3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

Today's gasoline engines are not designed to combust/burn gasoline efficiently. Even with the advent of using high pressure fuel injection techniques that are computer controlled, we still fall short of the mark. Partly because liquid gasoline can't burn, only gasoline vapors burn, and there lies our problem. The same goes for injecting the high pressure droplets of fine-mist liquid gasoline that enters the engine cylinder using our current nozzle ejector technology, it doesn't all burn at the same time!

Engine designers assume that these droplets are instantly vaporized by the hot cylinder walls, and then instantly explodes/combusts when ignited by the sparkplug. Not true, up to 2/3 of the fuel isn't vaporized and doesn't combust until later on in the cycle. The 1/3 that gets almost-instantly vaporized and burns will do so within the several thousandths of a second it has before the piston moves down its 1/2-stroke (out of today's 4-stroke cycle) completing the engine power-portion of its cycle. This releases tremendous heat which indeed vaporizes the remaining 2/3 liquid droplets, but too late, essentially it does so when the power stroke is almost over or the piston is just about ready to move into its up-stroke (2nd stroke of our four stroke cycle) phase. So because of poor vapo-timing we have 2/3 of our fuel virtually wasted by exploding at near the bottom of the power stroke.

This incorrect explosive timing, which happens to most of our fuel, imparts very little energy into the crankshaft because its effective "moment" (a product of explosive force and radial-component distance from crankshaft center) is insignificant by then. Even though ~2/3 of the fuel is now exploding and providing a huge force, its small "influence" arm is rapidly diminishing to zero, and any huge downward force times near zero arm-length is still zero.

Engine designers/engineers have been plagued by this phenomenon ever since the creation of the 4-stroke gasoline or Otto cycle engine. We need to improve this intermittent combustion/explosion process by combusting all of our injected fuel at the correct timing sequence. This is accomplished by injecting only vaporous fuel which will produce ~3X the power we now get. Another way to state this is, for the same power that we now get from a gasoline engine, if we burned the fuel in a vaporous state, we would only need 1/3 the fuel consumption to get 3X the current MPG.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

I have, and am currently still going down this path of experimenting with vapor. I have done a LOT of research in this area, and today I actually saw Smokey Yunick's hot air vapor car in person!


Right now I am still working in small scale on this. I have a 3 horsepower lawn mower that I completely removed the carb and have a vapor setup on it. However, it is not a hot air setup, it does everything at ambient temps in order to try to stay as far away from the combustion temp of gasoline as possible. I have had this mower running with this setup now for about 2 years in order to test the reliability of this on a 4 stroke motor. With the carb in place, I could mow a 5,000 square foot city lot with this mower on one tank of fuel and that's it. Now, with the vapor setup I have been able to mow it 3 1/2 times on a single tank of fuel!!!

Here is a short video of me about 2 years ago during the testing phase of this setup. At that time, I did not have an EGR setup on it which now it does have.

https://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a11...nt=Dave010.mp4


I want to take this to the next level by installing it on a car to see what kind of gas mileage improvements can be had, but alas I have no extra funds for another car at this time. I want to use a 1.0L Geo Metro for my testing due to the small motor size which will make it easier to run air and vapor lines for it since the overall CFM demand will be lower than say a 2.0L motor.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

Hey 91CavGT,
Thanks for your feedback.
I just love the ?yankee ingenuity? that keeps Americans tops on the creativity chart. Looks like you?re making impressive progress with cold-vapor burning. I can understand why not preheating the fuel is against your religion, but you do get more bang for the buck. Just heating it up to half its auto-ignition point will help to improve your vaporizing setup tremendously. Performance improves by dramatically reducing the free volume container size and exposed fuel surface area needed to generate enough vapor per unit time. Gasoline Psychrometric charts will tell you the reductions in free-volume and exposed fuel surface area achievable to vaporize your fuel by increasing the basic liquid fuel temperature.

The Wright brother?s 1903 aircraft used an aluminum engine with an unconventional carburetor that preheated the gasoline and evaporated it for burning. They needed about 2X power improvement per pound of engine over conventional engines to get off the ground. The secret to keeping your religion and having gasoline vapors not pre-combust is to minimize surrounding container air while using heated fuel, your equivalence ratio should be under ~15%.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

Here is something for you to think about too. I am actually putting a vacuum on the fuel tank while the motor is running, which in turn lowers the boiling point of a fluid, which in turn should help to vaporize the fuel better, once again without heating it.

I am dead set against heating the fuel in any way beyond ambient temps. I believe this idea can be done and be successful without heating the fuel, it will just be harder to do.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

Hey 91CavGT,
Respect your feelings about controlling when to burn by keeping fuel cool. Rocket scientist Von-Braun also believed in that. But Yunick?s Fiero actually pre-heated his conventional carbureted fuel/air mixture, trying to vaporize the fuel within the air before entering the cylinder to combust! A tricky maneuver, but apparently it worked somewhat. Of course it didn?t work well enough since he didn?t get ~100 MPG which says his idea fell short somewhere! Where? I don?t know untill I get access to that engine.

