are you sure you want wood to power that small engine?
I drive an almost identical engine on charcoal. You can see it on the charcoal side of the DOW , Charcoal powered Seat Arosa 1.0.
Some advantiges of charcoal gas;
-Not picky about fuel-you can make charcoal out of anything made of wood
-light weight gasifier
-no need for a coolig rail
-No danger of taring up the engine
-shorter startup time
-gasifier and setup are much cheaper and easyer to build
-you can run a 5hp engine or a 100hp engine on the SAME gasifier, as it is self adjusting
But there are allso some disadvantiges:
-you have to make charcoal
-you get less powerfull gas (unless you make some adjustments to it, boosting its power)
l wuld take a look at the charcoal syde if l were you. Check Gary Gilmores Charcoal powered Ford Ranger, Don Manns Geo tracker. My design is a bit different, but you might allso get some ideas out of it.
I had no idea of the advantages. Iām in Washington state and these liberals barely let us use gas let alone coal they shut down our last coal site a few years back. I read on Dons he converted to coal and was making his own coal from wood. Then adding water for more power by dripping it in? Can wood chips be made into coal or is there a size limit to the wood being used and does it need to be a soft wood or hard wood. Also this is exactly what we envisioned on this project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1GvJmsLTVQ I wish it were in English but i get the idea. Does it use a wood fire carb and unleaded carb so there not running wood gas through the unleaded carb?
That charcoal looks very messy to make. A lot more effort than wood it appears. I think i want to go with wood. From what i have been watching on you tube were not talking about using coal at all just charcoal.
Like l sayd, there are good and bad to sides of charcoal. It depends on what you need and what you can work with.
My needs are driveing 20km to work and back and l dont want to spend half a hour in the morning filling and lighting and smoking with wood, and exspecialy not when l go from work. I need to sit in the car and drive like nothing ever happened, and that can only be done with charcoal.
But l now work on a family car that we use for long trips and that is going to be wood powered.
Makeing charcoal isnt hard once you get the feel for it.
Simple answer NO. Itās not a matter of cant make enough woodgas, but rather that While making a larger volume than normal you will burn down your needed char bed, and temperatures will rise beyond acceptable. By the time you started running too lean on woodgas, it would be too late.[quote=āCurt1, post:17, topic:2671ā]
do we know the best compression ration for this fuel.
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Theory says up to 17:1 Most here are running stock engines.[quote=āCurt1, post:17, topic:2671ā]
Some one must have a BBQ or a meat smoker in there set up.
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Yes, Gary Langworthy has a grill lid on top of his heat exchanger.
You really should check out Don Mannes geo tracker. He has done a beautiful job of cramming a WK style gasifier into that little thing.
Letās start from the beginning. You have the vehicle-- got it. Now, what do you have for "wood:? Very important that you think about this first. All else will fall into place on how you answer this question.
Wood ā it takes preparation , cutting , drying bagging etc. The small the wood pieces probably require more work. The WK has a very large restriction compaired to the Imbert, so it will tolerate larger pieces of wood. ( Incidentally, hard woods are preferred but almost anything will work. )
With the Imbert smaller wood is used due to the smaller restriction. Thus maybe more work must be put into making the wood. ( Extreme case is some Imberts are so small they use "pellet " size wood. Pellets do not work well, but there are processes in here that take Pallet wood and make small 1/2x 1/2 x 1 inch solid wood pellets. ) Smaller pieces more time consuming.
Chipsā yes they can be used. There are only a couple of people who advocate them such a Arvid and Ryder and some of the info is a little proprietary. You do not just pick up a load of chips and start driving. They must be sorted to get rid of the leaves and sized to get rid of the very large or very small. They general are in a rather wet state so have to be dried although probably easier that chunked wood.
Charcoalā NOT COALāCharcoal can be made out of any size wood, but eventually has to be crushed down to a rather specific size. There are many methods being used to make charcoal WITH OUT producing a lot of smoke to disturb your neighbors, depending where you live. I would look into the INVERTED PYRAMID method. It can burn old brush and end up with small pieces of charcoal which is what you want almost with out the process of crushing. It does have to be sifted to remove fines.
