I don't actually know, but I assume there is a cylinder of compressed air somewhere running the engine... this doesn't really make it useless, although the practicality of air cars in general is... well... usually limited:

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/vehicles/air-car.htm

The car's condition depends mainly on whether or not the engine was running at the time the air intake was submerged (water does not compress well inside a cylinder) and if the water is fresh or salt. This is lake Baikal so it's fresh. The blurb a the end says its during the Baikal Cup ice yachting event and you can see some ice boats in the background so the ice is probably safe in most areas, just not in this one.

Yeah, it's also literally undrinkable when you're handed a cup at that temperature. Attempting to drink it won't burn you as badly as if it seeps into your clothes, but first degree burns on your tongue is not a good time. Brewing temperature and serving temperature should be entirely separate.

And, for all the bullshit she went through, I do think this woman eventually changed things. If you go to McDonalds now, you still won't get good coffee, but you will get it at a reasonable temperature and with a sturdy cup and lid. And, whatever cream and sugar you want is already added, so you don't have to immediately do surgery on a floppy cylinder of lava resting between your legs.

Worth watching to the end. I'll bet that cop wet himself when that last cylinder blew and flew straight at him.

Prepare for uniformed speculation!

This is what I think is happening. The ridged cylinder has an inlet near the bottom with a cover connected to the piston. As the piston goes out, it sucks the burning alcohol vapour from the flame through the inlet. This is the "flame gulping" bit.

When the crank rotates, it pushes the piston back in, slides the cover closed and compresses the burning alcohol vapour which then pushes the piston back out and the cycle repeats.

Essentially it's a very simple two stroke engine where the fuel is already ignited on intake, so it doesn't need a spark. Clever, but it would suck for fuel efficiency.

I am not an engineer, so there's a pretty good chance I'm wrong about this.\\

edit: Apparently it's a vacuum engine

Pch, my 4-cylinder Focus can go that fast...

...if I drive it over a very, very high cliff...

What's the difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger? Isn't it something like that the supercharger boosts power at lower revs, while a Turbo requires higher revs?

In Australia we have the Euro spec VW's, and my Golf had a 4 cylinder 1.4 litre engine with a turbocharger and a supercharger putting out 118 kilowatts (around 160 hp). Here in North America they have that 5 cylinder, 2.5 litre engine that produces 170 hp. Only 10 hp difference between a 1.4 and 2.5 litres!

ICE CYLINDERS, yo!

You can afford...being the prime question here.
Most cars these days (read: not performance cars) are made on the cheap.
Forged connecting rods, and billet valves / cam shafts / high tensile head bolts are not cheap, therfore they dont go into the vast majority of modern engines.

Putting a turbo on your engine alone would vastly increase compression ratios, stressing just about every internal part in the car. The poverty pack econo-cars can not handle any more than about 4-6lb's of boost before things start heating up, warping, and shaking themselves apart violently.

Cost to get things up to spec?

erm....well a good set of H beam forged con-rods can cost you anywhere from 600 upwards (generally upwards...a lot upwards), and thats just the part, not including installation. Getting the valves reworked, vavle springs, cam shaft....thats ~2k+ if youre doing it on the cheap.

Then you need an intercooler to take the heat out of the intake air (as the turbo compresses intake air, and therfore heats it up) so as to keep the economy levels up....and piping to go with it, your looking at another 1k at least.

Then you need an ECU mod, piggy back if you can get away with it, around the 1k figure, otherwise a full standalone can cost upwards of 1.5k.

Then you need to program and tune, upwards again of 1.5k.

To turbo a non-turbo economy engine povery-pack car, you are looking at LEAST 5k+, and thats doing it on mega budget, you wont get any reliability or safety out of it.

Before you even get to put the turbo on, which itself is about 300-1.5k depending on what turbine you purchase, you also need a turbo manifold to redirect all of the exhaust gas into a turbo, and have an outlet pipe that allows waste-gate dumps into your exhaust. So you also need to get your cat-back system redone too, which is about 700-1500 to get it done right.

