Update, it’s actually minus 31. That makes it the coldest morning of the winter so far, and possibly the whole winter, the way things are going. And I forgot to plug the car in last night, thank goodness for synthetic motor oil. Frost doesn’t want to come off windshields easily, seats get hard, tires feel kinda square till they roll a half mile or so. Beautiful sunny morning though, and the days are getting longer now. In 2 months the ground will be thawed, and it will be warm weather work time.
-One major advantage of such cold is wood splits far better below minus 10 or 20, white poplar (trembling aspen) can be split in 4 foot cordwood lengths with a single blow from a 3 lb axe. And no working up a sweat, and zero bugs, no dirt on the wood. Real wood splitting and felling weather.
Hi guys; You all know I’m an old man. When they put a black container with wires to a motor to start cars and through away the crank, I knew they had lost me. How ever, somewhere along the line with the advent of this things call the computer, they had a"KNOCK SENSOR". This allowed the computer to advance the spark until the knock sensor registered a knock or pre-ignition. Then it retarded slightly. That sensor was a very good thing for woodgas because the woodgas has a higher octane and doesn’t know / ping until the engine is advanced further than it could be on petro. Thus that would handle our entire problem with mechanically advancing the spark. DO CARS USE A KNOCK SENSOR ANY MORE??
New subject; I HATE ethanol in my gasoline. There I said it. Now that the price of gas has dropped below /$4 a gallon, I decided to treat my truck to a couple of tanks full of Premium with NO ETHANOL. I got 2 miles per gallon less that on ethanol gas. WHAT IS WITH THAT?
THIRD SUBJECT; Hmm Can’t remember what it was. Took to long to type the first two. Maybe it was the fact that my truck road like a lumber wagon with no springs today. Tires are stiff and the shocks are stiff and the roads are less that is desirable ( crappy ) TomC
Thanks for the weather report, Garry. Pretty much the same here at 12959, -10* F this am. Saturday’s forecast -25F (-31C is -24F) with a high of -2F. We got 6" of snow here night before last. In my hometown of Tupper Lake, NY got so little snow this year the ski slope never opened and they are called the Tiptop town in the Adirondacks. Lake elevation 1565’ msl No snow making equip there. Been the strangest winter in all my days.
Tom, your not alone, I had something to add but it’s gone now. Might remember it later.
I remember now, the elevation of Mount Morris (ski slope) is 3165’msl.
pepe
Yes, most modern cars have them. The 90s Dakotas are unusual that they don’t have knock sensors.
Premium has more octane but also less energy. Ethanol also raises the octane and lowers the energy. If your engine doesn’t require Premium there’s no benefit to it. What you want is some of the 87 octane advertised “ethanol free”, I see it often driving through east Tennessee. That’ll get the best mileage and store longer in a container.
Who said were too old too learn,high test and low octane fuel characteristics,that is one i never new before today.Its going down near zero tonight, getting close too peek winter anyway,that should help.
Thank you Chris I saw several people read my post and liked it but no one was taking me serious and answering my question. So if most of us still have the knock sensor ( pezio crystal) then possibly we aren’t needing the manual distributor advance as much.
Up here all you can get without ethanol is premium. I use it in everything that I don’t run on a regular bases so when I do want to run something it is not all gummed up. It was costing me a small fortune to mow my lawn. Always use the premium in that because we never know when the first snow will fall and the mower goes in the barn for the stay.
most of what I have come across tom the computer does the advancing the knock says stop that hurts.
and I also make special gas runs for all the yard equipment I have replaced too many fuel lines and carb cleanings drive one nuts. soo glad to see 87 no ethanol here only one place so far .
So then the question comes down to how do we change the sensors that ARE guiding the spark to just the knock sensor so we can get the timing going until the knock sensor says "uncle"TomC.
Hey Tom forever how much you know sports think of it this way.
Each modifing trimming sensor like the O2, Baro, Map, knock are like the line judges. They have to work within the rule book written into the look-up tables in the processor.
