Water injection is sometimes tricky to meter. It needs to be closed at idle and opened at high power. But! Too much, you get steam and condense in the gas/hopper/filter/engine. Too litle, you loose power and efficialcy. And produce slag.
Max had a good idea of useing a petrol carbourator to meter water
I like the idea of the carburetor too but I could not figure out an easy way to make that work with my set up.so I went with my “steam chamber” under and around the nozzle with the 3 steam inlets sucking into the air flow around the nozzle. My thinking was that with low engine speeds, less steam enters the reaction and with High engine speeds, more steam in the reaction just like it would with a carburetor but with a steam reservoir instead of a float.
Hi Will,
one Tip before starting your build: make the fuel, test it in any form possible, then build your gasifier around it…
this will safe you a lot of headache…
Hi Koen, that is the plan. I will be building a pellet mill, if plans don’t work out with driving on charcoal pellets - no biggie, I heat with wood pellets with season number 13 approaching, so it will not have been a waste. I already have a hammer mill and various other pcs of helpful equipment.
If fuel manufacturing and the quality thereof pan out - only then will I buy a vehicle and start building the gasifier.
Hi Will
I am intrigued by your photo “yellow caterpillar tractor” of what brand is it?
Excuse to leave the subject !
Thierry-
Hi Will, I agree with Koen and recommend you start off with a small gasifier to run your pelletizer. It will give you a good education on what is involved with charcoal gasification without sinking a lot of time into a bigger project. As noted, straw is high in silica so clinker build up will be more of problem in that it must be addressed more often. Will you use a bottom tyure like a blacksmith forge or are you looking at a side draft, or even a Kallhe style? The blacksmith style tyure is what I just put back into the Ford Ranger as it is easy to get the ash out. I have plans to try a different way to remove ash from a side draft gasifier but have not had time to test it so do not want to comment on it yet.
When you get to tackling the vehicle gasification you will definately need a pickup truck to haul the amount of charcoal needed to travel 1400km. Don’t forget it is easy to switch between chargas and gasoline if you need a boost in power to keep up with traffic.
I have two, the one in the pic is a 1952 ATC (American Tractor Corp.) GT30 Track loader. F140 Continental Gas, 3 speed, wet clutches, 6000 lbs. Case bought ATC out in '57, and the GT30 eventually became the Case 310. It’s a sweet machine for doing “yard work” 
Hi Gary, I’m going to be looking at the fuel production first as this seems to be the most work and probably most difficult. If the fuel manufacturing pans out well, I know that I will be jonesing to get on the road asap haha , but I can easily see the value in trying my hand at a small scale set up to do a little learning and maybe some changes/refinements before going large scale. I do have a 20hp Kohler V Twin powered lawn tractor doing nothing :).
I am still collecting ideas on the net regarding design, but so far I am really liking Don Mannes design and his excellent results. I plan the bottom type tyure nozzle, probably made from castable ceramic, with everything else being 304 stainless as I like how J.O.O’s stainless wood gasifier is holding up in a similar climate as I will be dealing with. I’m not sure how I will feed the unit yet (from divorced hopper). Packaging will be a concern, but won’t be known how bad until I buy the vehicle everything is going into.
Did you ever figure out if the no start issue with your Ranger had anything to do with running chargas on an OBD2 vehicle?
I own an oliver oc4 +/- 1955 you can see it here
Thierry
That’s awesome - wood powered too? I love the OC-4, probably one of my favorite crawlers. Your machine has the same basic Clark transaxle and wet clutch diff steer that mine does. I love that these machines have wet steering clutches. My other dozer has dry clutches with steering brakes - I feel like I’d better not ever let it sit for too long!
I’d love to get an OC3,4 or 6 someday. I also love the Case 310 and 350, Cat 10 and 20, IHC TD-6 and TD-9