The Warped Perception YouTube channel is pretty neat. This guy does some of the most weird, fun, and off the wall mechanical experiments that you can possibly dream up and some, like this one, we had never even had a nightmare about. You are about to see what happens when you try to run a single cylinder Briggs and Stratton engine equipped with a see-through cylinder head on gunpowder. The results are destructively spectacular.
Now the idea here is that you cannot start the engine on gunpowder (and it turns out you can’t run it on the stuff, either) but you can get the engine running and then introduce it. That’s the method used here. by rigging up a long tube full of gunpowder and attaching the tube to an actuator that can be operated by remote control, he’s able to start the engine and get it running and then introduce the powder into the situation.
There’s actually two parts to this one. What happens when the engine eats all the gun powder and what happens to the engine post explosion. Both of them are equally interesting because this is just one of the most mystifying experiments we have ever witnessed. It’s super interesting, if not completely off the wall.
Let’s just say that gasoline seems like tap water as compared to black powder.
Neighbors gotta love that…yeesh.
“Engines run better on nitro than aluminum”.
Elmer Trett
Kids don’t try this at home
Not surprised the engine started after the explosion. The force of the explosion took out the weakest link, that bring the plastic head. As such the the force of the explosion travelled upwards. Would have liked to have seen the experiment run with the stock head in place. The stock head would not have shattered like the plastic, resulting in the force of the explosion traveling more downward into the cylinder. Guessing it might have bent the rod and/or broken the piston.