100 MPG

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Thanks for the article. I have those 3 patents in pdf format. Is there a way to post them so everyone can look at them?
 
Got here late. The photo submitted by Rust Collector is an Allison V-1710 (cubic inches) all right, but not a configuration I've seen. The turbo section is blowing into a crack-driven centrifugal blower for increasing intake boost (Allison's mechanical blower was always too small, which was the main reason those engines were out-performed by the Rolls-Royce Merlin 1640, and why Allison had to add-on auxilliary blower stages). It isn't from a P-38; they mounted the turbo section remotely, halfway out atop the tail booms. Not from a Kingcobra or Twin Mustang, either, I don't think.

The turbo-compounded aircraft engines I know of were big Wright and Pratt & Whitney radials, as found in the last of the Constellations, DC-7s, Stratocruisers, and the B-50, B-36, and C-124 warbirds.
 
Check this out; http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/Firestorm.html

Here's my personal experience.
1981 f-350 300 6 ,np-435/ dana 60 4:56 gear/ 16.5 tires

I used a heater core inside an old ammo box with a holley float bowl mounted on it. I ran fuel into the ammo box via the holley float, heated the gas with the heater core (which had coolant running through it) then the vapors of gas (not liquid) would travel up a tube and through a 5hp generator carb . The carb was used as a vapor valve, and exited into the top of the original 300.
Problems I had were 1) The engine didn't like to suck vapors in, worked better when blown in. 2) Trying to get the mixture correct (how much fuel for how much throttle angle)

What I finally did was get the truck up to running temp, unhook the fuel line and let the engine run out of fuel. Then hook up the ammo box and start up on the highway and drive at 60mph until it quit. (I hooked a gallon jug up to the fuel pump to measure)
I got 40mpg! (3 times in a row) However, it was a pain in the ass to adjust.
Some notes: With vapors, you can richen the engine up so much it dies, but never puts out black smoke..AT ALL! Also, pressuring the ammobox with a air injector pump means you have a hot pressuring fuel/air bomb under your hood!!! I tried to heat it with exh but it would either suck the fuel into the exh or not work right period.

I only quit because I moved, I got 90% of my info from the POGUE carb.(check google)
My "thing" right now is running waste veg oil in a diesel.(check out greasecar.com I think it is)

Bottom line, yes this works, it's the complexity of drivability that's the hard part. On a stationary motor it would be awesome. As far as 100mpg (or 200mpg carb it used to be called) I think now is a stretch unless it's a 3-4cyl firefly or fiesta.
The link at the top for firestorm plugs is very interesting reading also. He claims 40-50% increase in milage due to "plasma arc and ionizing the chamber"

I guess it all comes down to how efficient you can use the fuel provided, so you will require less, rather than trying to use less fuel by this or that method.

Good luck, as I said this stuff does work,(charles pogue built his carb's in the dirty 30's) but 50mpg out of a car with LOTS of driveability problems will never replace 35mpg from a fuel inj car that has no driveability problems.
 
ok here are some more thoughts from an idiot 19 yr old... lol
some may actually be good...maybe :p


my grandfather said you can get a screen over your intake manifold made of metal, under your carb base to go across where your fuel mixture flows in. the heat from the engine will heat the fine metal screen and help prewarm incoming fuel to HELP vaporize it a little. also, on our sixes, most at least, the intake manifold is built into the head, conducting a great deal of heat. add on the fact the exhaust manifold is directly on there and you get more heat. while running after crossflows, maybe were almost defeating the purpose. ??? any comments?????????
 
I thought of that myself a long time ago....thought if it worked I could patent it and be a millionaire...then I saw a stock 84 chevette with one on it! :shock:
The chevette one was heated electrically, and yes it did improve milage/etc and yes it was also original from GM.

(not so crazy afterall eh?)
 
the screen? yeah i thought it was just a gimmick, but i had also started believing it after learning heat and rough intake tunnels help vaporize fuel better. i am thinking of taking my aluminum heater spacer off and doing that to my six. the screen gets hot and disperses atoms, but so does the act of fuel hitting the screen, further benifiting the idea. cool cool. maybe we're on to something sweet. as for the patent, look at the chevettes. how many are still around? and patents are dated and expire ;)
 
If I may add some extra substance to the discussion...

I was researching similar topics some years ago and came across the Fish Carburetor. Now, some "100 MPG Carburetor" advocates will make claims about what they've heard about the Fish, and Pogue, and any number of other carbys. From what I hear from anyone who actually saw it, the Pogue should run slightly less efficiently than a stock carb, and none were ever reliably produced.

The Fish was a slightly different story. First off, there were never any super-mileage claims made by its makers, that was a legend that came afterwards. The beauty of the Fish was its simplicity and its excellent fuel distribution. This did increase economy slightly. The thing only had two moving parts and the "accelerator pump" was built in to the butterfly control. Very cool.

But that's not the story for today.

One Michael Brown actually built these things aftermarket and wrote a book about them. The book was good information on a very good carburetor. It also had two things relevant to this discussion.

