Bought a 96 Dakota today with a 318 forgot about the OBD2 computer system is this going to cause me a problem in gasifying this truck?
Good Morning Tim.
According to Sean, Terry, Richard ,Steve and others the 96 will work fine.
Whew! thanks Wayne I appreciate that i was kinda worried about it .
Don’t sweat it TimA.
This was a one year trasitional barely an OBDII system. It will not try and over control you like a 2003 and later.
Look at it another way . . . . you got he last, most developed year of a near 10 year in production chassis with still actual space under the hood and are saving at least 300-400 pounds in chassis weight over the swoopy later style. ( And they had a bunch of ball joint problems in thier first couple of years!).
'Aught to be good for at least another 2-5 MPH and ~5% better miles per pound of fuel wood than the later heavier sexy body Dakota guys.
I sure love the underhood on my “old” 92-95 Ford F series versus the slicker now VERY cramped 96 and later Ford F series. Same phenomena.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Mr. SteveU,
Speaking of that vintage Ford, I am looking at a 1992 F150 with a 5.0 V8. I notice that there are two hoses between the air filter box and the intake manifold. If I simply connected wood gas to one, and regular air to the other, might that eliminate the need for a fabricated mixing box?
I’m looking at the exact same project truck ,my dad already owns it. I was thinking along the same line as you.
Hi AlexT.
About 3 years ago now I thought that also. Tried it with a medium/large gasifier (a VictoryGasworks OffGridder like engineer775 has) with the woogas directly to one throttle inlet and the other pulling engine air. ONLY when restricting the air down with duct tape on the air side would it barely idle. A real learning expereince just how deceptive that often quoted 1 to 1 ratio can be.
Here is why it did not work: it takes a LOT of engine produced suction power to pull the woodgas in through all of the char bed, then cyclone/ash separator, cooler and filter flow restictions.
DJ’s, “. . . all woodgas engines are asthma suffering patients with lung cancer”. Small engine it takes 1/2 to 1 engine horsepower just to suck in the woodgas.
With this sucked in flow resistance on the woodgas side you then have to throttle valve close off the engine air side to create an equal the amount of restirction that is hapening on the woodgas side to have the engine see this 1 to 1 ratio air to fuel ratio. Unresticted air will cause an over air, too lean of fuel/air ratio to burn in the cylinders.
Mike LaRosa and Paul Holverson and someone else recently talked about the need for PaulH to split the common shaft on his side by side 2 barrel carrburetor to have one side then able to independenty be trottled for fuelgas the the other side for the air. Now in therory that could be done here also. But . . . drop off the trottle body and you will find one bore was primarily biased for four cylinders and the other for the other four cylinders. And THAT is why I was only ever able to get it balanced even maually to be running on four cylinders at any given time. I figured this all out on the spot in front of an internationally flown in audience. Sigh. At least this was not video taped.
Better off to go out like has been done now and make up indidvidual woodgas and air valves and then put the blended air/woodgas into both of the unmodified factory bore holes.
Keep asking.
I certainly have not tried all combinations yet.
I am still learning much also.
Life has taight me there is more to be learned from try fail, try fail, until suceed than a single calculated/lucked out first attempt.
Calculated first sucesses will maker you think you are really good. This will lead to arrogance. That is sure failure.
Luck is fickle’d and abandons.
Guts and grit is what counts most.
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Ben Hansen converted a similar ford to woodgas. He was using a fluidyne type gasifier with hardwood chips. It made a pile of tar so he only got a few trips out of it before stuck valves. He changed the engine last I heard and was updating his program and thinking. He hasn’t had much time to work on the woodgas stuff with divorce, son, farmwork, etc etc etc … He is alligatorsoupisgood on youtube … I’m not sure how to tell you to contact him. Mike L
WOW!
Many thanks to all you “old-timers” who are making life for us newbies so much easier. I’ll bet you wish you had had someone like you when you were me.
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Well (if I understand this correctly) If each of the two ports run 4 cylinders then I would think you could seal the breather box, cut two inlet ports one for wood gas and the other for a air valve (cable controlled from the cab). It looks like you could use the butterfly valves that are already in the throttle body for the wood gas throttle. Then just put a toggle switch in the cab to kill the juice to the fuel pump.
All this is purely theoretic. : )
Edit: If this truck is like my dads it has two fuel tanks and two fuel pumps, just switch to the rear tank and your running on gas again.Of course you would have the air valve wide open with a air filter on it. You could always just juice the fuel pump back up, I just thought it wood be kind of cool. I wonder if the truck has any sort of sensor that would be a problem if it detects no fuel at the injectors.
Hey Chad and Alex
Look at Jim Winters set up on his 94? Ford F150 here:
You should be asking the guy already done this and now up and driving around. No theory at all now.
Hey TimA. I apologize we Ford drifted on you there.
Be happy you will be Dakota lighter, with a bigger engine and faster, able to show us your smoke someday soon.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Darn, I can’t get there yet. I"m still a freebie : ) I’m planing on making my paypal payment on the first for the book and 6 months of membership so I’ll check it out then.
Thanks Steve for your help.
Thanks a lot Steve for your input I felt a lot better when Wayne told me he thought it would be OK. But now that you have told me the same I no it will work fine.Wayne says you are the go to guy and very knowledgeable that’s good enough for me .
Thanks for the cudo’s TimA but honestly I’m not that good - just very persistant. Ha! Ha! Wrong 49% of the time. Just ask my wife.
Hey ChadT
Yeah. Logged out I cannot even bring up Jim Winters pictures.
Look at this picture of mine. Some of the later 5.0L Ford F series in 94-95 added in an airflow sensor not used on the earlier versions. JimW on his comes up alongside the very open LH engine side with woodgas supply plastic pipe and “Y’s” into this now single common aircleaner/airflow sensor tube (he replaces with rigid plastic pipe). He builds a woodgas flow control valve into the gas supply leg and a separate air choking valve on the air side after the aircleaner and airflow sensor. The factory standard throttle body is used for the mixed woodgas/air flow.
He switch electrically shuts off his fuel injectors to keep injector wear and overheating down with no cooling and cusioning gasoline fuel flow. He also shuts off the fuel pump and is working on a variable resistor fuel pump electric supply to be able to demanded dribble in fuel as a supplement as needed for starting and power boosting.
More details to it of course you are encouraged to get signed up to be able to read and question him directly about his details. Very nice clean simple effective installation. You could either get the pictured black factory wye connector for the two hoses to one off of one of these, or many of the 460’s in F series have a funny looking “H” plastic sound resonator cut in and inserted into the dual air tubes you can insert and center tap into to woodgas feed these earlier simpler dual hose Speed Density systems easily.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Hi Tim,
I liked my 96 Dakota so much went ahead and bought a second 96 in 4x4. Both have the 318 v8.
Real joy restoring these American sport trucks. As a plus they make awesome woodburners.
Sean
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Thanks Sean I m looking forward to this project now that I have the truck the building begins .I like you may buy a second truck but thinking just for extra parts.
Man Steve I’m impressed only wrong 49% of the time mine is more like 80% but unlike you I don’t have a wife anymore to tell me about my failures of life lol .