Heated tip fuel injectors, Delphi makes em!
 

Here is a link. Read up!

Delphi Multec 3.5 Heated Tip Port Fuel Injector

Seems it's intended for flex fuel and it doesn't say if it improves combustion for straight gas. At 500*C it ought to though. Smokey would be proud.

This could be an interesting mod once these start showing up in wrecking yards. The next question will likely be what engine changes will take the most advantage of these, like ignition timing, cam timing, compression ratio, intake air temp, etc.

You would only be able to use it in a direct injection motor unless you just want to burn the inside of your intake manifold

^Read the article. It's a port injector and it doesn't shoot flames.

Damn, now I have no reason to read the article lol

I s'pose you could hook it up to a pressurized fuel line and 12v source, and hold it in one hand and have a lighter in the other...

I am missing the reference to 500 deg C temperatures.
 

Where in the article is that referenced?

Sorry guys and girls. In my excitement I got things mixed up. The supercritical heated injectors are on another link and it's 300*C not 500*C. Product – Fuel Injection System | Transonic Combustion.

Seems the heated fuel thing is catching on with OEM suppliers. Maybe we'll see some on new cars soon. Do a search on supercritical fuel injection for some other implementation ideas.

Again, sorry for shooting before aiming.

I'd like to have some of these injectors; it'd extend E85 season quite a bit.

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdJL...hylxKaZY8DH5Nw

>

Guessing or hoping the power needed to heat those offsets the mpg benefits?

I'm thinking they're only heated when cold even though I saw no mention of it. My engines run good on E85 in brutal cold after they are warm. Plus it's quite a small mass on that tip with not huge quantities of fuel to heat so wattage is probably not bad.

If they did shoot flames you wouldn't have to install a WAI.:p

Afterburner mod.

It's not as big an energy investment as it sounds. The fuel is -going- to get heated. You are -going- to spend the energy to heat the fuel. The engine won't run otherwise.

But with this system, the fuel gets preheated electrically, and less energy in the combustion chamber gets wasted to heat the fuel.

Now, granted, heating the fuel electrically does involve some conversion inefficiencies. It would take some careful long term testing to see how much you really save, net.

Guys I think you are missing the point during WARMUP and ENGINE START things are EXTREMELY inefficient and in the case of ethanol (hydrous as well) you can't start at all.

To heat 1 gallon/hr of water 410 degrees takes about 1000 watts continous or about 1 1/3 hp.

So on a big V8 that is how much power would be needed to achieve this but again this would only be during warmup and given many vehicles use 2x - 3x more fuel during warmup (at least at idle) this may not be a bad investment even on non-e85 vehicles.

Heck idle consumption is all waste and that is where this would likely make things a WHOLE lot better.

Especially for the non hypermilers who insist on warming their car up 15-30 minutes.

Cheers
Ryan

If it significantly eliminates the need for cold enrichment, will there be an injector into the exhaust to light off the cat? I know that sounds dumb, but OEM mapping dumps a ton of fuel, above what the engine needs to run, to get the cat lit on cold start now.

It will be interesting to see if these are used in non-flexfuel gasoline engines from OEM's. Maybe they only mention ethanol fuel because it's just not hot enough to make a difference for a gasoline engine. Or not hot enough when the engine is warm. Or the heating element isn't capable of continuous duty.

Maybe that's what we are here for.

The claim for the supercritical temp injector (Transonic) sounds like it has promise though.

Transonic Supercritical Fuel Injection – Improves Efficiency 50 to 75 Percent

Blasphemy on a small car with this system why would you need a cat?

erm in any event if you were to use this to lean out idle especially during cold start the fuel would make much more heat than normal due to being around stoich (or leaner still ?), the heat of exhaust can light off the cat just as well as too much or too little fuel.

Too much fuel no matter how you slice it makes more pollution, we shouldn't concern ourselves with the type of pollution just that less fuel is always less pollution by volume (aka Co2 and volatiles)

Cheers
Ryan

As an ecomodder, I think you are right on!

As much as I like clean air, I also believe in just plain burning less fuel. It's too bad we don't have the readily accessible and reasonably priced ability to trim excess fuel from our EFI mappings. Areas in cold start, transitions, WOT and decel are often richer than they need to be just to satisfy hydrocarbon emissions. Really probably any operating regime in open loop is too rich. Decel on my Focus doesn't cut fuel unless I'm over like 3000 rpm. I rarely even run it over 3000 rpm.

