how about a fuel heater?

[nibs]

Hey folks, I do not know enough about heating gasoline to spout here, I don't think I would bother, but my DIESEL gets better mileage with warmed fuel. I can only guess why, but the difference is worth noting 7.4 mpg to 7.9 +/-.

[Nerys]

well diesel if different. Diesel is a potentially very THICK fuel that greatly changes in viscosity with temperature.

Sorry to revive a somewhat old topic but my curiosity is peaking ESPECIALLY now that I fully read the post about BOILING TEMPS.

how safe is gasoline at 180' ?

I ask because I am wondering if heating gasoline to 180' might be a much easier way to REMOVE ethanol from the gasoline especially now that they want to goto E15 and I will be Forced to wash my gas to remove the ethanol.

Another thought on heating. People say 14.7 to 1

that is not relevant here since that is 14.7 to 1 BY VOLUME

do it by MASS and its not even a close comparison gasoline is by far the key element here. That 1 part gasoline is going to far out mass the 14.7 parts air.

it takes energy joules to "heat" anything.

before you can BURN gasoline you must first expend energy to "heat" the fuel to the point where it vaporizes and you can burn it.

IE some of your engines energy is wasted in HEATING the fuel to the point where you can burn it effectively.

the hotter the fuel going in the less energy you waste.

also the COOLER the fuel the richer your car runs. the ratio is 14.7 to 1 BY VOLUME but how much "mass" of fuel that is in that 1 part is different at 0' and 90' and 175'

I have no idea of the REAL math behind all of this - this is just my "gut check" on it.

thoughts.

one concern I would have is all those vapors going back to the gas tank increasing the pressure their. How much? How dangerous? How Polluting?

[ShadeTreeMech]

SOme food for thought.
Boiling Point - Fuels

According to this site, gas boils at 100-400 degrees F; the variation I'm sure is due to the variety of mixtures. But gas evaporates at much cooler temperatures.

180' would be awfully close to the middle of the range, and even if you could distill out the alcohol, much of the gas is certain to evaporate with it, if not boil out. And in the process of warming the gas it will evaporate much more easily, and pressure inside the tank is bound to build as more vapor than normal is available. I cannot remember the difference between the volume of vapor per volume of liquid (I think it is about 1740 vapor to liquid) but vapor takes up much more space than liquid and pressure is bound to approach dangerous levels.

[Nerys]

Hmm not worried about pressure as I would do it in an open container BUT if more than the ethanol is going to evaporate that is a problem since it would be very polluting and wasteful of gasoline.

Right now I "wash" the gas. What bothers me is there is no way to remove all the water and I have no idea what ELSE is being "removed" when I wash the gas. IE will it hurt my car. It seems to have no effect so far (except to give me back my massive MPG losses!! 8-10mpg gain for my metro)

I noticed after settling there is a lot of particulate matter that is ALSO washed out (looks like thousands of little white worms or threads) I assume its one or more of the chemicals mixed in with the gasoline since there is no external contamination possible in the process (they are sealed)

Just trying to figure out a better way to remove the ethanol especially now that they want to goto E15

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by Nerys

that is not relevant here since that is 14.7 to 1 BY VOLUME

Actually, the 14.7:1 is by mass. The volume ratios for standard temperature and pressure are up in the tens of thousands to one, I think. Been a while since I read my reference material on that.

-soD

[Nerys]

wow ok that changes things a bit I had always assumed it was by volume. thats actually a rather TINY amount of gasoline. The energy needed to heat that much gasoline would be virtually irrelevant. heck the residual heat of the cylinder probable heats it up quite nicely before combustion.

[ShadeTreeMech]

While troubleshooting the fuel injection on a minivan I had an injector spraying into a glass jar so I could see the amount of fuel going in while trying to start the engine. Even with the assumed cold engine enrichment, it was an unbelieveably tiny amount of fuel.

With my Maxima, @58mph I'm spinning @ 2000 rpms and getting about 30 instant mpg on level ground with a warm engine. (I've actually seen it a bit higher than that, but it's a round number.)

In one minute I go .967 miles
I use .032 gallons in that time or 120.96 mL
That is 0.0609 milliliters used per rpm, or 0.01015mL per cylinder per rpm.
(I had to go to metric for a usable number--gallons was way too small a number with 6 zeros after the decimal point!)

Or another way to look at it would be it would take 2 minutes 56 seconds for all 6 injectors to fill a 12 ounce soda can.

Considering the very high temperatures of compression prior to ignition PLUS the ambient heat of the engine, I'd say that gas is highly heated by the time the spark plug lights up. And to think a diesel injector uses such a tiny amount of fuel you cannot hardly make out the holes in one with the naked eye! The fuel comes out like a puff of smoke instead of the spray bottle effect of a gas injector.

[ShadeTreeMech]

I hate to eat crow, but you may be onto something....
Vaporizer Carburetion - Shell Fiat

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post181290

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Nerys

Right now I "wash" the gas. What bothers me is there is no way to remove all the water

Just trying to figure out a better way to remove the ethanol especially now that they want to goto E15

What happens with the water/ethanol after washing the fuel ?

[Nerys]

down the drain. I was unsure of how to get rid of it at first. A friend at the gas station around me said I could dump it into their waste tank if need be but I called the water company and asked them and they said its no problem to dump the alcohol water mix down the drain it won't cause any problems. so thats what I do.