Nearly two years ago, the Garage 54 YouTube channel placed a transparent head on top of an engine, providing a clear view of the combustion process. The channel is back with some more transparent resin to build an entire engine block out of the stuff.
The last time the crew tried to do this, the engine exploded at startup. Garage 54 redesigned a new block so that it acted as a spacer between the cylinder head and the crankshaft. The plan was to eliminate any direct load on the block beyond the combustion process in the chamber. The block is also a tad taller in an attempt to reduce compression.
Things go better this time around. The first startup produces spark and there isn’t a catastrophic failure. However, things become dicey with the second attempt. One of the cylinders produced combustion, but the mixture combusted too late when the cylinder was at top dead center. This caused the block to crack along the bottom, but it didn’t stop the experiment.
The team made a few adjustments to the timing and tried again, this time getting the engine to truly start and run. The slow-motion camera captured in exquisite detail each cylinder firing. The engine runs again for a fourth time, but the block began to break down, with the crack along the bottom expanding to the entire length.
The engine only ran for a few seconds at a time as the heat would start to destroy it. The transparent cylinder head from last year displayed signs of degradation almost immediately, with the high temperatures causing bubbles and other imperfections to form in the material.
Garage 54 wasn’t attempting to see how long the engine would last – that’s a different experiment for another time. Instead, the channel wanted to know if could even get a transparent engine block to start, and it was a resounding success for the team that has made some truly interesting creations over the years.