Building an engine for mileage..
 

My income tax finally came back and next week I'm going to get another engine for my 5 spd 87 Ranger with the 2.3 four cylinder which currently has a spun rod. I"m going to Pull-A-Part and getting a used engine and then I'm going to strip it down to some extent..

The Ranger already has among the highest mpg ratings of any pickup (gasoline) and I'm trying to determine what can be done relatively easily to increase that while I have the engine on my bench.

I'm thinking Power Lynz in the intake ports, a multi angle valve job, maybe Singh grooves in the cylinder head (I haven't looked at the heads yet so that may or may not be feasible), possibly high temp coatings on the piston crowns, valve undersides and combustion chamber..

If I had the money I'd probably get an MSD ignition, MSD has a street ignition that keeps a hot inductive spark going for something like 20 degrees of crankshaft rotation.. I've had good results in the past in terms of smoothness of running and available power from upgrading ignition systems. My first experience was putting two regular car coils on a 350 twin two stroke street bike and it made a very noticeable difference in the way the bike started and ran after the plugs were opened up to .045" gap.

https://www.msdignition.com/ignition_1_5900.htm

https://interstore.com/product/125-38...Universal.html

Anyone got any easy to implement ideas for increasing the mileage on an engine while it's on the bench?

Bump the compression up slightly.

regards
gary

I'm going for not all that slightly. I'm shooting for 11:1, figure it will handle it okay with good "de-edging" and Singh grooves.

Other plans I have for my head/motor are a hard and clear anodising process (It's an aluminum head, is it cast iron on that 2.3?) the idea being to put a high polish in the chamber and get a hard and fairly thick anodised coating on it. Now aluminum oxide isn't the most insulating of materials, it's 5x less conductive than aluminum though, and I figure a thicker anodised coating will lock air into it too, so it should be better than that. Anyway, the theory is it will be equivalent to some of the ceramic coatings, and will preserve the high reflectivity and IR rejection of the aluminum surface also. Wanna keep heat in the chamber.

I also plan to copper plate the intake ports after grooving, in SEFI and MPFI motors in 90% of driving, the injectors are spraying at a closed port. Copper catalyses the breakdown of ethanol into H2 and ketones at about 70-130C, so I figure that it will be hot enough in there that any ethanol in the fuel will get cracked into H2 while it's waiting for the valve to open.

I'm also making port plates for a smoother curve out of the exhaust valve and to restrict port volume for higher velocity. These will also have anti-reversion steps in them.

I'm also planning to make a "crank scraper" and a valve cover windage control device to reduce parasitic drag from the oil.

I'm not having the pistons out of the Escort or I'd thoroughly de-edge and polish them and anodise the crowns of those also.

A note on the singh grooves... I'm working on the idea that the best cross section will be approximately U shape, and that the best longitudinal section will have them finishing with a quarter round at the edge of the chamber for more effective ring cleaning and pressure sealing of the rings. (Like a gas ported piston) For positioning, I'm aiming to swirl the mixture around the exhaust valve more so than intake... this is because, the intake flow may end up fighting the grooves as the piston approches TDC. That flow is likely to be dry flow at modest throttle because most of the fuel comes in right away, so the aim is to concentrate the mixture more around the exhaust valve, per "May head" and other restricted chamber designs and have a stratified charge type of effect across the chamber, such that superlean mixtures are possible.

Anyway, that's my crazy ideas.. have fun.

I also plan to copper plate the intake ports after grooving, in SEFI and MPFI motors in 90% of driving, the injectors are spraying at a closed port. Copper catalyses the breakdown of ethanol into H2 and ketones at about 70-130C, so I figure that it will be hot enough in there that any ethanol in the fuel will get cracked into H2 while it's waiting for the valve to open.

I'm also making port plates for a smoother curve out of the exhaust valve and to restrict port volume for higher velocity. These will also have anti-reversion steps in them.

