Two basic types of two-cycle engines are in general use.

They are the cross-scavenged and loop scavenged designs. See Figure 5-8. The cross-scavenged engine has a special contour on the piston head, which acts as a baffle to deflect the air-fuel charge upward in the cylinder. See Figure 5-8A. This prevents the charge from going straight out the exhaust port, which is located directly across from the intake port. Cross-scavenged engines usually employ reed valves or a rotary valve, which is attached to the flywheel. See Figure 5-8B. These valves hold the incoming charge in the crankcase so it can be compressed while the piston moves downward in the cylinder. With this design, the piston acts as a valve in opening and closing intake, exhaust, and transfer ports. The transfer port permits passage of the fuel from the crankcase to the cylinder. The loop-scavenged engine does not have to deflect the incoming gases, so it has a relatively flat or slightly domed piston, as shown in Figure 5-8C. The fuel transfer ports in loop-scavenged engines are shaped and located so that the incoming air-fuel mixture swirls. This controlled flow of gas helps force exhaust gases out and permits a new charge of air and fuel to enter. In a 2 stroke engine the piston itself is the intake/exhaust valve, instead of having separate valves as in the 4 stroke. The odd shape of the piston is the location of these valves.

Figure 5-8. Basically, two-cycle engines are either cross-scavenged or loop-scavenged. Cross-scavenged engines have a contoured baffle on top of the piston to direct the air-fuel mixture upward into the cylinder while exhaust gases are being expelled. Loop-scavenged engines have flat or domed pistons with more than one transfer port. Note the three styles of crankcase intake valves. (Kohler Co.)

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Deflector pistons are used in two-stroke engines with crankcase compression, where the gas flow within the cylinder must be carefully directed in order to provide efficient scavenging. With cross scavenging, the transfer (inlet to the cylinder) and exhaust ports are on directly facing sides of the cylinder wall. To prevent the incoming mixture passing straight across from one port to the other, the piston has a raised rib on its crown. This is intended to deflect the incoming mixture upwards, around the combustion chamber.[1] Much effort, and many different designs of piston crown, went into developing improved scavenging. The crowns developed from a simple rib to a large asymmetric bulge, usually with a steep face on the inlet side and a gentle curve on the exhaust. Despite this, cross scavenging was never as effective as hoped. Most engines today use Schnuerle porting instead. This places a pair of transfer ports in the sides of the cylinder and encourages gas flow to rotate around a vertical axis, rather than a horizontal axis.[2]

How the ports are arranged in a two-stroke motor cycle engine. Either a deflector piston or a special arrangement of tangentially inclined ports may be used to admit the fresh charge (solid arrows) and keep it from contamination with the burnt gases seen exhausting (dotted arrows).

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Note that in many two-stroke engines that use a cross-flow design, the piston is shaped so that the incoming fuel mixture doesn't simply flow right over the top of the piston and out the exhaust port.

Now the momentum in the crankshaft starts driving the piston back toward the spark plug for the compression stroke. As the air/fuel mixture in the piston is compressed, notice that a vacuum is created in the crankcase. This vacuum opens the reed valve and sucks air/fuel/oil in from the carburetor.

Once the piston makes it to the end of the compression stroke, the spark plug fires again to repeat the cycle. It's called a two-stoke engine because there is a compression stroke and then a combustion stroke. In a four-stroke engine there are separate intake, compression, combustion and exhaust strokes.

You can see that the piston is really doing three different things in a two-stroke engine:

On one side of the piston is the combustion chamber. The piston is compressing the air/fuel mixture and capturing the energy released by ignition of the fuel. On the other side of the piston is the crankcase, where the piston is creating a vacuum to suck in air/fuel from the carburetor through the reed valve and then pressurizing the crankcase so that air/fuel is forced into the combustion chamber. Meantime, the sides of the piston are acting like the valves, covering and uncovering the intake and exhaust ports drilled into the side of the cylinder wall. It's really pretty neat to see the piston doing so many different things! That's what makes two-stroke engines so simple and lightweight. If you have ever used a two-stroke engine, you know that you have to mix special two-stroke oil in with the gasoline. Now that you understand the two-stroke cycle you can see why. In a four-stroke engine, the crankcase is completely separate from the combustion chamber. In a four-stroke engine, therefore, you can fill the crankcase with heavy oil to lubricate the crankshaft bearings, the bearings on either end of the piston's connecting rod and the cylinder wall. In a two-stroke engine, on the other hand, the crankcase is serving as a pressurization chamber to force air/fuel into the cylinder. Therefore the crankcase cannot hold a thick oil. Instead, the oil you mix in with the gas is how the crankshaft, connecting rod and cylinder walls are lubricated. If you forget to mix in the oil, the engine isn't going to last very long!

Disadvantages of the Two-Stroke Engine You can now see that two-stroke engines have two important advantages over four-stroke engines: they are simpler and lighter, and they produce about twice as much power. So why do all cars and trucks use four-stroke engines? There are four reasons:

Two stroke engines don't last nearly as long as four-stroke engines. The lack of a dedicated lubrication system means that two-stroke engine parts wear a lot faster. Two-stroke oil is expensive and you need about 4 ounces of it per gallon of gas. You would burn about a gallon of oil every thousand miles if you used a two-stroke engine in a car. Two stroke engines do not use fuel efficiently, so you would get lower MPG numbers. Two-stroke engines produce a lot of pollution. So much, in fact, that it is likely that you won't see them around too much longer. The pollution comes from two sources. The first is the combustion of the oil. The oil makes all two-stroke engines smoky to some extent, and a badly worn two-stroke engine can emit huge clouds of oily smoke. The second reason is less obvious but can be seen in the following figure http://www.theultralightplace.com/2%20stroke%20principle.htm

exhaust

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