If these, and maybe other areas were optimized for fuel efficiency (with emissions be damned!) I wonder what MPG gains could be realized.

If supercritical injectors created a much more complete and therefore cleaner burn the cats could conceivably not have enough fuel to stay lit. Would the supercritical injector burn be clean enough to render the cats redundant? I guess we may see someday, or we may not by thier absence from the market.

I think you guys are only looking at hydrocarbons as the pollution/emissions. Hydrocarbons are easy, its NOx emissions that are tough to meet, do plenty of harm, and leaner is not better for them. There's no way you are eliminating catalysts and meeting modern vehicle emissions, I don't care what fuel prep is done.

Also, spark timing aids a great deal in lighting off a cold cat, not just running rich. Many cars will pull timing to well after tdc on startup to get still burning combustion gases into the exhaust. Cat light off can happen in seconds this way. Longer means much, much higher hydrocarbon emissions.

Since the beginning of emissions controls going back 50 years, I ahve always felt that the solution was to perfect the delivery of the fuel-air mixture to an engine optimized for creating the highest amount of power per unit of fuel.

In 1976 the Datsun 280Z, with a fuel injection system considerd archaic by todays standards passed federal emissions without a catalytic converter, or any exhaust gas recirculation. Honda managed that without a catalyst.

Few people remember how poor driveability was in that era and power levels suffered, but Honda and Nissan managed to maintain driveability while passing then current emissions requirements.

It was sad to see lean burn die due to NOX regulations while producing CO2 levels that matched current hydrids.

I still believe there is a lot of room for improvements in IC engines, approaching the 60% energy conversion theoretical maximum. I think that level may even be passed with the elimination of the reciprocating limitation or current IC designs.

regards
mech

That makes no sense at all.

People on this site tend to get too excited when they see "heat" and some drivetrain part in the same sentence. It's very clear that this is for startup only. When the engine is running, the fuel cooling down the valves and combustion chamber is necessary to prevent knock. At the very least, a lower starting temperature for the charge causes less pressure throughout the compression cycle and reduces frictional losses, and slightly increases thermodynamic efficiency.

NOx emissions on a 100mpg car that 1% or less of the population uses are IRRELEVENT.

Laws need to be adjusted to start necessary industries, as much as you think having NOx regulations as they are is terrific these laws are mainly used to isolate the US market and strangle innovation, exceptions MUST be made if we ever want anything viable to get a start in the market.

Since you bring up NOx I assume the roughly 70 million 1990 and earlier cars that are still on the road make much less NOx than an Insight like 3 cylinder in lean burn right?

Sometimes common sense is lost AND THIS IS NOT A MOTOR VEHICLE< IT IS A MOTORCYCLE WHICH DOES NOT HAVE TO MEET CAR STANDARDS, it can put out over 3x the most lienient car (light truck actuall) standard and be legal.

At the end of the day the pollution associated with producing 1 gallon of fuel and transporting it 5000 miles to your car makes more pollution including NOx than you car could ever make burning the fuel (heck more than a 1960's car can make), the most critical concern of our country must be to conserve fuel in any way possible first (while using common sense)

It is not that I disagree with pollution standards but in the case of anything revolutionary they must be disregarded IFF it creates a more viable energy efficient product.

Heck 50cc motorcycles still don't have active emissions, apparently someone in government does agree at least in part with what I said, just so long as it doesn't have 4 wheels.

Ah well.

I don't disagree that emissions laws seem to do as much (or more) harm than good. Burning extra fuel to try and keep down seems downright stupid.

But you were stating that a car running lean wouldn't need a catalytic converter, which it most certainly does to met today's standards. Maybe it doesn't need one to meet the standards you've made up as important to you, but that doesn't change what the actual requirements are.

Laws need to be adjusted to start necessary industries,

Motorcycles do not follow the same emissions standards as cars. Period

I don't need to make anything up about that,

For example 12g of CO limit is much higher than a typical car (2014)
Motorcycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, it would make sense to address that aspect before being stricter with the rest. However, I cannot imagine explaining that to the average citizen, it is too complicated and they have "Jersey Shore" to watch.

