Thanks for all the"warm" replies:) topic is changing to house heating. But i was asking about the rock hard coal i tried to explain in the 3th message is possible to use on a truck with coal gasifier? About whats in that coal. Does it have enough impurities that i cant seperate and would damage the engine? Reason i am trying to use hard coal, is i can buy it unlimited, enrergy dens and somehow from what i read it would be trouble free comparing to wood gasifier?
Hi Ali, What you are describing as “coal” sounds like anthracite or “hard” coal. It could also be a harder form of bituminous or “soft” coal. Bituminous coal will form bubbles of coal tar when heated, usually has sulfur and creates a significant amount of ash. Anthracite coal is nearly pure carbon. No sulfur smell and no bubbling, burning tars. The ash is very fine and powdery. To test your coal, build a small wood fire and put some lumps of coal on top of the burning wood and see how it burns.
I have tried bituminous coal in my charcoal gasifier once, and will not repeat the experiment. The coal forms clinckers which are lumps of molten slag. The sulfur is corrosive too. I have used anthracite coal in my charcoal gasifier and will continue to do so as it is a dense source of carbon with no negative side effects.
With that said, I still feel you need to run the charcoal gasifier on charcoal and only add the anthracite coal into the oxidation zone.
Hummmmm, just had a thought. Maybe I CAN mix it in with the charcoal??? But then, the heavy coal may drop to the bottom of the gasifier, But is that a problem? Ali, You just got me thinking about an doing an experiment.
As to your original question, Yes, you can run a 8 liter engine on charcoal gas. Whether you can use coal depends on what type of coal you are talking about.
Gary in PA Sitting next to my Harmon wood stove, enjoying radiant wood heat since 1978 (Got that Steve U? ) And just to add a one upper, it is air dried hardwood!!! 
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Thanks mr gary. It all comes down to do it to know it. Since i am not in turkey i cant test the coal i could buy. I have an idea modify updraft gasifier. So today i am getting fire extinguisher size about 10 liters. One question for downdraft gasifier; what if one makes the heart longer than usual and use a blower for the gasifier continusly? Wouldnt it have much more clean gas i mean less tars and since pressure wouldnt drop, better usage? All it would take is 500 watt blower if not less? Any ideas and reasons people dont do so? Thanks.
Hi Ali,
Welcome to the club i would say… merhaba effendi in turkisch i presume…
Yes you can make an updraft gasifier for use with coal ( anthracite as it is been called )
The original gasifier was build for that purpose and will do fine for your use as well.
Would you like to run your engine on dual fuel mode or just on pure gas ?
To the dimensions, a 10 liter fire extinguisher is not big enough to give you the power from coal as you will need it.
Using a blower in blowing mode will produce in any circumstance an excess of air blown into the glowing bed, resulting in a to high amount carbon dioxide produced.
The suction mode is to prefer and not difficult to build.
Can you give me more details about your engine and the desired power you would like to use ?
I can provide you with some basic calculations which can be helpfull with the further design you would like to follow.
As far as go’s for wood gasifiers, there is none better available then the WK gasifier.
Back to the details of your engine.
an exact typing of your vehicle will tell me a lot about the options you would have.
Kind regards
Ali,
This old Henschel give you an indication what the used to use in the “old” days for anthracite…
http://jamclasses.drbanjo.com/static/dimages/henschel01hy7_0.jpeg
Thanks mr koen. Merhaba to you too. The truck i am planning to convert is 8 litters 220 hp diesel. I will try to send some link about truck when i get home. Its gonna be arround 1990 to 1995 model.
About using blower continusly; if engine doesnt suck it , how can blower push more air? Can u explain it. And why i asked about blower is to make heart zone longer so gasses will have more time in hot bed charcoal, thus cleaner tar free gasses?. Since vacuum of engine may not pull from longer heart , blower would be needed. By heart i mean reaction reduction zone.
Hi Ali,
We will need to work on our language to be sure we understand each other correctly 
On the picture from the old system the blower is creating suction before the engine gets started. Its also possible to blow the air into the gasifier (positive presure) but that is not advisable.
Using a crossdraft-updraft system as shown in the old system, has less problems with the use of charcoal or anthracite. No need for an longer throat or longer dwell time in the reduction zone. There is so little tar or other volatilles in coal that thats neglectible… depending your decission on the use of feedstock we can guide you trough the options further on.