Doing it right? Start counting from 10k....and keep going.

Doing it right would be to upgrade the breaks (bigger discs, bigger calipers, bigger master cylinder), the suspension (coilovers), and doing some serious chassis strengthening to take the increased loads (front/rear sway bar upgrades, front/rear strut tower bars etc..)

Its not cheap unfortunately

The impressive part is not that it's possible to melt silver with a torch, but that he is doing it with hydrogen that he's generating himself - rather than from a purchased cylinder - and that he's able to generate it at a high enough rate to do this.

He has another video showing more of his setup here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jghW2S6LH0c

In WW II they had Sherman tanks with a motorized cylinder sticking over the front on two booms, on the cylinder were welded dozens of chains so it would thump the ground as the tank rolled forward, hopefully detonating any mines before the vehicle got there.

Now they do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eeaou2L2sI

None of it is considered 'cleared' it's just as good as you can get it if you have to travel through that zone. The only way to actually clear a minefield is the very slow and tedious approach.

That's why there have been so many pushes to restrict mine warfare in the past twenty years or so. Once they're out there it's really difficult to get them back safely.

@Drachen_Jager

Do you think this concept could be adapted to be useful? Perhaps if it was a wide cylinder instead of a sphere it could sweep, for example, a 3 meter stripe instead of just a meandering deer trail.

>> ^grinter:

Ice? Gas cylinders? let's stop beating around the bush and bomb the thing already!


Go big or go home, get a load of anti matter in there

Ice? Gas cylinders? let's stop beating around the bush and bomb the thing already!

>> ^Payback:

>> ^spoco2:
We just bought a 2 year old Kia Grand Carnival (the Sedona in America), replacing our old 2002 Carnival that had it's engine die after a tiny bloody plastic T joint snapped causing the radiator water to spew onto the road instead of around the engine to cool it. This resulted in an engine that overheated very quickly and a system that was de-pressurised, and apparently not really able to be re-pressurised (don't tell me it could, I don't want to know that it was actually a cheap fix when we're told the engine was cactus... don't want to know we needlessly just paid out a chunk of money on a new car that we didn't need to).
Aaaanyway.
When I was looking into whether the engines in the new Carnivals are any good (apparently they are, Hyundai Lambda engines made in the US of A), I noticed they made a big deal on the wikipedia page about it having a timing CHAIN rather than belt, and wondered why this was a big thing.
Now I know <img class="smiley" src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/tongue.gif">

Here is me, NOT telling you it was a cheap fix, even if the engine seized from overheating after you ignored the "check engine" warning light. I also won't tell you that if it didn't come to a screeching, banging, violent halt, you probably could have "nursed" it home/to mechanic by waiting until it cooled down.
No sir, I REFUSE to tell you any of that.
I will tell you that if the reason it couldn't be pressurized was "a warped cylinder head" then ya, the engine is boned, but I'll avoid saying it would be about $2500 for a motor out of a auto wrecker (junk yard, used parts lot, etc) or even around $300 for a new cylinder head.


Well that's good to know (sort of). My wife was driving it at the time, and the check engine didn't come on, but it did come to a screeching, banging halt, with steam pouring out of the engine bay. To get an engine from one of these old ones rebuilt is around $4K (Australian), and that's about all the 2002 carnival is worth now, no-one wants to touch them. There's no point getting a 2nd hand engine from anywhere as there's not many to begin with, and they're just not reliable enough to spend the money on anyway.

So it was either a scrap yard for $500, or a trade in for $600. We had to be able to drive it in. Limped it in (still no check engine light on), handed it over, bid them good luck with it. We had told them the engine had blown up, but they were 'well, if you can drive it in, we'll give you $600 for it'. So it's not like we lied to them about the condition of the car. They'll scrap it for parts anyway.