Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut
They run on used vegetable oil. I dare you to do the work I do with your 40 mpg car. You CAN'T! You can't tow a several ton trailer to an unimproved "off road job site" with your car. I can. And my Cummins and Mercedes diesels have done so for 20+ years. Your 40 mpg car will be a rust heap in that time period and will have used more fossil fuel in a year than I use in a decade. Developing a way to net a 10% fuel efficiency gain in a 10 mpg truck is far more effective in helping the environment than adding 10% to your 40 mpg car. Why don't you go and trash sheppard777's thread. He just spent years and 10's of thousands of dollars on a class 8 truck that just about doubled comparable truck mileage.
And yes, you have no idea what the OP is talking about. Once waste oils are turned into syngas, the engine emissions are akin to running on CNG. I consider that an "ECO win".
|
Why are you defensive about your truck?? You are taking this thread personally. No one is arguing that a truck used as a truck is a bad thing. But, OP hasn't told us what he needs a lifted big block Bronco for. My guess is that he just wants to drive it. Whether he commutes in it or tows with it, I don't care either way. It's not my money I am throwing away on lift kits, big tires that wear quickly, or fuel. Besides, most people I know that have a truck to use as a truck don't lift them. They keep them stock so they can actually load and unload the bed and that it still can tow safely. Safely towing with a lifted truck is another arguement.
You can take a 10 mpg truck, gain 100% mileage and still only get 20 mpg. If we are commuting to work (without the need for towing trailers and carrying large loads) or going to get groceries, who cares about a 100% improvement because the 40 mpg car is still getting DOUBLE the mileage to achieve the same results.
That class 8 truck serves a real purpose. What he did was awesome. Let's keep the arguement relavant.
An "ECO win" as you put it, would be for our country as a whole to buy efficient vehicles and get out of the mindset that we
need full size trucks, SUV's and sports cars to get back and forth to work in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut
But I am limited in what I can say about the subject.
I have spent some time with Wayne Keith and his wood-gas vehicle and walked away impressed. The main pitfall I observed with his and other setups is the amount of fiddling needed to get it to run over the large load range a road vehicle operates at. To his credit, he has driven cross country with his contraption, so it is not an impossible pipe dream.
If you are wanting to use only liquid hydrocarbons, that is a good pathway that can yield the CO/H2 gas mix (syngas) that you seek to produce. However, it will still have poor "throttle response" and even with the use of Ni/Fe catalysts, the heat needed for a clean production of syngas will be difficult to keep above the critical reaction level. The need for an electronic feedback circuit would be almost a certainty as the variable fuels would result in a variable carbon to H2O ratio. I am assuming you are building a steam reforming system to fuel your engine.
And please forgive the overzealous denizens of this forum. Many are not scientists, and those who are have very narrow specialties as those of us in the sciences are wont to have. They easily get excited about pie tins and used sign boards and denigrate anyone who wants to do anything mind bending with engines. The few on this forum who do work with engine modifications have often come under duress from experts who have never set foot inside a dyno lab.
Feel free to stick around for a bit. Just ignore the "negative Nancy" crowd of experts and maybe you can get a constructive thread going.
And yes, I have built vapor carbs, GEETS and reformer engines. They all have their positives and their pitfalls. But, when you side step the hocus pocus surrounding them, they all have some good science.
|
We get excited over pie tins and grill blocks because they are cheap and work. If you can improve the aero of a car, it will use less energy overall.
But let's face it, how many people have made any major modification to improve their engine, that can be PROVEN while repeatable and reliable? Please show me examples. I am not saying it can't happen, but it usually takes a large budget and a lot of time.