This TRANSPARENT ENGINE is Fascinating (How Engines Work) - Smarter Every Day 292

Where should the camera be? Oh, wherever. [Smashed the Gas] HOLY.... [ENGINE ROARS] (Giddy Laughter and Giggling) Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smart Every Day. We have explored internal combustion engines on this channel, and I think they're amazing. In the past, we visited a YouTube channel in New Jersey called 805RoadKing, where Everett and his buddies had created a transparent head on a Briggs and Straton engine so you could see the flame inside pushing the piston down. It was amazing.

Also here on Smart Every Day, we made a transparent carburetor. You can see the jet of fuel that comes up. And then we used slow motion to show the atomization of the fuel as it gets blown through the Venturi there. It's amazing. That's a great video. We also get to learn how carburetors are made. We went to a manufacturing facility owned by Holley Carburetors in Kentucky. It was fantastic. We got to see the assembly line working. I loved it.

I saw a video on the internet of a person that had made a transparent engine. You could see the pistons going and all the stuff. I was like, this is incredible. And so I decided to go to Nebraska to meet this guy. But when I got there, I was like, This person is not normal. The guy's channel name is Awdcutlass for All Wheel Drive Cutlass. And one look at his channel and you know this guy is smart. It is not normal for somebody to build a carbon fiber framed vehicle in their garage by themselves with their own hands. This is a special person.

He made an all-wheel drive Cutlass. Just so you know, an Oldsmobile Cutlass is not made to be all-wheel drive. He just made it all-wheel drive. It's incredible. This guy is smart. I'm incredibly excited to take you to Nebraska with me to go to Brian's garage and we're going to see a transparent engine and we're going to learn how it works. Let's go get Smarter Every Day. [Intro guitar riff]

Okay, let's start our adventure by flying to Nebraska, which is an awesome state. They have a ton of irrigation pivots, which I love, as you know. Anyway, let's go to the address that Brian gave us. Okay, I think we're at the right house. Brian and I howdy then shook, and then he took me to the workshop where the magic happens.

I'm in Nebraska, and this is Brian King, and you built this, right? Yeah. Okay, the reason I am in Brian's garage is because I saw this video that Brian made, and it's amazing. You built a see-through engine. When I was doing research on fuel injection, I was trying to understand timing, I found this. I was a little upset, to be honest with you, because I saw that 12,000 people have viewed your video, and I think it's amazing. I want way more people to see your video because this is an incredible project. That's why I'm here.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. [D] Can you explain to me what this is and how? You did it? [B] Basically, it's just a V8 engine. That's based off that engine that's sitting over there, the same concept, same internal parts and all that. [D] This is an LS engine, right? [B] Standard 5.3 LS engine, which GM probably has a billion of them floating around out there, I guess. Hard to say. But needless to say, that was one that was broken and I bought it for 50 bucks and tore it all apart and put a bunch of plastic around it and there it is.

[D] And you made the most amazing visual learning aid I've ever seen. Can you please show me how it works? [B] Sure. Let's plug it in here real quick. [D] So, it's got everything, right? Before you make it move, because that's amazing, it's got actual pistons that move in cylinders. I mean, do you have seals on the pistons? [B] Nope, I took the rings off because it didn't need to have them, I guess, the way I designed this. I want it to move freer, I guess, if that makes sense.

[D] Okay. You've got the crankshaft down there. And what do you call the rod? [B] Connecting rod. [D] The connecting rod. You've got connecting rods in there, and that's the wrist pin right there. And so what is this right here on this side? [B] So you've got the timing chain on the outside. You got your oil pump right behind this cover here. It actually has oil on it? [B] Yeah. [D] Okay. And where does the oil go? [B] It goes right up to the top here, right above the camshaft, which is the center.

[D] So it's hard to see, but there's a pipe. So the oil comes up here. It goes through this metal pipe. Straight here. [B] I'll get an air bubble in there. That way you can see where it's... [D] Oh, wait. [B] See that air bubble right there? [D] Yeah. Oh, and you're doing that with your hand. Do it again. So bring the oil toward you. You just pump it. Over, okay? [B] And then it'll start spraying out the end there and it gives you an idea that the oil is circulating.

[D] And that's how an actual engine works. So does the oil always come to the... Is this the back of the engine? [B] Yeah. So with an actual engine, that would be sealed off. So it keeps pressure, I guess, if that makes sense. So as that pump is turning, it builds that oil pressure way up and it forces it into the places they want it to go. With this, I don't need all that pressure because it's just a display piece. [D] So you're just recycling the oil?