The above was supposed to be a quote-sorry

Interesting about the copper catalyzing the breakdown of ethanol into H2. I was not aware of that , but it was part of the reason I wondered if the emission regs from California did not allow the Federal Civic VX to be sold in CA, when the current fuel mix with ethanol and much less sulfer woud have made it possible for my 94 to pass current smog regs or at least the original regs. It would be interesting to test it and see.

If I understand the port plates, Nissan used them in their first 3 way cat and 02 sensor cars, beginning in Sept 1980 when they made all of the Z's Cal emission legal.

regards
gary

I read the original article on Singh's grooves. Never followed up. Thanks for the info RW, I never thought he could get a patent on the grooves since I remember them from the early eighties Benz diesels.

This will help me in my patent appeal process, I thank you for the mental trigger. It should be interesting having the PO explain how Singh's grooves do not fall into the "Obvious to someone educated in the art" rejection criteria, when they granted a patent for a design that already existed. The only difference is the positioning of the grooves themselves.

Good luck on your build my friend.

regards
gary

Someone managed to patent a crystal radio set as a free energy device, so you oughta be in luck with just about anything.

I've been reading Don Lancaster since some time in the early 80's, for technical type things (particularly electronics) I find his outlook to be very level headed..

https://www.tinaja.com/

Don's take on patents is that almost any patent can be broken with prior art if the person challenging the patent does sufficient research and pursues the case with adequate resources.

Thanks for the good ideas, I'm letting this stuff rattle around in my subconscious for a while and it will be interesting to see what my id finally spits out.

The head on the 2.3 is cast iron and the rockers are roller units..

Another thing I forgot to mention is that I plan on indexing the camshaft somewhat advanced. The poster with the Acura that has advanced his camshaft sprocket one tooth has intrigued me..

If I get really adventurous I might even throw together a crude flow bench and flow the valves at low lifts, I have everything I would need to do the job, it's really just a matter of time and gumption.

On edit: I just thought I would mention that I worked as silversmith and also in a chrome shop in the late 70's, if you want to know anything about polishing metal I have a lot of experience with everything from sterling candelabras to the rear end off a 57 Chevy..

This is a model of the machine I am working on. The configuration is a rotary hydraulic pump.

The center section (inside the black shaded area) is stationary, while the outer rim rotates.

You can see the three different positions of the adjustable journal in the center. The journal is externally adjustable while the pump is rotating.

The displacement changes as a function of the stroke position. The three pictures show foreward, neutral and reverse.

The journal adjustment changes the volume of fluid displaced by each cylinder as it passes over a supply and return port of the center adjustable journal. this allows pressure to be applied on the pistons (notice no connecting rods) which creates torque on the rim causing it to rotate to drive a vehicle.

Braking (or deceleration) is accomplished by reversing the flow of hydraulic pressure into an accumulator, or another similar pump connected to a flywheel. This allows regenerative braking at higher efficiencies than any other system presently available. We are hoping for 90% wheel to accumulator to wheel.

Virginia Tech has agreed to research develop and protoype this design this fall. It's also posted on Green car Congress in their news from April this year.

To get a nice illustration of an original rotary engine google

"Animated engines Gnome"

The site belongs to Matt Keveney and shows an original Gnome type aircraft rotary engine of WW1 era.

My model has significant changes from the original design. I wont get too deep in the specifics.

If you think of this model as a hub and axle, hub rotating around stationary axle, you may be able to understand the significance of this design. Place one at each wheel of your car. You have an Infinitely Variable Transmission that can provide driving force to the vehicle through an accumulator with no engine power. The same vehicular inertia you have just created can be recovered by merely reversing the flow of pressure back to the accumulator.

Now you can accelerate for 0-60 MPH on accumulator pressure alone, recover a great majority of that same energy, accelerate again, recover again, etc, etc, with no engine power.

This allows you to operate the engine only at its greatest efficiency to recharge the accumulator. The average horsepower demand is the controlling factor of engine size and percentage of engine running time, just like a regular hybrid. Even while your accumulator reserve of pressure is declining or increasing the vehicle speed can be constant, since you can increase or reduce the stroke of the IVT in wheel drives to compensate for decreasing or increasing pressures as your reserve is depleted. At a pre determined minimum pressure the engine starts and replenishes the pressure reserve to a pre determined maximum.

