FANTASTIC VOYAGE

by Greg Hall
(from an idea by Claudia Smith)
© 1996

       If you remember the 1966 movie "FANTASTIC VOYAGE" where they shrunk a mini-submarine with crew and injected them into a human's blood stream then you know what this tale is all about. What if you did the same thing only this time dropped the sub into an ATV's fuel tank. What would it be like?
      Well after being shrunk and deposited inside the fuel tank you would splash around for quite a while until you were drawn to the petcock's pickup tube. First you would be bounced off the fuel filter’s mesh screen then sucked down the tube like dirty bath water in a tub.
       It's a straight shot down until you make a right angle turn into what looks like, from the inside, a rubber hose. This part is just like a water slide. Soon the black walls (rubber fuel line?) give way to a golden color (fuel line nipple?) then silver (carburetor body?) After getting bounced off a cone shaped object as we pass by (float valve?) we fall straight down into a small lake of gas (float bowl?)
      From above we here a sound like a wind storm. Before we can decide just what the sound is, the intensity increases dramatically to a deep moan. At the same time we are sucked below the surface and appear to be heading toward an upside down tower (main jet tower?).
       With increasing speed we are drawn to the bottom of this tower and sucked inside through a gold colored hole (main jet?). We are now traveling straight up and the ride is getting turbulent. There are air bubbles all around us. They appear to be coming from holes in the golden colored walls (needle jet?). We narrowly miss being impaled on a golden arrow like structure (jet needle?) centered in a round hole above us.
       As we pass through the hole we are suddenly pounded by gale force winds hitting us at a 90 deg. angle (carburetor venturi?). We pick up tremendous speed as the wind carries us along a large passageway (intake tract?)

Ahead we spot a familiar object, the intake valve. Luckily it's in the open position. The wind's force carries us past it quickly and deposits us into a dark void (cylinder?) The air currents have subsided some but we are still being bounced off the walls (mixture turbulence?). What a ride!
Suddenly we are forced upward by an unseen force (the rising piston?). We start to head back toward the open intake valve. But before we can get close it retracts into the roof of this chamber with a bang. Now the currents carry us past a protrusion in the otherwise smooth roof (sparkplug?) If it is the sparkplug, then this is not the place to be with the piston fast approaching!

As expected, a lightening bolt of electricity jumps between the sparkplug's two electrodes. Immediately after the initial flash there is a secondary flash. Only this time it doesn't die out. It keeps growing in intensity. There is a wall of flame radiating outward from the center in all directions like a ripple in a pond (flame front?). The first pressure waves hit us and drive us toward the cylinder wall. Directly behind the pressure wave is the wall of flame. It's beginning to get quite hot. At least there doesn't seem to be any glowing fuel/air mixture floating around us that is in danger of spontaneously exploding (detonation) before the normal burning takes place.

If there was detonation we would see random blue/white flashes and be bombarded by intense heat and shock waves. When these waves hit the cylinder's wall a harmonic resonance, better known as PINGING, is created!
Our craft is filled with intense yellow light as the burn continues. Where's my sun screen? We follow the piston as it travels down the cylinder just like a high speed elevator (assuming you ride in a 1000ft/min elevator). All to quickly the ride is over as we are now being chased by that same piston as it starts it's trip up the cylinder.

Luckily there is an escape for us, the open exhaust valve. It is slowly dropping from the ceiling and we slip past it and head down a long dark tunnel (exhaust pipe?) lit only by glowing asteroid-like bits (still burning gas molecules?).
We are racing down this tunnel and it looks like our "Fantastic Voyage" will soon be over. However this smooth ride soon ends as it feels like we are stopped suddenly and sent back in the direction we just came from (reflected pressure wave?).

Ahead we can see the still open exhaust valve. Around the valve's stem we see fresh unburned fuel/air molecules, straight from the carburetor via the open intake valve (valve overlap?), entering the exhaust pipe. The wave carrying us collides with this fuel/air mix. Our reflected wave gases are at a higher velocity and larger volume than the fresh, unburnt mixture. Therefor we force it back into the cylinder as the exhaust valve rises to seal the exit to the cylinder.
With this direction sealed we bounce off the closed exhaust valve and start back down the exhaust pipe again . Again we settle down for a smooth ride. And again the smooth ride is disrupted. This time by what looks like a maze. We are bounced around as we poke here and there through the maze of holes, chambers and tubes in this area (muffler baffles?). Eventually we do find our way out into the open air. Quite a trip! Lets do it again! How about 6000 times a minute! Or better yet, how about seeing what it's like to be motor oil?

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