Vapor fuel continued desscussion!!
 

Hi everybody, it's been a while since I've been on, but just wanted to share something I found on the web.

Car gets 400+ MPG | Fuel-Efficient-Vehicles.org

I found this to be very interesting, and before you bad mouth it to much I just want to let everyone know that I tried this on my 150 rocketa scooter and had it screaming at 6-8,000 rpm. That was with just throwing it together with pvc pipe and not having the proper components to do a dessent job!! Oh and also I elliminated the carb all together!! I'll let you guys know if I get it to work or not!

Commenting to follow the thread. I started skimming about half-way down the page.

If you eliminated the carb how do you throttle it? How do you get sufficient volume without heat or added surface area?

Ball Valve!! it had no throttle linkage anyway. Also, I put a tube down into the fuel that allows air to bubble through so that it can help evaporate the fuel faster depending on "throttle" position. I had it running really good today for about 10-15 minutes, but then i decided to try something else to see how it would work and it hasn't run right since.however i do have an idea why, i just need to get the stuff to see if it will work. I'll let you know how it goes!!

Ok, i was looking online at other examples of the vapor setup to see if i could get a better idea of what i was doing wrong and found out that i should first use a glass jar so that i can see whats happening(i was using 2" pvc pipe) so i used a quart jar i had available. I then needed to put something in it to absorb the fuel so that it will create more area for the fuel to evaporate, so i used a wash rag. Then i cut a 1 1/8th inch hole for some 3/4 pvc pipe(out to engine) then another smaller hole for 1/4" dripper hose(in) and put the end of it under the wash rag to reduce splashing in the jar. Then it's just a matter of controlling the air intake valve to adjust the throttle. I got it running really good now!! I need to get the throttle setup for riding, right now i have no way of controlling speed.

Is the ball valve on the 3/4" side or the 1/4" side? You might want to put a cage around the glass jar so it doesn't get broken. This is a 150cc engine?

From the article; extrapolating up from 4oz of fuel to a gallon is backward; it should be multiple gallons averaged down. However you consume it, calculating mileage is not trivial. It involves headwinds, barometric pressure, etc.

It's on the 3/4" side between the jar and the engine. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the jar yet! 1/4" ended up not being enough for the engine, so i got a large mouth jar and drilled 2 1 1/8" holes for the 3/4" pipes. All i need now is a cable to the ball valve and i can take it on the road to test it's fuel usage and if it runs smoothly or not. So far it's been really easy to adjust the idle speed and rev the motor in the driveway but i'm not sure of it's power yet. It is a 150cc

This car makes a more realistic claim, but for it's size and aerodynamics I think any normal modern 4 cylinder without EPA emissions would get similar results. In the article they talk about the a/f being over 20:1 which is supposedly impossible without "vapor technology". Mitsubishi has a factory lean burn system that goes as high as 26:1. Any car could be tuned to use these kind of a/f ratios especially without EPA rules. That car says low CO2 but how's it's HC and NOX doing?

I still don't get the point of trying to make gasoline into a vapor before the compression stroke on a correctly tuned motor will do it for you. If you want an easy to vaporize, safe proven fuel then why not propane?

http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225...7WKByl8G1Q.jpg
Use a fuel filter (off a diesel locomotive?) and mod it with a float and needle valve from a carburetor.

I was wondering about shifting gears.

Before it died in a flood, my car did 26:1 at cruise. All tuning.

And ditto on propane.

My metro can lite cruise @ 22.4-1+, that's as high as my wide band will read. It starts missing at higher ratios.

how do you change the AF ratio?

I use an apexi AFC(air fuel controller) and run open loop all the time.

I have noticed my car gets better MPG the more the engine is off. Pushing my foot down heavy gaining the speed I need and cutting the engine off as much a possible gets the best MPG. changing the AF ratio would help me I think.

AFC NEO - Electronics


???

$495????

AFC Neo, Fuel Management

Look on Craigs List or Ebay for an Apexi Safc or a Vafc. I find them there for under $100.