[B] Yeah, it just pours it out. [D] But on a real engine, there's places where the oil would go. [B] Well, if you look in here, you can actually see the veins. So behind each black screw, I drill the hole to get down to the lifters. [D] It's so hard to see on this camera, but yeah, you see this... Let me see if I can articulate this. This is the main feeding manifold, so to speak, of the oil. And then there's little holes.

[B] Oil galleries going left and right. [D] Galleries? That's the word? [B] Yeah. [D] And what's going on with the lights here? [B] That would be your firing order. So if you look, that would be when your actual spark plug fires the electricity across the electrode, and that's when it's firing or lighting the gas in the air.

[D] I want to take a second to review the strokes of a four-stroke engine. Most engineers and mechanics refer to it as suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Earlier, I talked about a video we made with 805RoadKing where we could see through a transparent engine head and we can see the four different strokes of an engine. That video is fascinating and you might want to check that out later. But for now, let's look at the animation that we made in that video to describe these strokes.

We have the piston on the left moving up and down inside the cylinder and two valves on the right. Let's take a look at how a four-stroke engine works and count off each of the four strokes along with me. The first thing that happens is one of the valves on the right opens, allowing a fuel air mixture to be drawn into the cylinder. This stroke is called the intake. When the piston gets near the bottom of the cylinder, the intake valve closes and then the piston starts to compress the gas. This is called the compression stroke.

The third stroke is the pretty one. This is called the power stroke. The explosion happens and increases the pressure inside the cylinder, which applies force to the face of the piston pushing it down. When all those gases have burned after that third stroke, the exhaust valve then opens and the fourth stroke, called the exhaust stroke, clears the cylinder of all those exhaust gases. The intake valve then opens back up and the process starts over and over again.

Timing is everything in an engine to make sure it works properly. For example, you want to make sure the spark happens just before the piston is at top dead center because you want the pressure to be building up at the same time as that piston is ready to start moving back down. So seeing these four strokes as an animation is one thing, but seeing the whole thing work as a physical model, that's completely awesome. Let's go back to Brian's garage and check it out.

[B] So we're watching this one here. So as the piston is going down, that intake valve opens, now air is getting sucked into that cylinder. And then, of course, as it's doing, it's also spraying the injector. Now it's in the compression stroke, so it's compressing all that air and fuel in that little spot. Now it should light up, bang. So that's your spark plug firing. And what that does, it creates a little spark, ignites all the fuel.

Then it forcefully shoves this piston down. That provides power to the crankshaft when it does that, when it shoves it down. Now the exhaust valve is just starting to open, so they have to relieve the pressure somewhere. [D] Which one is the exhaust valve? [B] The one closest to you there, the smaller one. Now that opens up. Now you're pushing all the burnt fuel out. [D] Where does that, where does the exhaust go? [B] Basically, the port would be right here, and it just goes out into your exhaust manifold.

[D] And that would go out to your exhaust system? [B] Yeah. Now we're back to the vacuum side again, and fuel being squirted right there. Spark. [D] Wow, this is so cool. [B] And there's exhaust. We start cycle again. It's intake, compression, power.

[D] Now, keep in mind that all this timing of the pistons and the valves opening and closing is mechanically coupled to the spinning of the crankshaft. As you can see, much of the engine system is purely mechanical. It's designed to do just the right thing at just the right time. All it needs to keep going is that spark of the spark plug to keep lighting off the gas and keep the engine cycle going.

Okay, so how are you controlling the firing of these cylinders right now? Like the lights, how are you doing that? [B] I'm off that magnetic switch on the front here. So if you look across the front here, there's one little magnet. Let's try to find it for you here. Yeah, right there, the little silver dot. [D] That little thing right there? [B] Yep. And then if you look where that magnet lines up with those little glass tubes, it closes that switch, and that's when I made it make it fire the light.

[D] So you're telling... So one rotation of that is two plunges of each cylinder? [B] Yep. [D] Okay. And that's normal in an engine? You haven't had to change it? [B] On a four-stroke engine, yeah, that would be normal. [D] Okay. And so that's how your timing is controlled. And that's rotating the camshaft? [B] Yep. [D] And the camshaft, you can see it right there. And so the camshaft is rotating. That's a little harder to see, isn't it? [B] I can take this cover off. Would that help?

