I have been thinking about Marcus’s carb again. I’m guessing that even if he’s running on gasoline he never gets into those secondaries. Why not just make a sleeve that isolates those and feed the wood gas through there.
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Mother Earth News did that iirc. They did that to Two and Four barrel carbs.
It requires a second throttle cable though.
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Your right Tom I never get into the secondaries. They are often so clogged with soot there is no way they could ever flow fuel. There was soot inside the float bowls, through all the idle passages and blocking the accelerator pump passages. About an hour of scrubbing and high pressure air to clean it all out. This I think is good news, when I eventually move to efi, I will use a 2 barrel set up from fitech and save a bunch of money over buying the 4 barrel system
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Did you get rid of all the other carbs you had? Holley’s are great but finicky. I usually ran Edelbrock/Carters just because they were so much easier to tune. Either way it’s always necessary to own a quality set of carb drills to clean out those air passages though tips cleaners can be used in a pinch. If I were shifting to EFI I would still maintain a swapable carbed manifold and mechanical fuel pump. High pressure pump, filters and electronics on the EFI would be the weak link in a SHTF vehicle. I still think that feeding wood gas through a spacer block under the carb or manifold mounted EFI is the best way to go. Through the throttle body on MPFI is fine. That and a separate vacuum pump allowing for a higher duration cam to move more gas and air through the system.
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I gave away most of the parts I had accrued, every time I move I tend to dump a ton of projects and parts that I never got around to. And every time I kick myself in the ass for it. I would have spare carbs for the Toyota, I would have the steel I need for the dodge flatbed build, I tossed or gave away a lot this last time around since we moved in with family. Only projects I kept were a snowmobile that needs a new carb, a quad that needs a motor swap which I have all the parts to put together, and a rototiller that was the wife’s grandpa’s that needs a engine which I got from Mike Gibb last year. Just about all other projects got the kick out the door. The fitech system is tbi, with down facing injectors so we will see how well it works when I get around to ordering it. Seems everything is 6-12 months out right now. At the moment I’m keep eyes out for a 2 barrel Holley which uses the same air clean base plate as the 4, so my mixer box will fit right on it. Also working on a quick refresh stock sbc to drop in since this one the blow by is getting horrendously bad (quart a day) and 2 cylinders are not firing all the time and running cold. So stepping down in displacement back to a 350, down in cfm to a 2 barrel. Hoping for a little better wood consumption. Only reason I’m going this route at this time is I need to truck running until the dodge is done, and I can’t find a 20r/22r to put back in it for less then 500$, but I had the spare 350 laying around at the shop
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Hi Marcus, are you saying there are 2 barrel efi (aftermarket-replaces carb)? Interesting, i’ve never heard about it here in Sweden, but it’s mostly the Summit catalogue i have available.
It would be real nice if there was a 1 barrel efi available, todays bad gasoline eats the carb on my old Volvo.
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Goran you’re in luck! They do make a single barrel EFI carb replacement.
Out of stock currently but I’m sure they replenish quickly
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Thanks Cody, i just found it to, last time i googled i dont found anything, i think efi was the magic word, i dont remember what i searched before?
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This is the one I am planning to get and it is sold through summit. Very budget friendly compared to most aftermarket efi systems, it can be used to control timing but it does not have to be. Self learning and easy to tune with live data capabilities for data logging and more tuning. But still good for any 4, 6, or 8 cylinder small displacement engine. That leaves doors open to swap this system onto any other motor I plan to have in this truck as well
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That seem’s interesting, gives many possibilitys, the crappy gasoline we get here in Sweden really eats up carbs, and not to speak about finding nozzles to compensate for the ethanol in the gas, have drilled/filed out some but the accuracy…
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And for some reason this keeps bringing me back to methanol as a user fuel. I have no experience with it whatsoever, but from the little reading and watching I have done I believe it could be distilled from our hopper condensates? At least the bench top illustration videos I have seen is more or less what they did was super heat wood to condense out moisture then re distill several times to come to a flammable liquid. I have no idea if this is viable or even correct but been thinking on it a lot lately
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I’m sure with the right instrumentation you could consistently pull methanol out of wood, but I doubt condensate has any since it evaporates at 140°F and probably is lost in atmosphere or burned up.
Most methanol is made from petroleum but you always get a little bit before a run of alcohol if you used grain as the sugar source. About a shot glass for every 5 gallons of mash.
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Yes, methanol is interesting as a fuel source, i dont know much about the process, only affraid about methanol should be very prone to “take up” air moisture and dissolve water? Even the ethanol does this, and the bad part, releases it where temperature and pressure drops=in a carb.
These efi systems should be good for avoid this.
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Methanol absorbs water very quickly, you have to seal it when stored. Unfortunate with any vehicle now since they have charcoal cannisters to vent to atmosphere.
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I’m sure BruceJ has a lot to say about Methanol and also Rob. I have a little pot still I threw together that can make about half a pint of methanol at a time out of planer shavings but was communicating with Bruce on a much better system. Growing season got in the way of that because you can’t eat methanol. That said, it is more corrosive than even ethanol and has about half the A/F ratio of gasoline. As a supplement to wood gas though it has real possibilities. It would be hard on aluminum carb components and certainly couldn’t be held long in a float bowl but held in a separate stainless tank, pressurized and fed through an on off solenoid like is done with a Nitrous system I can’t see many downsides. I will be getting back into it soon. If you guys keep it up you are going to force me to build something I really don’t need just to explore some of these theories.
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the Toyotas blowby is getting bad, time to find a stand in replacement motor. Got a freebie and tore it down to inspect it, looks like it will be a good runner to hold me over until the dodge is on wood. i did not stage the picture, that’s what YouTube chose for the video start 
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Marcus, Do you think that any of the crusty aluminum corrosion you found in the carb and the intake was responsible for some of your engine’s problems? Just curious here.
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Marcus, do you also intend to raise the compression ratio? It is a good idea to check the condition of the piston rings and valve seats.
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That is a guess I have been thinking about Brian…
Tone no I won’t be doing anything special to this engine, this is just a get me by motor until the dodge is finished up. I am undecided on the future for the Toyota, but when the time comes it will get a much more thought-out engine build. That could be a rebuild of the motor that is in it right now which is already raised compression, or another built 4 cylinder I don’t know yet
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Methanol is my fuel of choice for high power…however it’s far more corrosive than ethanol and today’s ethanol gas blend. Definatley would love to figure out how to make it from woodgas on a small personal scale but won’t be used in daily drivers…too much maintenance for anything other than a drag car or toy…
On another note…finally drove the 2 hour trip to get firetube and misc stuff… All I lack is cooling tubes and the build starts. Even scored some 0.250 316l for the grate . Wound up going 14 inch firetube… Was that or 9 inch. Couldn’t get 12 in my area. Ugh
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