Gasoline VAPOR?

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by racprops

Sorry NO the don't The burn cycle is too slow to fully use 100% of the fuel other wise we would be told to cut out the cats as they are no longer needed.

Rich

Two major functions of catalytic converters are to convert carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide, and to convert nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and oxygen.

A quick search reveals this on ResearchGate:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/...fig4_329043343

Comparison graph of HC level with and without a catalytic converter in RON 88.

If hydrocarbons are at ~80 parts per million, that is 0.008% HC by part.

Fuel and air ought to be at a 14.7:1 ratio, so adjusting for ratio, the unburnt portion of fuel coming out of the exhaust is 0.054% of the fuel that went into the engine.

0.054% unburnt still means that you get a tenth of a gallon of gasoline vapor dumped in the air for every gallon of gasoline liquid which is sent through the engine.

[racprops]

Well until I get rich and have test models built and run on an engine we will never know.

Rich

[Ecky]

I'd love to see testing done on here, especially with people doing creative work you don't see on production engines. Fuel economy results speak for themselves, especially if you log everything and report honestly. I have logged every drop of fuel I've burned in any of my cars for the last ~13 years, and I try to be conscious of my confirmation biases.

For the moment, I'm content with the hundreds of thousand hours of testing already published on the topic. Engineers, manufacturers, the US EPA, EU etc see the the ~twentieth of a percent of fuel typically measured as makes it through an engine unburned as a problem.

[racprops]

On the subject of MPG and how I believe the automakers are putting in a united BS Fix and I believe most cars could get better MPG: much like how the light bulb makers united in 1925 and decreed all light bulbs will ONLY last 1000 Hours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel

Look into the Diamond Cartel about the real value of diamonds....

And of course planed obsolescence...look to your cell phone as #1.

So do I think THEY are lieing to us?? Are their lips moving??


MPG testing Upgrade Scan Gauge II, using trip MPG readings.
1AM I17 North from Cactus to 101 and south 101 to Cactus Temp 70Degrees
Two runs each way. No wind.

Cars I have tested this on: a 2000 Mercury Grand Marques with a 4.6 4R70 4 speed auto and a 3.27 rear end that got 28 to 30MPG at 65MPH and 1700RPMs, that on a road trip from Phoenix AZ to Riverside CA got a nice 24MPG at 85MPH to the AZ/CA Boarder and then got 26MPG from the AZ/CA boarder to Riverside. MPG checked by numbers and two MPG devices.

This car would do these numbers every time every day!!

2003 Ford Crown Vic with a 4.6 4R70 4 speed auto and a 3.27 rear end that gets 26MPG at 65MPH P71 Ex-Cop car which makes 40more HP over the 2000 4.6.

These two cars show a normal progressive loss of MPG at a rate of about 1 MPG per each 5 MPH faster from 60MPH.

BUT then there are the two Ford Explorers.

2002 Ford Explorer with a 4.0 V6 5R55 5 speed and 3.55 Rearend.

2003 Ford Explorer with a 4.6 V8 5R55 5 speed and 3.55 Rearend.


60MPH and 70MPH TRUE by GPS. I was concerned when the calculator program was off.

49MPH in 5th @ 1480RPMs 29MPG
59MPH in 5th @ 1800RPMs 26MPG

65MPH in 5th @ 2200RPMs 18MPG

Due to traffic I only got these lowest and highest readings testing even on at 3AM on Sunday morning…

65MPH and up to 80MPH done nearly everyday.

Note, from 50MPH and 29MPG to 65MPG the rate drops faster than the normal 1MPG per each 5MPH faster….should have been only 3 MPG to go from 50MPH to 65MPG what should be 26MPG reads 18MPG.

NOW NOTE these SUVs THEN runs this math so from 65 MPH and 18MPG going up to 80MPH ONLY costs 3 MORE MPG, they will make 15 MPG at 80MPH.

SO IF the SUV can get the same MPG at the Same RPMs then at the higher speed in double overdrive that will mean at 70MPH it will be doing 29MPG and at 85MPH getting 26MPG.

