A simulation of Stirling engine performance which takes into account the performance of the burner, heat exchanger and drive mechanism is reported. A revised second-order analysis that includes several types of thermal loss is adopted to predict the thermodynamic cycle. The burner performance simulation and the mechanical loss calculation are combined with the cycle analysis. Experiments were carried out to examine the dependence of the engine performance on several operating parameters for a 3 kW Stirling engine. Good agreement was found between the simulation results and the experimental results. >