For $500 you can get an E-Manage that will do ignition timing, as well... or a Unichip Q... or an AEM... or...

I think there's also Split-Second, though I don't know about compatibility or price.

The reason I'm going with this setup is because I've always believed that cars are running way to rich! I've thought for the last 5-10 years that if the fuel requires 14.7-1 a/f ratio at atmospheric pressure then it souls only need about 147-1 at a 10-1 compression ratio do to the reduction in the fuel molecules distance apart. At 10-1 compression ratio and 147-1 a/f ratio the fuel molecules are about as close as they would be at atmospheric pressure. I was able to mess around with my scooter yesterday for about 4-5 hours on 2 ounces of Coleman camping fuel, not sure of its fuel economy yet because I had no way to control it will on it.

Cars are not running way to rich for economy, they are doing it because of government regulations.

The physical spacing of the molecules has nothing to do with it. What matters is the number of molecules of air, and the number of molecules of fuel. That's why the 14.7:1 ratio is in weights, because weight is a very good proxy for the number of molecules.

Chemical reactions use a certain amount of reactants, and create a certain number of products. For instance, when you burn hydrogen in an oxygen atmosphere, you get 2 * (H2) + 1 * (O2) => 2* (H2O). To make up the two H and one O from water, you need twice as much O2 as H2. Similarly, when you burn gasoline in air, you need very close to 14.7 times as much air as gasoline in order for the reaction to be complete. (That's the "stoichiometric" ratio.) More fuel means you have un-reacted fuel left, more air means you have un-reacted air.

When you have excess air, the combustion reaction changes. It can produce more heat, then as you go even leaner it produces less heat. It also produces more oxides of nitrogen, and can cause mis-fires where the mixture doesn't burn at all. It can even cause incomplete burning if the flame front gets too weak.

Many of those problems can be solved in different ways, but the NOx one is rather more difficult. Since NOx produces stuff like acid rain, it's generally a good thing to try to limit its production. Keeping the mixture to right around 14.7:1 makes the current catalytic converters work well, which reduces all of the emissions from the tailpipe.

I believe that there are catalysts that can work at leaner ratios, but they are more expensive. And the higher MPG is now being produced less expensively (or at least more profitably) with hybrid cars rather than lean-burn cars.

-soD

I understand that you need the 14.7-1 a/f ratio (or the stoichiometric ratio) to burn the fuel at atmospheric pressure to achieve a "2 C8H18 + 25 O2 → 16 CO2 + 18 H2O". However, once you get further away from that ratio the issue becomes weither or not the "reaction" will continue after exceeding that ratio is the distance of the fuel molecules. If there to far a part then some will "react", but others will not braking the reaction and stopping the burning of the fuel.

Now in a internal combustion engine where it compresses the a/f mixture it's a bit less of an issue. However the issue after that is the increased heat produced as you lean it out, because if the engine is running pretty rich then your already running at the other end of the stoichiometric ratio. Basically what i'm trying to say is that the only real way to get the a/f ratio to the lowest you can, you have to start with no fuel and slowly add it tell the engine starts to run properly, and with my experience with doing that so far it is far less then the 14.7-1 a/f ratio that the car manufacturers say they are using.

A car can handle the "instant explosion" caused by going so low because it's a very small explosion when you get it to the right amount. It's like lighting a small balloon of gas in a closed room, to big and it will blow the windows out. If it's just the right size though it will explode but just enough to raise the pressure in the room without blowing out the windows. In an engine if the "instant Explosion" is too high it just increases the RPM's.

Actually, what happens inside the cylinder is not really an explosion. It is a burn, though a rapid one. Explosions are what you hear as detonation or pinging, and those are uncontrolled and can damage the engine. They're not more powerful than the normal operation, they are not controlled burns.

The proximity of the molecules to each other has some effect on the burn, but it does not have any effect on what ratio of reactants produces a complete reaction. That has purely to do with the number of molecules. You also seem to have been assuming a linear relationship between compression ratio and burnable mixture, and that is certainly not the case.

