Watch inside a running engine
 

A high-pressure, heat-resistant camera inside the cylinder of a four-stroke engine. Shooting at 1000 fps, the camera recorded just exactly what happens to make engines run:


http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2007/10/micro_camera_shows_the_working/

Coolio! I had not idea there were cameras that small that could withstand conditions like that.

Awesome! Now lets see the inside of a diesel engine! :)

Interesting how the flame is concentrated around the intake valve, I guess the mixture does not have time to spread around, especially at high RPM.

It looks to me as though the mixture does a pretty good job of spreading around, so the concentration of flame around the valve can't be explained by the mixture sticking around the valve. Could it be that liquid fuel adheres to the valve, causing the additional flame around the valve. I'm surprised that the explosion is not more volatile in general.
Is the sequence posted edited at all? The piston doesn't seem to rise to tdc enough to account for 4 cycles. Am I missing something?

cool video. It seems weird to watch it in slo mo.

I thought it would be pretty dark in there. Where's the light from?

i think the flames are on the intake due to it being a dirty valve in that video. The light for the camera probably comes from the heated walls, which could give low level light.

I believe you are watching an incomplete, looped video.

Due to the nature of high speed film, so many frames, so little time, so little money.

Remember, unless its a new(er?) direct injected engine (or a diesel engine) the fuel gets mixed in with intake air before it actually goes through the intake valve..so it kinda makes sense that the flames would hang out near the intake valve (more fresh air/fuel mix in that location)

Illustrates how inefficient (or very efficient compared to 20 years ago) Internal combustion engines are.

-John

Really cool clip! Thanks for posting!

I am surprised also a camera can withstand those conditions, pretty awesome!

Glad everyone enjoy's it.

But I know nothing more about it than what you see at the site.

I'm wondering if it is legit. It would be hard to fake something like that, but a lot easier than doing it for real.

That the camera shakes around is a bit suspicious.

Looks to me as if it is a hemi head of some description, and the piston rises as far as it can. If it came up any higher it would hit the spark plug. Pretty cool.

I wonder how much different it would look, if the plug were clocked.