I have tested these low speeds of 50MPH about 8 times.

This should not happen, you should loss MPG at a steady rate from 1500RPMs (50MPH) up.

BUT these two SUVs drop 10MPG between 50MPH and 65MPH THEN lose at the normal rate of 1MPG for each 5MPH faster.

THEY say it is because these SUVs are Boxed pushing through the air.

SO as a test I pulled up behind a Big Rig going north going a very nice steady 65MPH on I17, got within the vacuum behind his box, within one car space….and no change, no 29MPG just 18MPG.

So IT IS NOT wind resistance Because a 2019 Chevy Express van (A BIGGER BOX) is officially reported by its sticker to do 29MPG highway.

The FIX is in the PCM.

I think they are doing the trick on all SUVs, Vans and pickup trucks.

Rich

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by racprops

I think they are doing the trick on all SUVs, Vans and pickup trucks.

Rich

Do you think it might be a big hasty to say, based on the experience of driving two nearly identical Ford Explorers (aside from V6 vs V8) from 20 years ago, that all automakers are in a cartel that exists for the reason of artificially lowering the fuel economy of all SUVs, vans and pickup trucks, but only in a very specific speed range on the highway?

Which other SUVs, vans and pickup trucks have you measured to show a similar behavior?

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by racprops

How much does 1 gallon of liquid gasoline displace as a vapor?

One thing to keep in mind with gaseous fuels is that the gas displaces some of the potential air, reducing power, unless it's force induction.

[racprops]

To answer Isaac:

Forced induction is a POWER TRIP not any thing else...the use of turbos it to allow smaller engines with greater power out of them...and of course GREATER ware, and GREATER costs to repair and fasted wear out and sooner replacement sales of new cars.

A WIN, WIN, WIN for the car makers and dealers.

My 03 Fords 4.6 V8 have a rep for lasting 100 to 150K in police duty, then sold to Cab companies and they getting another 100 to 150K more use and even then IF you want to keep going a set of heads usually does it for another 100 to 150Ks.

My 03 Crown Vic as 185K and my 03 Explorer has 215K on it and did need a set of timing chains and the 5R55s need rebuilding of its real original 208K on it.

I fully expect to get a minimum of 60 to 100K out of these cars.

Rich

[racprops]

To answer Ecky:

My interest in MPG started when I was driving nearly every other month from Hollywood CA to all over the USA to work Star Trek and other Science Fiction conventions as a way to support my new life at 30 years old as a TV and Movie prop maker.

As much fun I was having during the 80s, a great combo of making props used in Star Trek 2,4,5,6 and other TV shows and movies, and in-between the professional prop making, I was making models for the fans…it was how I ended up in Hollywood from making ray gun toys for fans, in reality it was not steady work, so I was having a ball doing one of my first loves, road trips to cities and cons to sell models.

It was kind of a fool’s paradise, I was not really making a living…and I was unable to build thing up either…

SO there were trips where the money was thin and getting home was a case of how much MPG my then 74 Chevy G20 Van with a 350 engine, a TH350 3 speed transmission, and a 3.43 rear end, was getting which at best was somewhere around 12 to 15….we barely made it back of a few trips.

And having no credit cards, we had to had to make the cash to get back.

I having been a mechanic from 1965 so was able to repair and maintain my cars, and started looking into ways to improve the 74’s MPG.

First I got a Carter Small Primary Quad, (reported as one of the best MPG Carbs) and even tried smaller jets and larger metering rods, I was VERY aware of the fact that when the engines vacuum dropped below 10 Inches the metering rods were fully pulled out and that I was running on the main jets and NOT making good MPGs.

I was aware of using a vacuum gauge as my first car a 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk came with a full set of 7 gauges…and drove with a tach and vacuum gauges ever sense …and of driving a 3 speed with overdrive. Funny as I never worried about MPG unit the 80s and that 74 Van.

Next great helper was a Enco Driving computer with its ability to display MPH, MPG, and a big help was miles to empty: of travel left in the tank based on current MPG and knowing how many gallons was in the tank.