Your vacuum makes good physical sense, go for it, it?s out of the box, yet I?m concerned about:
1) vapor condensation as later downstream feed pressures increase, need to constantly still heat up to compensate for the pressure increase,
2) need positive pressure higher than your sink to move the vapor into engine, tough balance, again step-1 comes in

I?ve come up with a way to not mix fuel and air beforehand, keep them separate till combustion is ready (Von-Bruan?s principle), by actually using today?s fuel injection system. It let?s me inject the exact ratio of vapor to air for a lean combustion (is computer programmable in real time) and can get me 3X MPG. 100% vapors will still combust at fuel-to-air ratios of up to 3X reductions (which Detroit says is impossible since they use fuel droplets). Heating only the fuel into vapor takes a lot less energy and ?time? (need ~15 times the fuel heat if the air is also heated) than Yunick?s approach for heating up both fuel and air, then having to homogenize them, then heat them a second time, etc, etc. It takes too much time, making for uncontrolled F/A ratio combustion, vis-?-vis only 51 MPG!

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

When doing this, what do you do with the components of gasoline that do not vaporize? I'd imagine over time you'd get a heavy varnish buildup, or a whole bunch of sticky goo.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

This is definately a problem that I do not have an answer to as of yet. After approximately 3 tanks of fuel being run through my lawn mower I have about a cup or two of unusable liquid. It does not end up a sticky goo, but I imagine if I were to let the lawn mower sit up for an extended period of time it might turn into a sticky goo.

This is one downfall of this setup. I am still trying to find either a use for this left over liquid or a way to dispose of it.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

Safety Klean charges $225 for removal and disposal of a 15 gallon drum.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

You could mix what you have with a gallon or two of fresh gas and just add it to your car's tank during a fill up.

Have you looked into other fuels to use with the lawnmower? Ones that don't have a less volatile, hazardous fraction to deal with. Camp stove fuel would seem ideal. It's intended use is to be sucked up a wick and burned, and the naphtha in it is a feedstock for gasoline. Alcohols are another possibility. Any waste liquid from them will be a water mixture.

I had actually considered trying a vapor carb on my mower after seeing your original post, but found a reel mower for a good price.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

I had done just this to get rid of the liquid that didn't vaporize, but if I am going to put this setup on a vehicle, I need to find a more permanent solution.

Yes, I have thought about using other fuels, and am in the process of gathering up some grain alcohol to try. I will need to adjust my EGR setup though as the grain alcohol will burn hotter than gas from what I have heard.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

Just remember that all those waste guey products are additives used to try and get better gas mileage, clean your engine, prevent knock and whatever else they dream of. Once an idea like yours catches on in cars, your system will force big-oil to change their gas add-ins and get rid of what's not needed!

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

What are the regular emission testing requirements in your state? This set up will likely mean increased NOx.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

Not really. If you truly wanted to run your vehicle on vapor, you would not use gasoline at all. You would install a natural gas conversion kit. Formulations of gasoline would not change at all.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

It varies depending on the location that you live in the state. In the area I live in right now, if you have a '96 or newer vehicle and the CEL is not on and you pass the safety inspection that you're good. However, if the vehicle is older than a '96 model then they put the car on a dyno and check emissions at 2 speeds.


Yes, it may increase NOx, but this is why I have incorporated EGR into my lawn mower setup, and the vehicle will have the same thing, and possibly water injection to prevent the formation of NOx.


For a bit of background info on me, I have taken a car in the past that had 3.1L V-6, turbocharged it, installed bigger injectors, installed an aftermarket more agressive camshaft, threw the stock computer in the trash and installed a Halltech computer. I then tuned it on the street and got it to pass the emmissions test on the dyno. If I can get that car to pass emmissions, then I KNOW I can get a vapor car to pass the sniffer test.

Re: 3X Gas Engines Sniffing Vapors
 

<sigh> This thread misses the mark. Let me count the ways.

1) Most gasoline engines are about 35% thermodynamically efficient. There is no way to get 3 x 35% = 105% energy out of a gallon of gas.

2) Even doubling is the efficincy is impossible due to the Carnot cycle theroretical limit of (T hot - T cold) / T cold.

3) Natural gas engines never have liquid in the cylinder, so there is no combustion "hold up" during the power stroke. And nat gas efficinecy, for a given cyclinder dimension, is quite similar to a gasoline engine.

4) Diesel engines are more efficicient, yet the diesel fuel doesn't evaporate more than gasoline as a prelude to combustion.

There's some flaws that I see........

1. You assume the motor is running at perfect tune and in perfect shape. VERY few internal combustion engines are in fact in perfect tune and in perfect shape. I base all of my research on real world facts, not on laboratory "perfect world", no variables facts.

2. See #1

3. Natural gas has a MUCH lower BTU than gas, but you say that Natural gas effeciency is quit similar to a gasoline engine of comparable size. This is more proof that burning a vapor is much more effecient than trying to burn liquid.

4. Diesel fuel has a MUCH higher BTU rating than gasoline, and requires a MUCH higher compression ratio in order to self ignite the fuel. Since the diesel burns at a slower rate than other fuels, diesel engines have a longer stroke compared to the bore to take advantage of the slower burn, and they have a smaller rev limit. Not to mention that modern day diesel engine fuel systems are VERY similar to gasoline direct injection systems in that VERY high fuel pressures are used, thus helping to vaporize the fuel.

Try Dyno-tab fuel stabilizer by Chemplex. I found this in 2008. I used it in my amazing mazda to get it up to 56 mpg. They also made an additive for the engine that i had one bottle left and added to my just bought 95 mazda. I could run the tank dry without any worry about water or other gunk because it is kept in suspention and burned. Its in a tablet form so no spilling, the stuff works. Hope this helps.