Mark Drake's steam bike

I know Mark will not be putting this on the SACA Forum himself - but you must watch his magnificent steam bike in action - a superb piece of engineering. Fully developed and superbly finished in every detail.
Mike

[www.youtube.com]

Beautiful and super job. Do you think he would share some of the technical info about the burner and boiler? Would be great to see.

-Ron

Wow! What a beautifully designed steam bike. Mr. Drake is a talented man. I sure would like to learn more about the design of the burner assembly and the boiler if Mr. Drake would be willing to share that info.

Thanks, Jerry.

I'm with Ron and Jerry...really would like to hear more about this Gentleman's Bike??

Dear Mike,
Please message me and give me Mark Drake's contact information? Something as nice as this shouldn't be kept secret to our Esteamed friends. I'd be willing to present the innovations on the forum, with his permission.

Kind regards,
Rick Heinig

PS...You can provide my contact information to Mark. I'm in the Steam Automobile Club of America directory. I'm hoping he may of heard of my Steam Powered Scooter (pictures in this website).

Mark is an extremely busy chap at the moment with a number of projects on the go as well as organising the annual SCCGB tour due in few weeks time. He just hasn’t got time to get involved with forum discussions about the bike, or email correspondence – but an article about it is in hand, to be published in the SCCGB magazine. So sorry boys you’ll just have to wait. Be assured though that the article will be very informative and will have plenty of technical detail.

Mike

Hi Mike,
Understand...maybe some time in the future we can talk.

So the article will be in the Steam Car Club of Great Britain (SCCG. Will it be available at [www.steamcar.net]
??

Kind regards,
Rick

Hi, guys.
Can anybody tell the number of superheat temperature that man has in the boiler of his beautiful bike? I listened many times and failed to recognize.

Serge

Serge-

I just listened to the interview, and Mr. Drake mentioned that his running steam pressure was 125 psi, and that he had added 300 degrees C of superheat-which is-as he said-"quite a lot of superheat"!

He's certainly done a great job of engineering and building the bike. Hopefully he'll post an update when he adds the condenser.



Chuk

Hi Chuk,

That sure seems like overkill! At 125 psi gauge the saturation temperature is 178.25 C or about 352.86 F.
Adding 300 C superheat raises the temperature to 478.25 C or about 892.86 F. You would need an extraordinarily short cutoff to expand that steam down close to 212 (exhaust to atmosphere)---which wouldn't give you any power at all with that type of engine setup. I'm not sure you were running the PSL engine much hotter than that. I don't have the cycle calculator on this computer, but I'd guess adding 100 C would still be much more than adequate.

Regards,

Ken

Ken
On the video he said the cutoff was 45% that’s good (early) for an eccentric driven valve.
A 30 HP Stanley on long cutoff is between 133 and 145 degrees between 75 and 80% of travel. He also said he was using synthetic oil, if he is injecting it cold at the cylinder it could be cutting the temperature by 100 degreases, just about the maximum for the oil.??
Rolly

Chuk, thank You very much.
Ken, seems You are right, but Mr. Drake says that this superheat is a "secret" of his bike. Seems like he wants to overcome cooling effect of one inlet/exhaust port. Wow, 478C for slide valve engine!

Thank you guys

Serge

Beautiful. Would love to see plans posted somewhere.