Gasolineā With a economically proper vehicle, how much is your time worth to work somewhere and just pull into a station and filler up? How much is your gas bill per month right now and are you willing to go through the hassle with an alternative fuel for that much money saved each months? With this in mind, will you stick with it over time? TomC
Since my project was mentioned earlier I thought I might comment.
This morning I wrote a long text for you on my pad when we got a powerout. I lost most of the text.
I now found a much better one on the above subject. Written by our famous SteveU to TomC.
Hey TomC On that ātheoryā of differneces . . . . The engine needs the same volumns of fuel gases. The Imbert is a small internal volume system therefore relieing on a higher velocity to more quickly convert this smaller volumn of active material to the same amount of fuel gasses. That solids to gas converted wood has to be replaced in this small active hearth also quickly, reliable. Or you either runout of active material or hollow burn. A needs to be ājust-in-timeā all flow through system like all of the small active internal volume types. Flluidynes, 3G-I, dizzlers, GEKs, Victoryās,ect. The WK is a large volumn active zone so for the same converted gas volumn out this solids to gasses conversion can be done at a much lower internal hearth velocity. DasagIIScMukunda, FEMAās, Powerhearths and even most fluidzed bed types are large active zone volumn types in with all of the old Town gas plant systems. Zones temeratures must be maintained in the same ranges for the same chemical reactions between the types. A larger hearth generally has this heat energy release spread out more so somewhat more metals forgiving. (heavier vehicle -need BIGGER brake rotors to keep the heating the same) Since the used up fuel wood will be the same on either types the released ash will be the same given the same fuel woods species. Bigger hearth with a larger grating system this freed up released ash is more easisly handled. Lower velocity then less prone to ash melting slagging These three factors are much of why the wider low to high gas output range in the larger internal volumn/slower velocity systems.
The only reason I can think of to choose an Imbert is if you want to save weight and material.
Most of that seems to be still going over my head. Some one should come up with plans and put it in a book? I have no interest in a Dodge truck. I was really hoping to just scale the unit down. Where would I find a set of quality plans for a Imbert. It appears that following along the lines of Dons tracker Is most practical. The wood issue seems to be my real issue from what Iām reading the wood size may push me in a direction of style all on its own. (imbert does smaller wood fuel)The wood chips we have around here are from the local wood mill and have no leaves or debris in them. They have a massive gassifier steam turbine they feed with these chips. I have a geodesic kit i bought some time back that i was thinking would be perfect to install door and cover with black plastic to warm and dry the chips with a vent in the roof for moisture to escape. I cant control the heat in my green house so this should be blistering hot. I hoped to use 5 gallon buckets to carry the fuel since we have so much humidity and rain I thought sealing the fuel with lids would be a good idea maybe thatās not a issue. What got us thinking about this project was this cheap fuel source by the dump truck load and how much fun it would be to go even farther on less wood just because the Geo gets so much better MPG than truck. If a 8 liter engine runs a 12" furnace pipe thatās 1.5" for every liter but i know that making a circle bigger is not to scale. I think if i remember going from 1 to 2" pipe is actually 4 times larger in volume? So far it looks like getting past the fuel size working it should be in the 6 to 8" scaled size totally guessing. probably wont be hauling much cattle or horses any more with the geo. https://youtu.be/kfWCL7fJJmw
Mr. Steve or JO; I believe that states my case. The gentleman is NOT going to buy a big Dodge 318 for his project. He has a little Metro or something. There is no need for him to try to tote around a gasifier that will produce enough gas for a 318 to push a 4500 vehicle down the road at 75 mph and only use a small portion of the producible gas. Pulling that small amount of gas off could slow the flow through the restriction to the point where tars will pas without being cracked. An Embert or Fluidynes or Gek or victory all are much smaller and will produce a sufficient amount of gas FOR THE ENGIEN he is using.
