Honestly one of the nicest flamelickers I've ever seen. You did a great job on that engine! I wish i had the tools and skills to create something like this!
Nilamotk, I've mentioned limited valve timing on your previous video on this engine. The nature of this simple piston valve design is the main performance limiter. This design dictates that the valve opening/closing events are symmetrical around top dead centre and bottom dead centre. A valve mechanism driven by a cam and pushrod or rocker arm permit assymetry to be dialled in on the valve timing. Flamelicker engines with asymmetric valve opening perform far better than this design. I have built both types and this piston valve type are really fiddly to get good performance and long runs from.
Pretty cool, I wish I had a lathe to do this stuff (along with glassblowing stuff). Might make one some day. I guess it was a bit hard to do as you has to trial and error everything until it runs properly.
That silver knurled cap used to be for fuel oil, kerosene or whatever. I remachined with a hole in the center of it to incorporate a rubber ball and a spring. The spring seats the rubber ball and hold the pressure back. I then made a filler adapter out of a torch to go on a propane torch bottle, I drilled the orifice out so it could feed a good volume of liquid quickly. And then made the tip with a small tube and a big rubber seal. You'd push the tube into the hole, it would push the ball out of the way and then you could fill it with propane. When the tube was removed the spring, and propane pressure would hold the ball seated and hold the propane. It would hold propane for about 2 or 3 weeks. It had a very slow leak so I would just fill it a bit for each run. Butane also worked well.
This doesn't actually seem like a bad design, but I think the thermal capacity of your cylinder is too high. The colder you can get one to run the more efficient it should be, so if you increase the surface area of the cooling fins on your cylinder (by either cutting a groove in the middle of them to double the fins or just by thinning them out a bit), it should both heat up faster and run cooler overall.
It will burn a whole tank of fuel before it over heats as it sits, but yea you're correct. But seeing as ill never have it running that long im in no mood to rebuild it.. lol