I was made very aware of how fast I was driving effected my MPG and was forced to slow down to stretch out the fuel left, a number of times.

The next effort was adding a Edelbrock Water Injector, but it was mainly to help with knocking and dieseling of older engines with the switch to no lead fuel.

I think I gained a total of one to two MPG with all of that.

I gave up trying and just got on with working cons and working in Hollywood.

In 1992 due to health problems and seeing the writing on the wall I moved back to Phoenix in 1992 and replaced a totally worn out rusting 74 Van (the roof was rusting from all the morning dew in CA…with a 78 van, same engine and driveline and same 12 to 15 MPG….

Then after a few bad engines and transmissions I bought the current 93 Custom G20 Van.

I had what I believed would get great MPG, a fuel injected TBI system, and a 4L60e transmission with OVERDRIVE and the standard 3.43 rear end.

And ground effects body works that WORK on this van, after over 27 years (1977 to 2004) of passing and being pasted by big rigs at freeway speeds and being blown all over the highway by the bow wake of the trucks this, van WAS NOT BLOWN all over the road, the bow wake was no longer a battle to handle.

BUT this super van was STILL getting only 14/16MPG…WTF!!!

And because I was not doing as many cons as eBay was my main selling system, so I made less road trips and money for trips was no long a major concern and we now had credit cards so the fear of running out of money and fuel was no longer a problem.

Then the second gas shortage happened and every one was upset with cars MPG and a 40 year buddy and I tried to do HHO systems by a nationwide company called Dutchman’s Mileage systems, claiming being able of making cars able to get 100MPG so we tried to make money installing them in cars.

Out of some 16 cars and trucks we had two success stories of cars that seemed to be getting 56 to 70MPG in short tests.

We could not figure out why….we did feel that this company and systems a was 90% scam.

We both returned to our old work. He back to running a junk yard and fixing and reselling cars and me to prop making.

But those two cars haunted me. So I made a second run to make it work. There was just so many claims of HHO working and so many still doing these systems, I felt perhaps it was sloppy product that caused Dutchman systems failures…

So renewed my search for a system. A inspiring discovery of Third gen.org (https://www.thirdgen.org/forums) a web site for 1980s Chevy Camaros and the thread about these cars getting 30/35MPG in Australia thanks to the hidden feature in the TPI PCM called lean burn cruse setting.

And to add fuel to this fire was an English TV show Top Gear Series 12 Ep. 4 Summary: This week's challenge is to drive from Basel in Switzerland, to the north west coast of England. This must be done on just one tank of petrol - no splashing and dashing in France, just one tank. The first to arrive - if any do - gets the honor of switching on Blackpool's illuminations. Some 740 Miles. Air Date: November 23, 2008

So one car is a Volkswagen Polo Blue Motion, a Diesel 3 cylinder that is rated at 75MPG!!!!! and has a 10 Gal. tank driven by Richard Hammond. The second car driven by James May was a Subaru Legacy diesel rated at 50MPG and has a larger tank lastly. Jeremy Clarkson shows up with a Jaguar XJ diesel, this is a full sized car with four doors etc. His plan was to run out of gas near London and thus go home, it was rated at 35MPG.

What happened?? First ALL three cars made the 740 Mile trip!!! What is even more insane was at the end of this show Jeremy Clarkson whom did NOT drive sanely until he had passed London was very surprised the Jag made it, but wait there is more, he reported the shows engineers checked on how much gas was left in the tank and reported that the Jag could have gone 260 Miles MORE that meant the Jag had a range of 1000 MILE per tank.

And there are the stories of European Car owners who took trips to Europe and brought their imported to the USA cars and then shorted out the PCM so they got local European replacement PCMs and gained much better MPG and performance.

The stories if European cars getting better MPG is too common, most of the time we are told it is they are smaller cars with smaller engines…but the above stories suggest otherwise.

And I am aware some of these problems maybe out smog laws…
The 93 Van bugged me…it should be getting 20/25 MPG thanks to the fuel injection and 4 speed auto and its .70 over drive…and real working ground effects but it gets the same MPG my junky 74 and 78 Van got…WTF???