When did we start talking about motorcycles? Yes, US standards for bikes are very easy. Euro, not so much. US is often the only place carbureted versions of a bike are sold, such as the late Ninja 250.

Here's a much better reference then Wikipedia
http://www.delphi.com/pdf/emissions/...-2014-2015.pdf

I figured these would work well on the elio, oops wrong thread.

The thought crossed my mind that these injectors could be the key to a previous thread.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...car-12518.html

Couple this with Orbital's air assisted injectors and a heavy fuel and one could make a spark ignited, heavy fueled engine.

Except it would knock and the engine wouldn't be any more efficient than plain old gasoline?

That is a simplistic analysis.
 

Orbital of Australia has an engine in development to replace the engines in military drones. This would remove the last need for aviation gasoline from the United States Military Logistics.

A balanced engine would have direct injection to provide an early injection event that introduces a sub critical amount of fuel (below combustible limits) followed by an injection closer to spark initiation. This would provide a mix of vaporized fuel and a rich cloud for ignition. No throttle would be necessary resulting in reduced throttle losses. The increased fuel density would be an advantage. The only detriment in comparison to a true diesel is the loss of efficiency due to decreased compression (13:1 compared to 15:1 and above for diesels). Increased thermal efficiency could be derived by use of the Atkinson Cycle but specific horsepower per weight is important to aircraft so a compromise in design is still an advantage over the original engine via improved logistics and longer flight times.

For Ecommoders, it could mean waste fuels could be used in a wider range of vehicle types.

Dustyfirewalker has a thread that may not succeed but his youthful energy is contagious to watch. But, his premise is sound. If you have a source of waste oil, why not burn it in your engine? The economy is largely immaterial as the fuel is essentially free.

"Ecommoders"? :p

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...psf4021c86.jpg

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps02df4a44.jpg

Haha! good catch.
 

Now the argument could be made that the fancy Commode de Garnier is more earth friendly as it is made of largely renewable materials in comparison to the largely synthetic build of the Invacare model.

If you want to use spark ignition you definitely can't run anywhere near original power because the rich area right where the injector is spraying will ignite. Otherwise you'd be running a diesel cycle on a gas engine and that could be very bad for an injector not designed to do that or the reciprocating assembly, and you might lose a lot of efficiency.

Use a diesel engine for diesel.

I hear what you are saying.
 

However, the exceedingly high compression ratios required to reliably ignite fuel via the diesel cycle is usually followed by a commensurate structural weight penalty. The German aero-diesels of the Second World War era had poor power to weight ratios and only saw service because of their exceptional range. The specific power to weight ratios of the Orbital design would not have this weight penalty and the displacement could be juggled to meet any power requirements. Your argument goes up against a working design that is undergoing development with the United States Military.

In an application useable to the common tinkerer, one could see an advantage to use a common direct injection unit and provide an electrically heated feed line just upstream of the said injector. However, one might as well use a fluid-to-fluid heat exchanger to help in the pre-heat of the fuel once the engine is up to working temperatures. The choice of engines also expands. As an example. If I want to swap a larger 5.9 L diesel engine of the Cummins 6BT variety, I am looking at an engineering feat to support and mount a 1000 lb engine. If I chose instead to use a common Chrysler 5.9 L gasoline engine running a heated and spark ignited heavy fuel, I might not see the same torque and fuel efficiency, but I may see improved fuel efficiency over the gasoline version and not as much of a horsepower loss as one would expect as I can ignite the largely homogenous fuel mix more rapidly
allowing the engine to have a greater useable rev-range. And, the engine weighs in at "only" 500 lbs. The timing of the secondary injection event is easily coordinated with the firing of the spark minimizing the problem of damaging detonation. You must remember, at 13:1 or less compression ratio, the combustion chamber temperature is going to be considerably lower than the 285 deg C needed to ignite diesel ( as an example). Yes, turbocharging and intake heating can raise this, but you will still have irregular ignition events if you desire to run in the diesel mode. The available spark ignition avoids this.

Again, I would not use a port injector as specified in the original post. However, it is conceivable that heated tips in direct injection will be available shortly.