[D] Yeah, let's do that. That would be... Can you really do that? [B] Yeah, it comes apart. [D] Okay, before Brian takes that cover off, a big thank you to Drake State Technical and Community College that put me in touch with Huntsville Engine that gave me a crankshaft and a camshaft so that we could see it. Right here, we have a crankshaft. Now, the crankshaft is, you can see right here, this is where the pistons are connected right here. You have one piston going that way and one piston going that way.

You've heard of V8. It's shaped like a V and there's eight pistons. That way and that way, right? That's connected to the crankshaft. Now, there's a couple of really cool things about the crankshaft. For example, the fact that you got these big counterweights on here, that opposes the amount of force and accelerations caused by those pistons going in and out.

There's a couple of other things going on here. Look at the lobe, the counterweight. If you look really close, you'll see right here that it's been drilled out, and here it's been drilled out a lot. You can add and subtract those weights to balance out the engine and reduce the vibration, which is really a really cool feature to have. Another thing to think about is how do you hold this thing in the engine block? Because you've got all this crooked stuff happening and lots of weights being thrown around.

Well, you do that by resting the engine. I think of it as resting it on the journals. There's three, four, five. Those are the journals that hold the crankshaft in place along the axis of the engine itself. That's where your journal bearings are, five locations. Now, the crankshaft sits above the crankshaft like that right there. You'll notice on the camshaft, you have a bunch of little offsets. They look like cylinders, but they're not. You see, it's like a cylinder with a protrusion.

Let me hold this like that. Those are the cams, you see them? As you rotate this thing, those protrusions go up and down, and that's what controls your valves. Your valves control the intake and the exhaust of the engine. Basically, we've got two things going on. We have the power is transmitted out the engine that way to the transmission, and we've got the timing and control of the valves is a separate thing. That's the camshaft up above.

Now, if you think about it, where this is radially indexed to that is very, very important. Mechanics have little tricks that are built in. If you look really close here, that's that little notch right there. That's top dead center for the engine. They can radially rotate that until that's aligned. And then you would have a similar mark on the front of the camshaft, and those things are hooked together with the timing chain, which is on the front of the engine.

Now that you have a visual map of all the stuff going on, let's go back to Brian's shop and let's check it out in the running condition. You did that with... How did you cut everything so exact? [B] Just like cutting wood. I have a bunch of skill saw, and I've got a couple of rotary saws. I mean, just I don't know, all free-hand mostly, believe it or not, and then hand-filing everything. But yeah, it was a little tedious work.

[D] I am incredibly impressed with your work. Oh, yeah, we can see way better now. Okay, absolutely. [B] Okay, so—this would be your lifter, that's your push rod, and there's your oil gallery down the center. [D] So there's a cam right there, and the is basically an off-centered cylinder, is it? Or is it a weird lobe-looking shape? [B] Like a lobe. I guess if you look at it, you can see the lobes coming up in different areas. Like a teardrop, I guess, in individual areas.

[D] Okay, and so the lifter rides on the cam. [B] Rides on that lobe there, which you see it'll push it up. [D] Yep. And that moves this rod. Is this called the pushrod? [B] The pushrod, yeah. [D] The pushrod goes up here to the... [B] To the rocker. [D] The rocker, okay. [B] And the rocker pushes on the valve and the valve spring and opens up the valve.

[D] Keep going and I'll see the rocker move. Okay, so right there. And then on this other side. So the rocker is just a seesaw. [B] Pretty much. [D] And then it controls the valve. Okay, this could not be more clear. [Both laugh] [B] It's pretty. Straight up. [D] That's pretty amazing is what that is.

But what's so incredible is the tolerances on a... Is this an aluminum block? [B] That's actually cast iron as well. [D] This is a cast iron block. Okay, so on this cast iron block, everything is precisely machined, but you just did this with normal tools. [B] Right behind you. I use that tool right there. Literally everything was done right on that. [D] On the Smithie? [B] On the good old Smithie.

[D] That's amazing. I have so much respect for you. I really do. Okay, so yeah, let's see it go. [B] All right. [D] You've got the little tube in there for your LEDs. [B] Yeah. [D] That's so clever. [B] I had to solder all them in. Every LED, they run warm side to put a heat sink on them, and that's what that aluminum channel is. It pulls the heat away from the light. Otherwise, the LEDs get so hot they burn out.