Lastly I made a road trip from Phoenix to Sedona AZ. 116 Miles which is mainly climbing from Phoenix’s 1,086 feet, the altitude of Sedona AZ is 4,350 feet above sea level. That is a climb of 3264 feet.

My Mileage a MPGunio was reading 14MPG most of the run, I filled up before starting and filled up in Sedona and got 14MPG.

Then we drove back and again the MPGUnio reported 14MPG and again a fill up confirmed it.

The van gets 14MPG mountain climbing and 14MPG coming back down the same mountains.

That does not compute, I have long suspected something was/is wrong with how the 93 Van gets the same poor 14MPG as two junky 74 and 78 Vans got.

The Ford Explorers REALLY Give it away.

So yes I think every SUV, Van and Pickup truck at least from the first fuel injected and overdrive transmissions have been rigged to get just about the same crappy MPG of the earlier SUV, Van and Pickup truck got.

We are told over and over again and again…IT IS A Box, a truck so it cannot get better MPG…so we get small improvements…

As one possible reason could be as trucks can be expected to haul a 1 ton load, or pull a heavy trailer, of a lot of people…and to do that an engine running a touch on the rich side makes sense.

They do nowadays have hauling/trailer towing settings which can tighten shift points and lock out overdrives…they COULD had included great MPG when not hauling or towing but they have not done so..yet…that I know of anyway.

Rich

PS A friend with a 2015 Toyota Truck said when switched into towing mode it uses a lot more gas....

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by racprops

To answer Isaac:

Forced induction is a POWER TRIP not any thing else...the use of turbos it to allow smaller engines with greater power out of them...and of course GREATER ware, and GREATER costs to repair and fasted wear out and sooner replacement sales of new cars.

A WIN, WIN, WIN for the car makers and dealers.

My 03 Fords 4.6 V8 have a rep for lasting 100 to 150K in police duty, then sold to Cab companies and they getting another 100 to 150K more use and even then IF you want to keep going a set of heads usually does it for another 100 to 150Ks.

My 03 Crown Vic as 185K and my 03 Explorer has 215K on it and did need a set of timing chains and the 5R55s need rebuilding of its real original 208K on it.

I fully expect to get a minimum of 60 to 100K out of these cars.

Rich

I wasn't asking a question. Just an observation.

The volumetric ratio of liquid gasoline to air is about 8900:1 when the ratio by mass is 14.7:1 and the gasoline is a liquid. If you boil the gasoline into a gas then your volumetric ratio is now closer to 14.7:1.

In other words, if you have a 1L engine that is running at 14.7:1 AFR and it's 100% volumetrically efficient, then for every intake cycle it will ingest 999.888mL of air and 0.112mL or 4.289MJ of gasoline if the gasoline is liquid.

If you heat the fuel into a gas then your volumetric ratio becomes closer to 936.842mL of air and 63.694mL of gasoline, but now you have only 4.02MJ of gasoline, a drop of 6.3% power output.

And that's not including any more expansion for any additional heat. Some parts of gasoline don't vaporize into way past the 200 °F mark. If we heated up all the air and fuel to those tempuratures you'd lose another 20% of the mass of the air, and therefore another 20% of the fuel. So at the end of the day, heating gasoline up to full vaporization would yield a net loss of power of over 26%.

Of course this doesn't include any efficiency gains, which would counteract the loss of power through displacement caused by vaporized fuel.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Do you think it might be a big hasty to say, based on the experience of driving two nearly identical Ford Explorers (aside from V6 vs V8) from 20 years ago, that all automakers are in a cartel that exists for the reason of artificially lowering the fuel economy of all SUVs, vans and pickup trucks, but only in a very specific speed range on the highway?

Had such a cartel actually existed, instead of NOx regulations, I guess it would make the case for Diesel swaps becoming a thing for the average Joe, instead of just getting another small-block V8 crate engine (or a reconditionet one) to replace a worn-out one.