My knowledge is regular car engines. On a typical combustion engine, you don’t want oil spraying or leaking into the combustion chamber as you would develop carbon deposits and degradation of performance.
How do these mix engines work both from a function aspect (lubricating via the gas) and maintenance (not building up catastrophic amounts of carbon)?
In: 2
Oil designed to mix with gasoline (usually a two-stroke) isn’t the same oil as used in a separate oil system (usually a 4-stoke). If you put the wrong oil in the wrong thing it will eventually screw things up.
Two-stoke oil is designed to mix nicely into the gasoline and burn (relatively) cleanly to avoid exactly the problems you’re talking about. Since it only goes through the engine once, it doesn’t need much longevity or thermal stability and it’s OK (and even desirable) for it to break down rapidly. Exactly what you *don’t* want in a segregated system where the oil will potentially spend a year or more cycling around.
Edit: for the lubricant part, two-stokes run the air/fuel mixture through the crankcase (under the pistons, where the crankshaft is) to expose all those moving bits to the oil.
Latest Answers