So the best way would be to rewrite that rule book. This is what the chip swappers used to do. What EEPROM reprogramming does. Even what some of the hot-rod (“for racing off road use only!”) add on filter boxes do.
Or . …
Go buy off that line judge to look the other way. Turn a blind eye. Out right lie on his report. This is the sensor emulating/spoofing approach.
Heck of a lot easier to do this on a factory “flex-fuel” vehicle looking for an alcohol % in the fuel and having much wider possible ranges look-up tables built in already…
These systems began in the mid-90’s.
Hi Steve; Glad to hear from you. I was afraid when you close your thread you were deserting us.
I’ve set here for over an hour trying to make a case for more use of the knock sensor but in the end I’ve decided the present computer tables are probably fine. Even though we have changed the rules of the game by going from petro to woodgas. We are going from a lower octane fuel to a higher octane fuel. That means the woodgas will allow more advance before knocking occurs, but by that time other sensors such a manifold pressure, engine RPM, throttle position have maxed and prevent more advance. Thus never getting to where the knock sensor plays a part.
Dam, I hate it when my second thought catches up with my first thought and I find I have been wrong.TomC
Tom I think for us GM guys a good start would be to figure out how to bypass the overdrive retard. Did you ever do a gear change? I have 4.10 gears and a big block so I hope I can use overdrive, time will tell.
I’m still thinking on it Jim I am puttering with little projects because with the weather my time in the shop is very limited. Maybe as spring gets closer, But then right away we have Argos come up and afraid I won’t get it done before that.
I had 410 gears in a smb with a regular automotive automatic transmission and on the LA freeway it was wound up to tight so I went to a 373. I think a 410 with an overdrive will work. TomC
No Tom you’re OK doning this. Think thrice before you cut commit and have a hellava’ back-up patch job top do.
I am tryibg ti type less.
Having much dififulty now with that. Can no longer brain process/see and edit my mistakes.
One missing letter above turned my inteneded ranges to rages. Could hurt social feelings my bad mis-typing now.
egards
Steve Unruh
Hey guys I’m sure you won’t be as happy as I, but I remembered what the other question was the other day when I had brain fade
Question about SECONDARY BURN. I have made charcoal with a TLUD 55 gal drum. I put two pieces of rebar on the drum and sat a hollow drum on top to increase SECONDARY BURN. So I have seen it, and done it, but I don’t understand it. So maybe to avoid long dissertations on theory I’ll get right to the question.
I have an old used double 55 gal drum wood furnace / burner. I am thinking about rebuilding it with new barrels. You know how one barrel sits on top of the other and the two are connected with a short piece of 6" stove pipe. If I put holes in the 6" pipe can I get a secondary burn in the top barrel?. TomC
So you are saying this only works with incomplete combustion? If I see smoke coming out of the chimney does that mean I have incomplete combustion. If I add holes in the connecting tube will it ignite automatically from the lower burn or do I have to add ignition to the secondary air? Sorry, but I just haven’t gotten my mind wrapped around secondary burning.TomC
PS Also having trouble with “rocket furnaces” not “rocket stoves” Later subject.
I ain’t no expert. But your smoke needs to be strong enough to burn. One way to think about it is stages combustion. So the first stage needs to make a self burnable smoke. I’ve made thingies that made weak gas that only would stay lit by using another flame or glowing char.
The octane rating of the fuel does not alter the energy content of the fuel.
Subtract the ethanol content and they are identical.
How the fuel behaves is a different question
Some engines will run better on a lower octane fuel and produce more power.
Its really hard to pin down exactly why but its got something to do with the lower compression and the fuels resistance to ignition ( ping or otherwise ) and flame speed.
One engine I built was actually slower on 100LL.
It needed the octane but the flame speed of 100LL a fuel designed for slow turning aircraft.
With fixed timing there were times when the piston was outrunning the flame front at high rpm.
Blending helped but in the end I resorted to simply adding Xylene to 91 octane until I found a mix that was just right.
In all cases however its the way the fuel burns in the engine that makes the difference in fuel economy when the alcohols are removed from the equation and not the BTU content that’s for all practical purposes identical.