First, there's a chapter on the "100mpg carburetor myth." Basically, it explains that there's a limited amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline. A carburetor alone will NEVER get you to 100mpg. And using some of that energy to try to extract more from the next batch of incoming fuel is defeating your purpose of moving down the road. The real key is reducing waste. Think about a car and how much energy is wasted.

Enter second important chapter, which relates past experiences of the author up to the point of the writing of the book. One of which is basically creating the Atkinson cycle (he didn't call it that, but that was what it was) in a Ford 200 L6. Yes, they had one laying around and ground a camshaft for it that held the intake open for half the compression cycle. Turned the 200 into a 100. For intake purposes only, though. The expansion cycle was the full 200 inches. And he milled the head (and possibly other things) to bring the static CR to 16:1. That's 8:1 when you blow half your charge back out.

Now, think of how much available energy you blow straight out the tailpipe, in hot exhaust. The fact that there's even energy to move it out shows that you've left something on the table. With the Atkinson setup, you extract more of what's there.

He said it ran doggy under 2,000 rpm. But once he got up over 4,000, there was a natural supercharging effect. (Think it through and you'll see it - the air can't move out fast enough during the extra 1/4 crank revolution).

I figure two things: 1) when he did it, it was with a Fish carburetor (he didn't think a normal carb could do it) and a stock ignition setup. 2) At 2,000 rpm for this type of setup, it's roughly the equivalent of 1,000 rpm with a normal setup.

With EFI and better ignition systems, if you could get it to run smooth enough at 1,000 rpm, that'd be the equivalent of a 500rpm idle. Would you even have to go that low?

Obviously, you're not going to create some 250hp monster out of our L6 with this design. But then, 250hp is going to suck fuel no matter what.

That's just one of the ideas I've been tossing around.

One other note, if you add a supercharger to this setup, you get what's called the Miller cycle, which Mazda has played with before and Toyota uses in their Prius hybrid, I believe. The idea there is that the supercharger can compress the charge more efficiently than the pistons at certain RPM ranges.
 
heres a fix to a couple of problems that i havent tested anything YET:
#1: somebody said that in his tests, it was difficult to to adjust to the optimal fuel/air mix.
#2: the problem with extreme fuel heating (as mentioned in various places) is preignition.
the fix to BOTH of these problems would be to use an EFI head, WITH a carb as well. you would need the carb for warm-up, then switch over to the other system (as ammo-box-man said that he did). the advantage to the EFI head is that, with custom injectors, you could inject fuel vapor at the right time, and eliminate precombustion problems. This should also make it simple to adjust your fuel/air mix.

also, to beat a dead horse, back to that heat/temp/compression adding heat issue:
somebody said that compression increased the heat in the fuel/air mix; and about ten people said he was full of BS. Actually, HE WAS RIGHT. i just studied thermochemistry in college, so im not a total idiot, even i am only 18. anyway, the compression stroke does WORK on the system, that is, it adds ENERGY to the system. This energy is transferred from WORK to HEAT, therefore heat is added during the compression stroke.
go ahead, tell me im wrong - the worst im going to do is think youre an idiot, like you probably think about me right now.

back to the main subject, im currently working on a system for an '81 Jeep with the 258-6. (im still a ford guy - its just that i have a truck i care less about for my tests) its not finished yet, but its a water-based heater that has the fuel inside a coil of copper tube inside a housing full of coolant, naturally heating the fuel. this is done IN THE ABSENCE OF AIR, thats very important. air in the heating system will cause combustion, or explosions. anyway, because its a carby system, i'm worried about the current plan to inject the fuel through one on the vacuum ports right under the carb. my only concern is that fuel will be burned in the manifold, and, therefore, wasted.

i'll keep you posted when i get it together[/b]
 
Using engine coolant as a source of heat is insufficient. The endpoint of gasoline is around 430 degrees, so your source of heat must be substantially higher, or you end up with a lot of unvaporized gasoline.

This brings me to another point. If the gasoline we bought had an endpoint of 200-250 degrees, running a vapor system would be much easier. Which brings me to another point. Would it be fair to say that the gasoline we buy is 1/2 junk? If most or all of the heavier HCs are waste heat then we are paying for something we don't need and can't use.
 
you said the "endpoint" is around 430 degrees, but could you please define "endpoint". is this the point at which all of the fuel is vaporized (the boiling point of hte heaviest HCs), or is this the hottest safe temp to which you can heat gasoline?

one thing i have thought about is that we should find the the hottest temp that gasoline can handle before it decomposes into H and C atoms. if i remember from my chemistry class, that decomposition would release (waste) heat. if i remember, your HCs contain a (+) ammount of energy, any element by itself (what you get after it decomposes) has 0 energy, and, naturally, things like CO2 and H2O have a (-) energy. the point of all that is to say that we cannot allow it to heat up above the point where the gasoline STARTS to decompose. heating past this point would not only waste energy, but also risk an explosion, or if youre lucky, only a big fire.

so i agree that a higher temp is important, but we cant let it get too hot or all hell breaks loose. i guess now we have to use an exhaust-based heater, but then we have to have a "thermostat", one htat reduces the flow of exhaust through the heat exchanger when the temp reaches, say 50 degrees below the decomposition point. this could be acomplished either automatically(opposite of your cooling system thermostat) or, this next idea scares me, but have a gauge on the dash and trust the driver with a valve to control it. naturally, this idea makes the distracted driver go boom. of course, that could be a good thing if you let someone you dont like drive your car, but there are cheaper ways to do that kind of crime!!

anyway, ive got the water heater almost finished, so i'll see how it goes, then try working exhaust
 
Yes, end point is the temperature at which the heaviest HCs will vaporize.