[D] Really? [B] That was one thing I ran into right away, so I had to figure out something different. [D] You're good at electronics as well. [B] So-so. It's something I did in college a little bit here and there and then switched over to automotive. [D] That's awesome. [B] Jack of all trades again. A master of few is better than... How does that go? Better than a master of one or something. I don't remember the whole term.

[D] That's amazing. I would say a PhD is an inch wide and a mile deep, but you're an inch deep and a mile wide. It looks like you're like half a mile deep, half a mile wide. [B] Well-rounded, I guess. [D] Yeah, it's pretty good. All right, so here we go. It's hard not to smile, isn't it? [B] Yeah, I love it.

[Upbeat folk music begins playing] [D] You think we should turn the lights off and do that? [B] Yeah. Let's see what it does. [D] Oh, so it's moving right to left. [B] Yeah, and then the other side is going the other way. So it's really wild. [D] Can I slow it down? [B] That's as slow as I can get it. [D] That's as slow as it can get it.

[B] Actually, hang on, I got an idea for you. [D] Just put a wrench or a drill on it? [B] Yeah, I've got a drill, and that's what I was doing in the beginning before I put the electric motor on it. [D] Okay, yeah, this is telling the story. So boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh, so this one's different. [B] No, I think it's probably just having a misfire on the magnet.

[D] Oh, this cylinder is misfiring. [B] Yeah, that magnet might be just strong enough that it's grabbing that window switch and it's making the trigger wrong. [D] I see. [B] Yeah, I think we got a misfire. We got a misfire. [Both laughing] [D] We got a misfire. [B] We got a misfire. [B] Dang it. Mechanical failure. [D] That's— that's fantastic.

[B] We're going to have to go back to R&D and figure it out. [D] That's not great. It's supposed to go right to left on the front side and left to right on the back, but we have a misfire in one of the cylinders because of the magnet. [B] We got a bad spark plug. [D] Don't you wish it was that easy to diagnose... [B] You just look at it, there it is. [D] It's fantastic.

Now can you run it up? That's so cool, dude. [B] The one thing you might notice that is splashing a lot of that oil around, that's not normal. Actually, this one, I had to overfill it. That way the oil can cover the crankshaft better. But typically in an actual engine, the oil sits down in the sump, which I can show you what that looks like. [D] Okay. [B] So technically all that oil you see in there right now usually sits down inside the center of that.

[D] Down there? [B] Yeah. [D] I see. So you have your reservoir of oil down there, and it's pumping it up out of that. [B] So where the crank would be turning would typically be just out in the open air, not splashing in the oil. That's one thing you got to keep a note on that too. Then your pickup tube, that's your oil pump, sucks here and pulls that oil all the way from the bottom.

[D] Then it pumps it all the way up? [B] Then if you look in here, that's where the oil would be going across all the journals. [D] So this is a normal pickup tube here. Is that what you call that? [B] The pickup tube would be right here by your foot, right here. So it starts here. [D] The pickup tube's in the bottom. [B] Yeah, goes into the oil pump on the front. [D] Okay.

[B] And then it goes to that piping here, which on that block, it would be all internally made veins and stuff like that. So it's a little... [D] What do you call? You had a fancy word for this. [B] The oil gallery. [D] Clearly, Brian is an amazing, intelligent person. But the whole time I'm sitting there, I'm looking at this all-wheel-drive Cutlass on the lift with over 800 horsepower.

So this video would not be complete without riding in that thing with Brian. And we're going to do that in just a second. Okay, here's the deal. This is the sponsored part of the video, but I don't want it to feel like that because I genuinely love this thing. Ridge reached out to me a while back and they're like, "Hey, can we sponsor Smarter Every Day?" And I was like, "I like my wallet."

And they were like, "But our wallets are better." I tried it one day and it was great, and I loved it. And then I discovered they have an Airtag Money clip accessory that you can purchase and put on your wallet and it makes it where you can find your wallet. And it changed my life. And so I reached out to Ridge and I was like, "Can we run on Smarter Every Day in such a way that people can get a free Airtag Money clip?" And they said, "Yes."

And I said, "Awesome." And then we did the Bullet versus Bullet video. You believed me. Thank you. And now, Smarter Every Day is running another Ridge ad. And I'm grateful to you for supporting Smarter Every Day. Here's the deal. I'm going to show you a video that I didn't show before. If you recall, we shot against the burnt Damascus, and it was double-bullet-proof.