This is why I have stated before that when you can no longer hypermile a vehicle it will be correctly designed. This design is based totally on the concept of hypermiling. Your car could accelerate at the same rate as it stops, which is about 20 revolutions of each wheel to go 0-60 MPH, exactly the reverse of the stopping distance (2 foot diameter tires 840 RPM at 60 MPH 120 foot stopping distance).

regards
gary

Wait a minute. I never heard this before. Here is a real source of hydrogen for all of us thinking about HHO.

You might want to consider using an atkinson cycle camshaft. This is what the Prius uses and it runs a 13.6:1 compression ratio on regular. Basically it hangs the intake valve open AFTER BDC and pushes some of the air back out, giving it an effective compression ratio less than it's mechanical compression ratio. The expansion ratio is still at 13.6:1 however, yielding an increase in efficiency at the expense of hp.

My thoughts on the copper: IMHO too much oxygen and water would pass through the intake manifold and rust the copper.

If you had access to a custom cam design and can add a turbo - I would try redesigning the engine for the Miller cycle. You'd have FE gains and achieve more power than the Atkinson Cycle.

New camshafts and such are beyond what I intend to spend but I do appreciate the comments, the atkinson cycle in particular is an interesting concept.

As for the copper plating, it seems to me that just plating the intake valves would get you a good bit of the benefit without all the trouble of plating the entire head..

As I mentioned I used to work in a plating shop, getting the intake ports to plate is going to be a chore and you're going to have a hard time finding a shop that will put a raw cylinder head in their copper tank, they won't want to risk the possible contamination to their expensive tank chemistry.

Plating ions don't much like to turn corners, the outside portions of the head are going to get a thick layer of plating while the ports are going to get very little.. One possible tactic might be to get a little plating solution yourself and fill each intake port with solution, place an electrode in the port and run the current through that way.

Getting the ports clean enough to accept plating is going to be another problem, you'll probably have to grind the entire inner surface to the point where you have clean metal..

Actually, you have to get quite a bit of heat on bare copper to oxidise it significantly, this is the reddish or blackish film you might see while soldering copper with a torch. It is more likely to form a passivating film of copper carbonate and or acetate (verdigris) which retains the catalytic activity. Decomposition of this and significant formations of oxides happen around 200C I think so as long as the port doesn't get that hot, it should work for quite a while. If the port is getting much hotter than about 150*, it won't work too well anyway, because the copper begins to catalyse a different reaction, favouring acetic acid and formaldehyde over H2 and ketones.


Edit:

Something that was just bugging me was why they use copper stills for distilling spirits... As far as I can figure this out, it's because significant amounts of water deactivate the dehydrogenisation phenomena, so this won't work in conjunction with water injection and it won't work in conjunction with an HHO system if it's output is excessively "wet". Aside from that, the 78* temp they use for distillation is at the low end of the temp range, so even when they're getting it really pure it's just barely beginning to happen, and the purest alcohol will touch relatively cold copper. Also the actual acidity and sulphur content of the mash appears to put different kinds of coatings on the copper, and copper actually helps by pulling some of this crap out of the distillate. So the chemistry there is subtly different. The few ppm of ketones that end up in the spirit probably give it a rounded fruity flavor (Don't let this keep you from your favourite traditional copper stilled spirit, ketones occur naturally in fruit, so are what makes even fruit taste fruity.) Even with the attack of acidity and sulphates a still made with relatively thinwall copper tubing is expected to last 8-10 years. Copper hot water pipes in homes last many years too of course. Therefore I'd expect intake port plating to last at least 2 years.