If the mixture is not close to the stoichiometric one, undesirable things happen. If it's too rich, you wind up with unburned fuel going out the exhaust, resulting in high HC emissions. If it's too lean, you wind up with elevated temperatures in the chamber and high NOx emissions. Those are both undesirable, though some of each can be tolerated as a necessary evil. Too far in either direction will also result in a loss of power, which is also generally undesirable.

The really big thing that happens when you stray from the stoich mixture is that standard (relatively inexpensive) catalytic exhaust converters stop working as effectively. So all levels of pollutants will potentially increase, or at the very least the total amounts will increase. Again, this is undesirable.

There are expensive catalysts and more sophisticated engine management strategies that can work better with leaner-running engines, but they cost more and are only moderately effective. They could likely be improved to where they do meet the current emissions regulations, but there isn't really any incentive for the manufacturers to do so. The cost will be significant, and basically the same benefits can be had for less money by using a smaller engine running more or less conventionally paired up with an electric motor.

The whole hybrid thing is very well understood, is being widely produced so the economies of scale are working for it, and has effects that are fairly close to those that would be achieved by investing a lot more $$$ into making a lean-burn setup that does everything that the automakers want it to do.

Lean burn may still be the way to go in the future, but at this point it isn't worth the investment for the manufacturers. Maybe the 2025 standards will force them to move that direction, or maybe not...

-soD

Not the numbers on these are neccisarily acurate across different engines, but of all the ones i can recall, the hc emmisions low point is richer than the engine is capable of running. I would be surprised if your best economy would be found beyond the point where you start pushing more fuel out the tailpipe. https://audittrs.files.wordpress.com...-tt-8n-mk1.jpg
Only way I could think to find / tune to that concept would be borrowing a shops 5gas analyzer

Yes, I understand that it's just that I've heard auto manufacturers say that they can't go too lean because "The engine can't handle a instant detonation of the fuel at thoughs low a levels".

I was just using that as a base figure. I don't honestly believe that the a/f ratio will Chang one to one with the compression ratio, I was just stating that it can change with it. And quit substantially.(though I'm not 100% sure how much!!)

may I ask how inefficient running lean would make the catalytic converter??

I have my Roketa 150cc scooter running using the "vapor" system and I find it weird that to accelerate with it I have to close the intake(tell about half way, then it starts to drop in rpm's) and to idle it I have to open the intake.

I think they can't reduce nox if they stay lean very long, I think the 14.7:1 matters more to the cat than the engine

Stolen from Catalytic Converters - Chemwiki
There are two types of "systems" running in a catalytic converter, "lean" and "rich." When the system is running "lean," there is more oxygen than required, and the reactions therefore favor the oxidation of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons (at the expense of the reduction of nitrogen oxides). On the contrary, when the system is running "rich," there is more fuel than needed, and the reactions favor the reduction of nitrogen oxides into elemental nitrogen and oxygen (at the expense of the two oxidation reactions).

They have made 'cats' , like reverse fuel cells .. that use electrical energy to break down NOx instead of the chemical energy from unburned fuel ... that would be a valid option in PHEVs ... get high MPG Lean Burn and low NOx emissions at the same time.

Link

Piston engine aircraft are able to adjust the fuel ratio. Best economy is around 16-17:1, if I remember correctly...and at an airspeed not to far above stall. I know a fella on another forum who had a tuner to adjust his Hemi's A/F ratio, and he pushed it to about that point and was getting another 2mpg.

Autospeed article on A/F ratios: AutoSpeed - Tuning Air/Fuel Ratios

Yes, we run 14.7:1 'cuz it's the chemically ideal mixture. True, some sort of by-products go out the pipe at other ratios. From the chart, it looks like running 17:1 (if able) would be about the same amounts as at 14.7:1, as the NOx is on the other side of the peak.