The charcoal Simply Fyer is even being stretched to produce enough gas for under 2 L engines. I do not recommend trying to run a V10 Dodge on charcoal.TomC
PS Possibly in the future someone will work with a 4/5 inch fire tube and a 2/3 inch restriction that will work for these smaller situations and not product the high velocities , but if an Embert etc is run in it;s design range. I see none of these problems. TomC
So what Iām gathering is that depending on hp requirements. Having a WK design over a Imbert is because at lower HP demands a WK would not work. As well as an imbert wont do large gasification. I donāt actually care which we build but am more concerned with following a proven design and not re invent any wheels i donāt have to. It sounds like the tweaking on a system is already a big part of it. I donāt want to end up on the outside of what ever tweaking will actually make it work.
On that Italian video i posted. Is it running a wood gas carb and a unleaded carb separately for each fuel but tied together by linkage. Was this common in WW2. is running it through the TBI I have the new practice.
Which system is better for automotive over all? I see the imbert seems to start right up and go and I see WK start his right up and go. I thught the WK system was suppose to be less build up at the intake manifold and pipe system?
Burning less wood on a smaller engine I assume is less pipe plugging or scaled down the exact same. Or is the WK system uses a hay filter and cooling drum that the imbert doesnāt. The geo uses the same system as the TBI dodge Dakotas for fuel management FYI. I read or saw WK saying he didnāt or wouldnāt use TBI any more? Not sure why. There are MPFI Geoās that run the same system as Dons tracker. In fact its the same head on a bigger block.
Remember the WK can be scaled down too. Look at Donās Geo and Wayneās tractor (10" firetubes). But it can never be as tiny and light weight as an Imbert with the same amount of gasproduction. I would too choose Imbert for the little 1.0 L (I built one myself) but the WK has a proven better turn down ratio and a more reliable wood/char flow. That will be sacrificed when choosing a smaller light weight Imbert. But as you stated: āI see none of these problemsā. I donāt either - yet.
I just wanted to give Curt some perspective on why some of us choose one or the other.
Bill Shiller built an 8 inch WK for his lawn tractor and a little bird told me that Terry Lavictoire is experimenting with a 6 inch WK for his lawn tractor. We wonāt let him post about it though until he has some video about it.
I have to revert back to my post about finding his fuel source first and all the variables of gas production will fall into place.
Hi Don. What size fire tube did you have in your WK design? I have never seen Bill Shillerās 8 inch so canāt comment on how āsmall (?)ā it would be physical. Would it fit this mans situation ( with all the goes intoās )? The only light I see at the end of the tunnel with a WK on small vehicles would be the work that Dustin is doing with fiber walled fire tubes and much smaller size tube.
Curt my final point. There is only one detailed book on building a gasifier and that is the WK ( I have never followed Victory Gas so not sure what he has) Now, if what I have said has dis-swaded you from the WK, then without a detailed plan, I suggest you bite the bullet and āPURCHASEā a completed unit or a kit such as a GEk Good luck. TomC
Iām not afraid of building anything i just want to be up to speed on the basics so it might work when its done. I bought all these tools and there going to go to waist if i donāt start another project i donāt have time for. Tell me about the Missouri gassifier is any one running that. Its using saw dust.
If the scale was dropped on the WK would the smaller 20 gallon barrels work. Iām wondering if they both WK and Imbert were the same size would they weigh about the same thing. How much weight are we talking about here.
Just another data point. Iām building a WK gasifier scaled down to where it would fit your Metro pretty well, as a bumper mount. Its compact, and not too heavy. There are some new untested ideas, but itās on a solid WK foundation.
Not trying to persuade you either way. Just pointing out, Wayneās design is not inherently heavier than an imbert. It can certainly be scaled down, and has been.
Chris, what do you think your weight will be at. When are you planning on testing that. Iām all for being persuaded I had no idea there would be other options or so many options when this sparked my interest.
One of the guys from the mill i now just stopped by and we were talking about wood chip size. he says the grinder for the mills gassifier is 3/4" and he thought the chips that were 1 or 1.5" went to the paper mill. He also said he thought our park had those chips in the toy area and there quite large. Small chunks? heāll bring me hand full of each tomorrow Iāll upload a video of them.
I have a tracker to but it only goes half the speed of the geo metro. If i could just get my plane to run on wood gas Id have a reason to fly over the forest with a chainsaw hanging out the door.
