Thanks, that helps. I didn’t have vac gauges in when I took that drive on 141 so I didn’t know what was going on, all I had then was temp gauges. When I get my timing advance done I will take it out again, probably Sat morning and I will try to do some testing with opening and closing lid to see if that changes vac readings. I know I am on the small side with nozzles, I can drill them out bigger with a angle drill from the lid. Sounds like it’s time to go out to 1/2 in. anyway and will cut restriction to 7 in. Does that sounds about right? Does your wife reload going down the road too?
Herb, Remember Wayne has a long reduction zone below his large restriction and also places his “nozzles / blow holes” in the wall of the fire tube up a bit higher than per formulas and this creates somewhat an egg shaped oxidation zone. In other words he has more surface area glowing near white hot and can distill and crack more wood than folks like myself that have a planar cracking zone as I believe you are probably doing. I don’t believe you let us know what the circle is at your nozzle tips or your current restriction size. If you are doing standard imbert stuff then somewhere between 4 or 5 inch hole is fine with maybe a 10 inch circle or so. I had 8, 1/2 inch holes and a 5" restriction in a 10" or 11" circle on my 66 chevy if I recall right. I added some extra smaller holes to get it right.
http://www.intergate.com/~mlarosa/images/woodgas/extra-holes.jpg
I kinda scanned back though your pictures but couldn’t put the big picture together yet. I have to get back to my money work … Just took a few minute break … Mike
Mike L.: He is using a modified WK build for his Caddie. “The entrails are 95%WK”
I’m using 12 in. burn tube w/5 ea. 7/16 nozzles/holes, 16 in. above a 6 in restriction for my 4.9 Caddy. My unit is same as WK. I’m planning on drilling out to 1/2 nozzles and 7 in. restriction. Herb
Can size of nozzles and restriction be calculated like this? Size of nozzles X number of nozzles X how ever many times the combustion air expands when it burns and turns to gas = CFM’s coming out of that gasifier. Match this number (CFM, from gasifier) with you engine CFM’s running @ 3,000 RPM and you should have correct sizing. Does that make sense or are there to many variables to do it this way? Just wondering, Herb
Herb I think that would be oversized 2 X . We need to add air at the engine at a 1 - 1 mix. If the nozzles are
to large we would not get needed velocity for the char bed. Just my line of thinking.
Dave
Good Morning Herb,
I think we can use math and calculations to get the gasifier hitting some were on the target but there is no way I would ever be able to get it to hit the bullseye with calculations. There are a lot of variables to consider .
Some examples are,
With no load on the motor I can run 3000 rpm and hardly show any movement on the vacuum gauges . At 2000 rpm under load and full throttle I may be able to peg the gauges.
The size and moisture content of the fuel will have to be considered .
The surface area vs weight ( species )
The surface area vs shape of fuel . This could depend if the fuel is in a square block , sphere , irregular edges etc. If the fuel is crushed or splintered during chunking or cutting the surface area could increase a hundred folds.
Humidity in the air , density of the air .
I think the gasifier is like setting the scope on a rifle . We can use math up to a certain point , velocity , weight, distance , bullet coefficient ,wind etc. This should get us somewhere on the target but it will take several shots and adjustments to get to the bulls eye.
In the real world setting the most important element will be the experience , steady hand and timing of the person holding the rifle.
Yep. Yep. Selection no matter how done can only ever really get you close. Spot on takes time and even the williness to fall off the control edges to define the center point ranges by finding those edges.
Back in the carburetor days (I’m that old) you selected the right range of size of carburetor from manufacturers developed guidelines. Then it took an expereinced brand specialist to tune in those air bleeds, emulsion tubes, jets and float heights on the selected model to the actual in use installed set up really make it performance sing. And I DID say brand specialist. The best Rochester guys were at best only fair on Motocraft and Holleys. And none of them worth a damn on Webers. Me? I can truefully say I was only really, really good on SU’s - the weirdest of the bunch. Don’t hand me a Solex!
The same with the camshaft tuner specialist - needed to stay in the same engine use families.
Distributors as simplier and relitivly quick on and off with good stand-alone machines the specialist tuners were a lot broader capable.
As good and seamless it “seems” electronic fuel injection is that overlooks the hundreds and hundreds of hours of on a dyno in a sealed room, and then later out in the real world it takes to set up all of those three dimentional ignition timing and fuel injector duration maps. We are fortunate somewhere on those maps ussually a range where good woodgas is usable.
Gasifer to loaded engine system optimizing is the same process.
Herb now the tuning-in phase begins. Expect to have a few system crashes past the still to be found best control ranges for your particular set up.
Specifically on your air nozzles. 7/16" probably are too small. 1/2" will probably prove to be better. Then how would you ever know that 5/8" would not be better yet? The ONLY actual way to know the best control point on this one pareameter is to take it too far to determine the edges of your in good in contol window. To do that you have to keep the out of control crashes survivable and reconverable from to be able to then back off from. Do drill and try. Drill and try again if you want. You can always buddy lathe-man bush insert back down smaller.
Ha! Ha! With bridges, airplanes, ships, buildings, suspension systems, and commercial engines the calculations are always very conservative with lots of safety cusion built in for ageing, unusual loads and unknown factors. Has to be as the failures/crashes are too expensive to recover from.
Want tweeky, edgy improve by failures at your cost then that is our modern “consumer” electronics crap nowadays.