There is a gizmo from Zeitronix that allows mixture adjustment. They recommend you use a wide-band O2 meter with it. (Found it) Zeitronix Zt-3 : Wideband Controller and Datalogging System

Well what would be the a/f ratio with a 3/4" intake and idle being at the WOT position??(my scooters idle is at wot position now, and wot is at 2/3 throttle now)

Interesting project do you have some pics?

My rough guess would be around 46 A/F ratio. Based on going from 30kPa to
100kPa

here's some pics of my setup.

Attachment 17016

As you can probably see in this setup the closing of the ball valve only controls how much air is brought through the jar by reducing how much it let's through creating a bit more vacuum through the jar.

Attachment 17017

This one is of the jar itself, as you can see with this image the pipe in it has about 50 1/16" holes. And i made it so that they go around the pipe in a spiral to reduce the amount of vacuum needed to pull air through it.

The 50 1/16" holes are only about half what is needed to hit the same air flow as the 3/4" pipe, but i did this to better control the throttle of the scooter.

I found out with this setup that the bigger the bubbles coming out of the pipe the rougher the idle. I had just the 3/4" pipe going into the jar and at idle it would pulse badly with the bubbles that were coming out of that size a hole.

Depends upon the engine's design parameters what its exhaust gas analysis graph will look like.

Typically, when you go richer than stoichiometric, your UBHC and CO increases, but your NOx decreases.

When you go leaner than stoichiometric, your UBHC and CO decreases, but your NOx increases... at least until you hit flammability limits and start skipping combustion events due to flame blowout... then your UBHC increases and your NOx decreases. Extending flammability limits (via better head design, better ignition method, flammability enhancers) extends the lean-burn range before UBHC increases and NOx decreases.

Knocking down high combustion temperatures with water vapor or water vapor / alcohol injection while burning lean knocks down NOx by absorbing the combustion temperature spikes that create NOx.

So ideally, if an engine ran lean while utilizing water vapor injection, it'd produce plenty of power and still have clean(er) emissions. Stoichiometric is a compromise brought about by limits in the ability to extend flammability limits and knock down NOx production.

http://www.sjmautotechnik.com/troubl...ic/exhgas1.jpg

[soapbox]
We don't worry about CO2, because CO2 isn't a pollutant, it's a natural part of the oxygen / carbon dioxide cycle and is necessary for life, not to mention it only comprises 0.04% of atmospheric gas. Don't believe the global warming "CO2 is gonna getcha!" alarmists... those leading that charge promulgate their tripe to try to get carbon exchanges set up, from which they'll profit handsomely (at the wallet-draining expense of everyone else)... the rest of the herd bleating the CO2 alarmism are just wanna-be intellectuals vomiting the soundbites they think will make them sound intelligent. CO2 levels have been orders of magnitude higher in the distant past, and life (and the planet) survived just fine... in fact, during one particular period about 485 million years ago, CO2 levels were approximately 17.5 times higher than today, solar output was nearly identical (less than a percent difference, according to researchers), and the planet slid into an ice age that lasted approximately a million years and killed approximately 49% of all life. Because CO2 is not a global warming gas... it's been proven that CO2 concentration lags temperature change by 600 to 1000 years in every glacial and interglacial period ever studied. The major contributors to global warming or cooling are the same as they've always been... solar and orbital forcing. Care to guess what the current trends are for solar and orbital forcing? Yeah... at the precipice of sliding into an approximately 10,000 year cold period.
[/soapbox]

One correction .. Chemistry.

The term is 'greenhouse gas' ... and yes .. chemically CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

Definition:
A greenhouse gas (sometimes abbreviated GHG) is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range ... we know and have proven that CO2 meets this definition.

Not that this is the appropriate forum to discuss this, but here goes...

Just love how easy it is to attract the nitpickers. LOL

Now answer the questions, please:
By what mechanism does a greenhouse work?
Why is the planet different from a greenhouse?
Be as detailed as you can be, because I'll be tearing apart your answer at a later time.

