Need help on engine (engines bursts into fire)

[Laesianne]

Trying to build a land vehicle that has a small engine. It has a large fluid tank, i connected 2 radiatiors, 4 tires, an exhaust, and everything is all close to the engine or right next to it. However i'm setting my engine at 20RPS and 100% max power, it gets to 40 already when i start the engine. When i start driving around within 2 minutes the whole entire engine is on fire.

I don't think this is very realistic. I even tried the fluid system, the engine over heats all the time as well.
Am I doing something wrong or is it an early access problem? This is my first time doing advanced, i watched a ton of youtube videos to make sure it was right and i copied other people piece by piece and for some reason mine still can't handle it?
I can't build a cooling system with water since it's not a submarine or boat.

Anyone know what's up?
Btw the fuel, air, exhaust is always around 1-7%.... what's going on?

[Brooke7125]

Youre issue is the power. if you run an engine with high power it tends to heat up quickly, eventhough you have multiple radiators, you also may need to add ports to the intake/exaust arias. Also it is perfectly realistic because if you put a lot of stress on a high power gas guzzler it tends to build up friction and heat from the gas explotions in the sylenders

[ElfBossHogg]

The heat buildup is due to creating more power then you need and not "pulling that power" (aka loading) it effectively somewhere else. The result is that excess power turns in to heat which melts the engine. To manage that rate of heat buildup you need to do one or both of the following: produce only enough power for the immediate need and/or match the load so that it is in balance with the power you are creating.

For the first item consider implementing a PID against the engine RPS, speed or speed gain to automatically regulate your throttle. This is a bit complicated to start but once you gain experience with how it works you can use a PID framework to ensure you are creating only the power needed by you system.

For the second part consider gearboxes to put sufficient load on your engine to either slow the RPS down or match the torque you need for what needs to be done. An engine spinning at 20RPS with no gearbox will get you up to required speed, but melt the engine. Now consider you could get the same result with an engine at 10 RPS so long as you have the right gear setup. When you consider gears you need to look at whether the ratio overwhelms the engine causing you to stall and also whether it gets you to where you need to go in the right amount of time. Its a bit of a balancing act where you may consider using a sequence of gears to solve your problem (ie. Low gear to get enough torque to get you moving, once you are moving a higher gear to sustain that speed but at a lower RPS).

Advanced building can be tricky in that there are a lot of considerations. Attaching a throttle to an engine and gunning it will only go so far. 😊

[Laesianne]

Not gonna lie, i do not understand a single word any of you said.

[Laesianne]

What do you mean add ports to intake and exhaust areas?
So i should keep my engines max power at 20%? the the RPS at 20%?

I'm trying to build a race car tbh so it can go fast.

What should i do exactly? If you can explain in the most dumbest way possible. I'm not a mechanic or an engineer.

[ElfBossHogg]

Originally posted by Laesianne:

What do you mean add ports to intake and exhaust areas?
So i should keep my engines max power at 20%? the the RPS at 20%?

I'm trying to build a race car tbh so it can go fast.

What should i do exactly? If you can explain in the most dumbest way possible. I'm not a mechanic or an engineer.

My apologies that my answer was a bit confusing. I have an Engineering background so its hard to dial it back. Unfortunately with advanced mode there are no easy answers. To create an effective solution in Advanced you need to understand some of the mechanics on how it all works. That's what makes it an Engineer's Playground... I love it.

Relative to your situation...
If you want a car to go fast then you will want to put in a gearbox that will send a lot of RPS to your wheels... but in doing so you are putting a lot more force on the engine and it will either stall (not enough torque to power the load on the engine) or have terrible acceleration (too little torque). It's all a balancing act between engine power, gear ratios, the weight of your vehicle and the wheels you are trying to drive.

So for your situation.. a suggestion as to the possible solution to start.

-Keep Engine at Max Power and set max RPS to 20

-After the engine Install a Gearbox with the arrows facing away from the engines and set the second gear ratio to 2:1, and the first to 1:1. This means that when the gearbox is on for every 2 turns of the engine it will create one turn of drive shaft. This will give you the acceleration you need to start but your engine will start to cook. When the gear box is off you will be back to 1:1 as if no gearbox was in place.

-After the first Gearbox Install a second gearbox with the arrows facing toward the engine and set the second gear ratio to 6:5. This means that when this gearbox is on every 5 turns of the engine shaft will be 6 on the wheel. Once you reach "adequate speed" (depends upon your weight, engine size, gears, etc.) or if you engine heat is too high turn on the second gearbox.

- As you are driving adjust your throttle and see what happens to your heat, speed and acceleration for each gearbox.

Just a note on the gearboxes: they multiply the RPS going out but they also send a proportional feedback to the engine making it harder to spin. So if you expect that if you have 20RPS on the Engine and you click in a positive 2:1 gearbox that you are going to get 40RPS you are mistaken. In doing so you increase the load on the engine which slows it down and that will conversely slow the wheels down. So depending upon your engine power you could stall or get slower rotations on the wheel then before you engaged the gearbox. It all comes down to the power of your engine and what you are trying to spin. It's all a balancing act...
Put in a larger engine, with smaller wheels... too much weight?
Put in a small engine with large wheels... too much torque needed to turn the wheels?
What is just right? You may have to try a number of different versions to get it right.

[Laesianne]

Thanks for dumbing it down tbh, that helped a lot and made me understand more. I think my problem was... i was using a small engine, with only 1 of everything besides a large fuel tank. I think i was making the small engine work too hard and it didn't give enough torque. Found out it was only able to move 15mph constantly and wouldn't go any higher even if i moved the throttle up.
I think the engine was just powering too much at the same time. 4 wheels, and the weight was affecting it i believe. when i removed weight blocks, found that the air, fuel, exhaust went up to 50% instead of 1%.. and some RPS and power made it stay at 100% but the fastest i was able to go was 15mph without the engine exploding. If i accelerated faster, the engine heated up too fast. So i believe I was powering too much with such a small engine.

Since when i left the max powder at 100%, and RPS at 20%.. the engine would blew up not even 5 seconds later. The engine heated up too fast.

But after placing 4 gear boxes, it did help some what, but i'm still trying to play around with it.


Also found out everytime i turned my vehicle, the rotation of the engine would increase. I only had one gear box.. so maybe that's why my RPS only stayed at around 26... since it was 1:1, and -1:1 for reverse.
So in the end i need to add multiple to pretty much "manually" switch gears like shifting. So the gear boxes should all be pointing towards the engine right?
The first one closes to the engine, 1:1, 1:-1, 2nd one would be 2:1, 1:1, 3rd maybe 3:2, 1:1? or how would i do it?

[Delle(DK)]

Aeroplane engine.

try to set Engine power at 100%
And the aircraft engine rpm to 10%
It will not overheat but be stable at about 77c ( i have 3 black coolers attached ).
And one aircraft propellar behind a 1:3 gearbox ( installed backwards )
At 90% propellar pitch and the above engine settings my hercules c130 cargo plane can take off and fly 162 knots with very low fuel consumption and 77c engine heat. ( push propellar to 100% when up high and fly level then the engine reach its limits and slow down a little bit = better fuel economy..
( power handle in cockpit is on 2.0 ( something like that. )

[Brooke7125]

Dumb way,
decrase power
add exausts
maybe put pump to air
add rps to go fast, not power

[Brooke7125]

better yet just post it and ill figure out whats wrong, im no engeneer but if i can play this game, swap a jeep engine and re bore my dirtbike i can figure it out :)