Another thing I discovered from a different source is that a small amount of methanol, of around 5% of the volume of ethanol accelerates the ethanolic/copper reactions. So in a 10 gallon tank of E10, with 1 gallon ethanol, just about 6 and a half ounces of methanol (Fondue fuel) would significantly improve the reaction. Actually, it might even be worth trying methanol on it's own without the copper plating, since other metals weakly catalyse this reaction, giving it a kick with 5% methanol to the ethanol content MIGHT make this happen without having to do anything to your motor.

Another really, really, (yes really) weird thing, you won't believe this... copper plus ethanol plus paraffinic hydrocarbons (there's at least a small percentage in a typical gasoline "soup") plus silicon/silica/silicates plus heat = trialkoxysilanes...... this could mean that any silica dust that gets past your air filter is turned into synthetic lubricant or semi-solid surface lubricant/coating...... this might only happen in tiny tiny amounts... but it sure sounds better than having silica dust "grinding paste" enter the motor.... no, I doubt this will let you run filterless, it won't do anything for .1mm sized "rocks".

That's the way I was gonna tackle it. Copper sulphate if I can find it, or copper pipe and battery acid.

Hey, I just ran across this website today and it made me think of this thread.

https://www.polydyn.com/performance_coatings.htm

I saw the "PolyDyn Performance Oil-Shedding Coatings" there and it got me thinking of a DIYable take on the idea... so I've been looking out lipophilic coatings (oil repellants) and discovered the whole field is a bit high tech still apart from the old favorite PTFE or Teflon... which is still a bugger to apply... remember you're trying to get a non-stick coating to stick to something.

However... a method has presented itself... it appears that using a powder form, one can polish/smear or partially abrade it onto a surface to give a fairly functional film. This can be apparently be done with a polishing wheel. I'm guessing also that if you got a block of PTFE and rubbed it hard all over what you wanted it on, given a surface that wasn't mirror finished, then following that with hard application of the polishing wheel and repeating may also have the desired effect....

Now PTFE in motors has been frowned on as an oil additive because it's claimed benefit is reducing piston and bearing friction, where it's thought that the temperatures and pressure there are too much for PTFE to withstand for long... but using it on the crank throws, con rods, and parts that need to shed oil rather than keep it, would appear to be a good idea, because these parts should not be getting near as hot. I wouldn't recommend it for the piston skirts though, pistons get quite hot.

Anyhoo, seems like a straightforward method of potentially reducing windage which is a parasitic loss.

What I found most interesting about those coatings was this:

"PolyDyn Performance Ceramic Coatings are the most notable of the coatings. PolyDyn Ceramic Coatings are polymer composites with insulating ceramics designed to significantly reduce heat transfer and saturation. PolyDyn Ceramics are effective on cylinder heads, valve faces, intake mainiolfd, piston, headers and exhaust."

This could potentially allow higher compression ratios without detonation, if it kept the head temp and valve temps lower than uncoated.

I know Dick Miller uses these coatings on his Oldsmobile V8 builds.

Good idea on the oil shedding coatings for crank throws/rods, etc..

Does anyone know of a cheap source for suitable PTFE ?

One trick I have seen to help keep pistons cooler is to drill small holes in the big end of the con rods on either side of the center of the I beam web that go through into the bearing surface.. The result of this is a jet of oil which shoots out the hole which you have aimed at the piston crown/skirt, the oil carries away heat from the piston.

https://i25.tinypic.com/242vrsi.jpg

11:1 compression on 87 octane unleaded :eek:

If you can make it work though, it should boost efficiency considerably.

I found some prices on piston coatings..

$192 for anti friction coating on the skirts and thermal barrier on the dome on a set of eight pistons..

https://www.f-p-s.com/services.html

Diesel?
 

Fumesucker, have you considered a diesel engine swap for your ranger? Check out www.4btswaps.com. Quite a bit more work but guys are claiming some pretty impressive mpg numbers.
If you are gonna dump money into an engine I think it bears at least exploring the option.

Phil

The smaller motor 3.3BT? might work well in a Ranger.

Can't remember where I saw it but there was a guy who swapped a 3.3 into a Wrangler and had gas logs showing close to 30mpg.