On the flute nozzle I built, I followed Kristijans advice and drilled my hole straight (I only used one nozzle hole for a small engine) and then used a round file to make a chamfered slot in the direction of the opening. A slightly crooked wire can slip into the groove easily, and let you poke at the slag from the air intake side. It worked great, and was easy to relight.
9 Likes
What I really need is a reasonably high volume air compressor. I had a 24 CFM engine driven one that I destroyed and it was just barely to keep a sand blaster going. I’d like at least 40 CFM for sand blasting and also to make a shot crete gun.
I’ve looked at a lot of you-tubes and what is being done in some of those doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m thinking that all that would be required would be to take a four cylinder engine of some kind. remover the valve train. Weld nipples into the intake and exhaust holes in the head and mount check valves on those. That would make a two stroke compressor. Piston goes down, sucks in air, piston goes up, pushes air out through a check valve in the storage tank. Tank itself you have the normal unloader and pressure gauge. I think my 24 CFM compressor was powered by a 160cc honda engine. It was a Northern Tool brand. I think a 420 cc preditor should be more than enough to power this. Talk to me.
2 Likes
Seems like at one time there were air compressors that used V8 (ford?) 4 cylinders for power and 4 for compressing air. Depends on what you can get your hands on.
1 Like
I gave up on the idea of powering one off the same engine providing the power. If what I’m thinking worked, all I would need out of it would be that the pistons still sealed against the cylinder walls. I’d probably weld or fill the other holes in the head with JB Weld though that shouldn’t be necessary. Should be easy enough to find a discarded engine. Only expense to find out if it worked would be the Check valves. Surplus Center.
I came in late to this thread. There was much discussion of putting water into the intake by various means. Here is an interesting article on the subject.
4 Likes
Well I saw this thread down the page and I have something else that puzzles me. If you can boost an engine with a turbo or roots blower why couldn’t you just use pressurized oxygen when you needed a little extra power, sort of like injecting nitrous? I was also thinking about Kyles corvette and the turbo they were using on that. I always kind of assumed that boosting wood gas was a no go because you are limited by the quantity of gas in the one to one ratio whereas with other fuels you are able increase the volume of fuel by altering jet or injector sizes. Is wood gas boostable?
4 Likes
I think it would be cost prohibitive.
3 Likes
Turbo charged wood gas is a huge benefit. However they are not tolerant to dirty gas it must be clean 100% of the time. So that being said they would work great with char gas though. A popular manufacturer used to offer systems with turbos and showed a machine live and well… lets just say they no longer offer a turbo on the machines any more.
A turbo is about the charge hence “turbo charger” the more charge you get into the combustion chamber the higher the more air/fuel charge and this boost compression the bigger the boom the more power you get. With wood gas we are running the mixture through the turbo or super charger versus gasoline you are just pushing air, but the carburetor is still metering in proper ratio for the amount of air charge or in the case of EFI a mass air flow sensor and other sensors are used by the ECM to adjust injector pulse.
I have used the Amteck blowers to charge the small generators and its a pretty big deal. I can get 509 watts more output using this blower. But it uses 500 watts lol. For testing I used my battery bank AC inverter to run this. This is just to test this. However I can see where I could use stored power to run this to temporally boost the engine for initial spike loads.
Guys that off road in high altitudes do use bottled oxygen or oxygen concentrators. But you dont get the compression boost you do with a turbo or a super charger.
5 Likes
I’m not talking about running O2 all the time Pete. Just for some additional power for something like running up hill. The same Idea of going partial gasoline.
Any idea how much pressure you are adding in with the Amteck blowers, Matt? Also wondering if the air conditioner compressor would be enough volume to make boost. That wouldn’t add any additional load if you were willing to go without AC.
2 Likes
I have no idea, however I think it would boost a V8 some. I dont know how you would get a pressurized system to work. If you pressurize the gasifier then there will not be any vacuum to pull in the intake air. The only way you could do this is with a blower type system.
4 Likes
I thought @Xoie was working on a micro roots setup. Volkswood 1971 bug-truck with Imbert gasifier - #49 by Xoie Does anyone know if he actually put woodgas through it?
Rindert
1 Like
i never got the chance to use it bc i live in the forest people love it but hate me running it so i moved on to bio diesel
4 Likes
Lol! Did somebody say biodiesel?
2 Likes
i have 1925 ford model touring car with kubota 600cc diesel we run it on waste fry oil
8 Likes
I would like to see pictures of that.
7 Likes
That is very cool. Where do you live? A little stark on the interiors.
4 Likes
Wayne started with this idea but this guy took it farther, you could hide a lot of gasifer piping and parts here and have easy access to it. And carry a few tools with you too.
https://youtu.be/GIImb78VyKQ
Bob
7 Likes
with that in mind…does anyone know if a medical oxygen concentrator can/has been used to fill o2 torch tanks? Or does anyone know of the cheapest way to do it at home.?
2 Likes