Stationery engine design

[up2oneghz]

Perhaps you all can help me, and I want to thank you for your time up front.

I wanting to build a stationary engine for co-gen. I have a 300 straight six that I want to modify.

From what I can tell old stationary engines seem to be low hp, huge displacement, and very low RPM engines. I'm assuming that the reason many of these engines ran for decades in factory settings is the low RPM aspect. After all kinetic force is mass x velocity squared, and the low rpm allowed for better heat dissipation. My goal is 500rpm and to achieve 5-15hp


Where I'm lost is spark timing, and cam design?

Any advice would be well appreciated

Thanks again

 

[GreenTwin]

Part of the secret to long life of old equipment is the massive babbitt bearing surfaces, and the shape of the front of the bearing which was designed to push a layer of oil between the wear surfaces.
I have seen a book somewhere (I forget the source) detailing exactly how the old large babbitt bearings were shaped.
Lots of X cuts in the bearing too to spread the oil.

I have to guess that the old bearing designs also keep the maximum forces on the bearings at a level that problably lower than many modern engines.
The tradeoff is that the old machines were very large, and so had a low amount of power produced for a given mass.

I have deliberately rebuilt large pumping equipment that was over 100 years old (in my line of work), rather than replace it, because once rebuilt, there is basically no maintenance for a very long time.
Modern pumping solutions are very compact and sophisticated, but they may only last 5 years or less.

I am not sure exactly what you are trying to do with your engine.
Is is an existing gasoline engine ? If so, then can you find its original ignition and timing system drawings ?

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