Have you ever wondered how a 2-stroke engine worked?
Well we are going to tell you. Inside a 2-stroke engine is a piston that moves up and down. Now the question is, 'how?' Well, a spark plug generates a spark that ignites fuel. When that happens the gas combusts. The fuel is sucked in the engine by the piston. When the fuel ignites it produces force that drives the piston downward and upward.
Now another question is 'how does the spark plug get the energy?' Well right above the flywheel is an electronic ignition. What this does is it produces power from magnetic energy from the flywheel and turns it into electricity, which then goes to the spark plug.
When you pull a starter it moves the piston, which turns the crankshaft and flywheel, which creates a magnetic force between itself and the electronic ignition. Excess fumes from the fuel that combusts escapes through the back of the engine and into the exhaust pipe.
You can understand a two-stroke engine by watching each part of the cycle. Start with the point where the spark plug fires.
Fuel and air in the cylinder have been compressed, and when the spark plug fires the mixture ignites.
The resulting explosion drives the piston downward. Note that as the piston moves downward, it is compressing the air/fuel mixture in the crankcase.
As the piston approaches the bottom of its stroke, the exhaust port is uncovered. The pressure in the cylinder drives most of the exhaust gases out of cylinder.
As the piston finally bottoms out, the intake port is uncovered. The piston's movement has pressurized the mixture in the crankcase, so it rushes into the cylinder, displacing the remaining exhaust gases and filling the cylinder with a fresh charge of fuel.
The image on the right shows how the fuel intake moves and what happens to the particles as they move through the fuel intake of a 2-stroke engine.
Be sure to check out the video as well if you want a little more in depth explanation of how a 2-stroke engine works.