We also shot against the titanium, also double-bullet-proof. And then we shot against the aluminum and the bullets fused inside the wallet, which was amazing. So now what I want to do is I want to show you a video I didn't show before, which was the titanium wallet. I said, "You know what would be fun? Let's take a Ridge wallet and then let's shoot it inside and let's make the bullets fuse inside the wallet and see if we can contain the bullet splatter."

As you can see, the timing was off, but it still led to something really cool. Watch the back of the bullets spin around here. That was amazing. I love it. So the way that works is that's the elastic strap. So you can see the strength of the elastic strap there on the Ridge Wallet. You get it. You're smart. If you support Ridge, you're supporting Smarter Every Day, I’d be grateful.

And you have an opportunity to get a wallet that you can actually find. And I think that's cool. This is mine. It's the north shore of Hawaii topographical map. I think that's pretty. They have all different colors you can choose from. There's also a lot of cool patterns on the website. If you go to ridge.com/smarter, you get the wallet or whatever it is you purchase. If you spend over 95 bucks, you can add on this air tag money clip for free.

This thing right here has changed my life and I can find my wallet. They have a 99-day money-back guarantee and a lifetime warranty. They know that this is a good product. And I negotiated so that you could have an air tag money clip for free if you spend over 95 bucks because I know you will like this. And anybody that I've given this to as a gift or they know they purchase it or whatever, they love it.

Right now you can get up to 30% off for Christmas. So that's the deal. So if you want to check it out, go to ridge.com/smarter. Thank you for considering purchasing that because that supports Smarter Every Day. And I'm grateful. And I know you'll like it. I like mine. I use it every day. So now the moment I've been waiting for and honestly was hoping would happen, I wasn't sure, Brian asked me if I wanted to go for a ride in the Cutlass.

So obviously I said yes. Just hearing this thing rumble when it back out of the garage gave me the giggles. So good. [B] Is that noisy enough for you? [D] Huh? [B] Is that noisy enough for you? [D] I love it. I climbed in, got my seatbelt on, and within a mile or so, Brian let her rip.

[B] I'll lay into it here a little bit for you. [D] Where should the camera be? [B] Oh, wherever. [D] Holy crap! [Squealing in excitement] Dude. [Both laughing hard] [D] Oh, man. [B] You had that recording the whole time, right? [D] I think I did, but it was bouncing everywhere. That was unbelievable. [B] That's 840 horsepower at the tire on the Dino that we had dialed in at.

[D] Oh, man. Okay. Well, that was ridiculous. It's hard to explain the combination of acceleration and engine noise. You can hear it in your chest and it's amazing. We talked all about how the car works. He introduced me to the original lightning rod shifters that came with the Cutlass. He's modified it to not use them, though.

We just cruised around town like old high school friends and eventually got to talking about important stuff like our families, which is when he told me why the car is so special to him. [B] So when my dad passed away years ago, the little bit of money that I got out of that was to pay for the car and go through school. And this was one of the first cars I got. So it's just like a family heirloom and I just have fun.

So your dad passed away when you were in high school? [B] Yeah. [D] Okay. [B] About 13 years old when he passed away. He got killed in a motorcycle wreck. [D] I'm sorry to hear that. That's awesome that this is like... There's a connection there. [B] Yeah, there's a big connection. Yeah. [D] Yeah, that's cool.

[D] There's a lot going on in the world today, but I take comfort knowing that there's some dude named Bryan out in the middle of Nebraska that's done amazing things with a car that gives him a special connection back with his father. I also like the fact that that car is also becoming a point of connection with his family who I had the great pleasure of meeting earlier.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of Smarter Every Day. It was a blast. BIG thanks to Brian for letting me come out there. If you want to support the sponsor, that would be awesome. Also, if you're a supporter on Patreon, I am working on the stickers now and they're pretty cool. I do a sticker every year for people that support on Patreon to say thanks for sticking with me.

I try to make sure I'm in the position to make sure I'm in the position. I really like this one. So if you're up for it, patreon.com/smartereveryday that's it. Thank you to everybody that subscribes and supports on the email list and all that good stuff. I am grateful. I'm Destin. You're getting Smarter Every Day. Have a good one. Bye. Oh, man. Dude. [B] Ain't that fun? [D] Yes, it's just fun. Golly, man.