Conventional wisdom says that water has no embodied energy, but some are proving otherwise. After all, its made of hydrogen and oxygen. The secret is in efficiently separating the hydrogen and oxygen.

This reminds me, did anybody notice this line in the Larry Widmer "Soft Head" article --
http://www.theoldone.com/articles/The%5 ... ad%5F1999/

"You’re also going to see some engines running fuels that are also "free" shortly. These are exciting times, indeed."

What do you suppose he is refering to?
 
If you want to vaporize the fuel going into the engine better and reuse some of the energy wasted leaving the engine in the exhaust here is an Idea.

Get an air to air aftercooler like a truck uses run your exhaust through it build a box around the aftercooler and and suck you intake air through that. This will heat the air going into the engine using only energy prevesoly lost out the tail pipe and run it throught the engine again giving the engine a secound chance to reclame some of the lost energy the heat should also vaporize the gas. Remember to insolate the now heated intake so you don't lose that energy.

Personaly I think this is a complete waist of time. There isn't any way to get 100MPG But it's an IDEA you can play with maybe give you a better idea and I would just throw away.

Please note I'm not responsible for any blow up engines or anything for anyone trying this. If you make a bomb and level your town I'm not responsible.
 
you suggested running an aftercooler with exhaust to heat your intake air - wouldnt that hurt your compression because the air youre sucking in is less dense. naturally, that gives lower pressures and less performance. thats why aftercoolers cool your intake air. we want hot fuel with cold air. i think youre confusing the subject
 
This ain't about performance per se. It's about gas mileage, and the requirements for each are different. Totally vaporizing the gas will give better gas mileage, that's why the 200 has the water passages through the carb adapter.
 
You can't have hot fuel with cold air. The cold air will condense the fuel (liquify).

I found an interesting article at work today about using nitrous oxide as an energy source. I scanned it to a .tiff file. If someone wants to post it I can e-mail it.

And you can't sail around the world. Its flat. you know. And don't try to make your car go faster, the human body can't stand speeds of over 35 mph. It'll kill you. You can't run a gasoline engine with a compression ratio of 22:1, it will blow up. How about a 4 cylinder running 11.2:1 compression, 27 psi boost, on pump gas. Makes 487 hp and gets 29 mpg. Nah, can't be done. 100 mpg, nah, can't be done. (don't be so sure)
 
wallaka":3kactld4 said:
This ain't about performance per se. It's about gas mileage, and the requirements for each are different. Totally vaporizing the gas will give better gas mileage, that's why the 200 has the water passages through the carb adapter.

you said its not about performance. actually, to some degree it is; the entire goal of the project is to get the most possible energy out of the fuel, and therefore using less of it. and if im not mistaken, vaporizing the gas will not only increase efficency, but also increase performance. if you get a poor burn, you get less power, but our totally vaporized fuel should produce a better burn, and that should give more performance. sure, performance is not our #1 goal, but it is important. if we get minimal fuel consumption and power comparable to a lawnmower, weve still failed; we need both efficency and power.


Dcook wrote:
And you can't sail around the world. Its flat. you know. And don't try to make your car go faster, the human body can't stand speeds of over 35 mph. It'll kill you. You can't run a gasoline engine with a compression ratio of 22:1, it will blow up. How about a 4 cylinder running 11.2:1 compression, 27 psi boost, on pump gas. Makes 487 hp and gets 29 mpg. Nah, can't be done. 100 mpg, nah, can't be done. (don't be so sure)
the first time i saw that, i thought you were saying we were idiots to try, then i realized all that youve addded to the conversation. i appreciate your sarcasm.
 
Maybe our problem in getting 100MPG is the engine maybe a piston driven engine isn't the way to go maybe someone will event something totaly diffrent to turn gas in to energy??????? Fuel cell or something. Start thinking out side of the box!
 
Fiorelli":1npg2hjf said:
Maybe our problem in getting 100MPG is the engine maybe a piston driven engine isn't the way to go maybe someone will event something totaly diffrent to turn gas in to energy??????? Fuel cell or something. Start thinking out side of the box!
i would let the big companies try to figure out fuel cells and that mess - that would require massive batteries and electric motors to drive your car. i think that in the right hands, a traditional engine can do it. its been done before, and ive heard that oil companies have paid people off to keep quiet about it, and i dont mean small numbers either. obviously, they would only do that to a major economy increase. i know its possible.


if you aim at nothing, you will hit it, guaranteed!!
 
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