CO2 absorbs in the infrared, but it also emits in the infrared (on the night side of the planet) at an equal rate. The radiative forcing from CO2 is negligible, especially when compared to water vapor, which absorbs in a much larger spectrum and is much more prevalent in the atmosphere (and it falls to the ground in the form of rain, carrying that heat to the surface and keeping it there longer rather than reradiating to The Infinite Heatsink we call space). This has been known (and written about) for the past 150 years (ref: Tyndall).

And now for Yet Another Inconvenient Truth (I've got hundreds of them to embarrass the AGW sheeple):
The effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas becomes ever more marginal with greater concentration | Watts Up With That?
--------------------------------------------------------------
According to well understood physical parameters, the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas diminishes logarithmically with increasing concentration and from the current level of ~390 ppmv, (parts per million by volume). Accordingly only ~5% of the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas remains beyond the current level.

Remarkably, IPCC Published reports , (TAR3), do actually acknowledge that the effective temperature increase caused by growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere radically diminishes with increasing concentrations. This information is in their report. It is well disguised for any lay reader, (Chapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate).
--------------------------------------------------------------

Now... you were saying?

If you believe the AGW schtick, you're being lied to and manipulated for the monetary gain of others. Do your own research, you'll find that solar and orbital forcing are (and remain) the major contributing factors to global temperature change... and we're heading into a solar and orbital forcing period which will cool the planet. It's predicted it'll be a similar amount of cooling as during the Little Ice Age... except it'll last approximately 10,000 years.

The ClimateGate 2.0 hacked emails show the climate researchers know this... they were discussing "coordinating their message" because telling people to prepare for AGW and an ice age seemed incongruent to the message they'd been putting out for years now.

It's ridiculous to claim that a tiny percentage of CO2 (currently 0.04% of atmospheric gas composition) has any effect in comparison to that giant fusion furnace in the sky that we call our sun.

Fusion furnace or electrical anode?

Please do take that somewhere else, with links to articles written by scientists, and to newer ipcc reports.

For the record, the planet will do just fine, it's just us humans who are going to have trouble with gkobal warming. And yes it's real.

Sure... which forum would you like to take it to?

How about that 18 year 6 month "global warming" hiatus, huh? Those climate scientists are sure having a hard time explaining that with their computer models, the only place global warming actually exists. That must be why they got caught falsifying several data sets, and disposing of the raw data. But looking at solar and orbital forcing influences, it's easy to explain. LOL

Which data would you like as corroboration? UK Met? UAH? RSS? NASA JPL?

Fact: CO2 accounts for 1 ten-millionth of one percent of climate forcing. Would you like to see the math to corroborate that?

Fact: James Hansen, in a NASA brief, said temperatures dropped from 1940 to 1999... while out the other side of his mouth he was falsifying the data sets to erase the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age so he could claim in 1999 that it was the warmest year on record... when caught doing so, he stated that he had to change the data, otherwise he'd not be able to show a trend!

Fact: Antarctica shows only 159 square kilometers of melt per year (per CryoSat-2), out of 14,000,000 square kilometers total. That's only 0.001135% that's melting per year. For it to totally melt at this rate would take something on the order of 88,000 years, and we'll be long into another ice age before then. And that's if no ice were added to Antarctica for that entire time.

Fact: The Greenland glacier added 500 gT of net ice in 2014.

Would you like the corroborating data to support all this? I've got it handy.

Please give some evidence that is backed by scientific data.
I will give some data to the contrary:
JPL | News | The 'Unstable' West Antarctic Ice Sheet: A Primer
An overview of Antarctic ice trends
Sun & climate: moving in opposite directions
http://www.skepticalscience.com/gree...termediate.htm

Back on topic: still don't see any real data on the fuel efficiency and emissions of the fuel vapor thingy...

That part you got correct.
:thumbup:

Take it to an appropriate thread for that topic.

That would be http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ing-23123.html in The Lounge.

But the mods locked it at 1319 posts. :( Just when it was getting good. :(

My impression is that that would be expecting a lot from the OP.