and sixth strokes. Just before the fifth stroke, water is injected directly into the hot combustion chamber via the engine’s fuel injector pump, creating steam and another power stroke. The phase change from liquid to steam removes the excess heat of the combustion stroke forcing the piston down (a second power stroke). As a substantial portion of engine heat now leaves the cylinder in the form of steam, no cooling system radiator is required. Energy that is dissipated in conventional arrangements by the radiation cooling system has been converted into additional power strokes. By using steam to power the stroking of the piston, it is assumed that a Crower Steam-O-Lene engine will need to carry and equal amount of water as it does gasoline (distilled water).