If its anthracite all the way, the there is no problem at all. With a mix in different charcoals, you will have to sieve ( calibrate) the proper size for your gasifier. I , for myself, would prefer the use of anthracite, optional charcoal. Not the way around…
Following older systems worked well in the past: the wishard gasifier, the brandt types, the pederson and in my opinion the simple fire-gilmore adapted to the henschel would do fine to. A kalle gasifier would be difficult to start with. But some of the ideas can be used in the gasifier you will need. With minor adjustments to the use of antracite i guess the WK gasifier would be the most perfect fit to the job if you prefer a downdraft system.
No fear for any dimensions with an 8 liter 220 hp suction is sufficient. Just basic understanding needed for the nozzle sizing. Does the engine has a turbo charger and intercooler ?
No turbo no intercooler. My idea of blower was for wood gasifier. Sucking can be too as long as it works continusly.
Ok Ali,
If a 220 hp 8.0 liters piston suction can’t do it , then sure a 500 watts turbine can’t
Anyway, we can help you here… as soon you can give me the details of the engine, then i can give you my advice.
With wood gas , not from coal , anthracite or charcoal, but from wood… then you should build a WK unit, same as Wayne Keith uses. He also has an 8.0 liters V10 in gasoline engine.
Running a diesel on woodgas does not really equate to running a gasoline/petrol engine on woodgas. I believe that even after the spark ignition and compression ratio changes, it is still a very hard to woodgas a diesel.
Hi Brian,
The opposite is true.
The diesel engine is build for higher torque at lower rpm.
If ran in dual mode, will have the benefit of being able to use vegetable oils as ignating fuel.
This fuel also can be used to boost if having a power dip…
I would prefer for myself doing so…
Also,… its easier to fit and retrofit an diesel engine then optimizing a gasoline engine…
Mr koen thank you for helping me. Suction if its made by engine , piston volume at each strike could never be filled 100 %because of pressure drop. Means less max. power ?
About detail on truck, link is turkish:) live chat with you could help me a lot if wad possible:)
Ali,
The filling rate is about 70% in the optimum range, depending all the tubing and the design of the engine plus the actual rpm.
Cooling down the gas , as cold as possible helps, adding a charger to compensate helps, so many things are possible and can be done easy.
But first make gas, good quality gas… the best engine would never perform better then poor gas quality makes it possible.
So first the feedstock ;
Wood, Charcoal, coal or antracithe ?
Then second;
Choise of gasifier
Thirth;
design and details for the gasifier
4,…
5,…
6,…
Many steps to go, but also for learning Turkisch we start with first word… Merhaba arkadash
Hi Ali and Koen
I have tried to run a naturally aspirated Diesel engine on wood gas, it will maintain an idle but no more. The research I have done it you will have to have some form of positive inlet manifold pressure system, either a turbo or super charger.
You will have to still have a diesel to pilot ignite the wood gas.
If you look at the Trillion gasifiers you will see the diesel engines they gasify are all turboed.
Your best thing to do would be to test the engine first by running on diesel and placing a pipe in to the air inlet and blowing LPG or handy gas .
As Wayne has done in this you tube video .
If you can adjust the engine revs by adding more LPG there may be a chance that the diesel will run on wood gas with a diesel pilot ignition.
This is Wayne running a vw rabbit on wood gas , but the gas is being blower in to the rabbits inlet not sucked.
Good luck
Patrick
Hi Patrick,
Yes you are right about the pilot fuel and more important is the advancing in timing…
otherwise the gas is just burning after compression…
Diesels will run fine on woodgas, you will have to advance the timing and manipulate the injection system so that it does not inject more fuel as throttle is increased. Apparently this is relatively difficult so currently the thinking is that is often easier to convert to spark ignition. If they have very high compression you may run into knocking problems.
Hi Magne,
Indeed as you say. But not so difficult dough with the newest motor managements, even have knock sensoring for automatic ignition timing.
Because its rather easy to manage, most units have dual fuel modus. Almost no adjustments needed…
Mr. Gilmore,
You can run an 8 liter engine on charcoal gas? Your pdf instructions and YouTube videos limit the Simple-fire to about 20 HP. How would you scale up a charcoal gas system to a larger engine?
Doug MacCullagh