Woodgas is the best way to opt out of the now “Energy” Companies keep you addicted using thier consumable keep you coming back for more liquid drugs game. Worth tuning in for to be able to do some opting out.
Regards
Steve Unruh
Regards
Steve Unruh
Dave your right, divide by half and we would have to divide by half again because of it being a four cycle engine and only filling a cyclinder every other time down, volume drops off fast. Wayne thanks for mentioning some of the variables. I had never thought about surface area vs shape before or the fact that splittered wood increases the surface area by lots!. I understand the running at 3000 RPM no load vs load. Steve, good to hear from you, you were kind enough to answer a post of mine a long time ago about the feasibility of woodgasing a Caddy! So far so good! I know it looks very unusual but it’s fun when people ask “hey dude, what’s that thing on the back of your Caddy?”
Hi Herb, At 3000 RPM under load I am usually running WOT (wide open throttle) and at 3000 rpm at no load it probably just opens a crack. The volumes are way different and you and I just have to throw out those displacement calculations. I explain to the guys that can’t get their engines to idle after a light off that they need to start cruising and really start pulling on the system and then once it gets stoked up it will idle for a while. After coasting down the long hill (3/4 mile) to my place I usually have to rev the engine quite a bit to keep if from stalling before I turn into my driveway. I only have 2 gauges. I have a vacuum gauge after my filter and I have a temp gauge after the cyclone (tcouple with meter on the seat). I see the vacuum gauge in the rear view mirror as it is mounted on the cooler of the trailer. One of these ages I will rig up an LED to light it as I drive it blind at night and occasionally shine a flashlight back at it. Days are getting shorter again. Mike
Oh, Herb, I wouldn’t enlarge the restriction but definitely try to enlarge your 5 nozzles. I usually use 6 or 8 nozzles and went to 10 on one of my bigger units. If you are not satistfied with the change you can always tap in “flared” copper inserts to reduce them back. It also sounds like you may be way too high up the tube from the restriction but that’s the difference between the way I do things and Wayne does them.
http://www.intergate.com/~mlarosa/images/woodgas/trailer-collar-nozzle-inserts.jpg
I went from 1/2" to 7/16" nozzles on that one. It has a 4" restriction tacked in over the previous 5" restriction. It ran my 3.3 L Olds wagon and my 3.8 L Olds sedan just fine. The collar (“tar fence”) is just 6" well casing … Mike
OK Mike I will drill nozzles first. Ya I’m 16" from nozzles to 6" restriction, that’s a lot of char, don’t think any hot combustion air will be getting thru that. Got the timing adjustable now, haven’t been able to go for a drive yet, I found out over the week end my battery has a dead cell. Thanks for the info Mike, the conduit worked just fine for a arm coming off the dist. latter, Herb
Hey it’s been a while since I posted, I did get a new batt, moved up the timing until it idled the fastest it would on wood. It did speed up some and it runs better. I have put 458 miles on it in the last 3 days, can’t stay out of it, I have a VA appointment in the morning so it’s going out again, about anther 100 miles. I haven’t drilled out nozzles yet, it will run 75 mph on the flat and doesn’t lose to much on hills now with faster timing. This caddy is very high geared, it drops in high gear around 60 and the motor runs at a fast idle, I think only about 1500 rpm at 65 mph. That is a great feeling, to hear that thing shift into road gear about 60 mph and the engine dropping down in rpm’s like that it makes a guy think he’s “winning” somehow.
Hi Herb,
Great to hear it’s working for ya!! Do you find yourself turning off the gasoline knob - when it’s already off (I sure do!)
BBB!!
Thanks for posting Herb.
Yes it is a great feeling !
That’s great. Probably smart to change one thing at a time ( timing) then drive a while. What kind of wood mileage are you getting?
Herb, Glad to hear the timing change helped. I wonder how Rick Bate’s Caddy conversion is going. Has anyone heard anything from him ? Good luck on your VA appointment and I hope it goes OK. It didn’t sound like you were doing anything fun the last time we talked … I’ve been down some since then but still plugging away. I don’t have any health insurance so just have to wait for things to heal. Mike
Herb,
Nice work on the Caddy. Might be the same place but the Ford seems to run best with the timing at highest vacuum reading. I remember setting timing like that years ago but you had to back it down just a hair on gasoline. With wood gas it doesn’t seem to mind though.
Marvin
I am just in amazement when driving on wood, I look at the gasifier control cable pulled wide open, the clean filtered air control cable pulled open about half inch, fuel pump off, both banks of injectors off and I realize all over again that I’m driving down the road in a Caddy, sitting on seats that are better then I have in my house with the air on, ON WOOD!!! Carl I was so excited to have it going I didn’t keep track of how much wood I used, I know I used a lot! I went from not knowing how to do a hot refuel to being pretty good at it, I was throwing those bags in like basketballs by the time I fueled up for VA app Mon. morning. Mike app was just to get blood tested, I have appointment this Thursday morning on weather I am winning the dreaded Cancer battle.Was diagnoised Jan 28, been doing chemo treatments since then, looks like “things” are moving the right way. Thanks for all the kind words. .
Herb, Keep your cup half full rather than half empty. The world keeps trying to stick a straw in there and suck the bottom half of the glass out on us. Hopefully we can get a small get together organized some day mid field. John Stout is the only one I can think of that we might be able to get together with so it would be 3 older farts … Maybe near Waterloo ?? Just thinking out loud … Mike