Watching This See Through Engine Run In Slow Motion Is Truly Amazing

Destin from the Smarter Every Day channel on YouTube is back with some more amazing footage, this time of a little project that most of us can really appreciate since we are all into cars and hotrodding on some level. Destin saw a video of this engine with a see-through cylinder head and knew immediately that he had to load up his high speed camera and head to Cinnamonson, New Jersey where he met up with Everett, who has fabricated a clear acrylic cylinder head that allows a great view of the combustion process from outside the engine.

Destin and Everett are joined in the shop by Mike and Bill and together, they get the small engine up and running. Of course, just watching the engine run in real time with the clear cylinder head is pretty damn cool, but when the high speed camera is fired up and the flames are slowed down to really show what goes on inside the combustion chamber, it’s literally beautiful to see. Destin walks us through the four strokes of an engine cycles, then toward the end of the video, you can actually see them all take place inside the engine thanks to the miracle of slow-motion footage.

These guys all have amazing passion for all things engine related, and it shows in some of the other cool pieces they’ve assembled, and as always, the ever-inquisitive Destin is there to learn and share with us to help us understand what we are seeing. From the intake stroke, where air and fuel are pulled in through the intake valve by the piston moving downward in the cylinder, to the compression stroke, where the valves are closed and the piston moves upward in the cylinder to compress the air/fuel mixture. Then there’s a spark, and the explosion pushes the piston back down the cylinder in the power stroke, and finally the exhaust valve opens and the hot gasses exit during the exhaust stroke. We’ve all heard about it and seen animations of it, but to see it slowed down to the point we can actually see each step take place and really understand what happens hundreds, if not thousands of times a minute inside our cars!