Chevrolet s10 4.3

What JO said and not moving the throttle fast .

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Do you start by opening the air fully, and then turn on the pump?

At the same time ideally, but it doesn’t matter much. The transition is the smoothest with no or very little throttle.

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Thanks for the advice, I have to start training. :grin:

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Hello Jan .

Below is an old video of me computer hybrid driving one of the dakotas

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Thanks Wayne. When I turn on the pump, I usually give more throttle, that’s probably where it’s wrong.

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No, it didn’t work this time either, I’ve changed the thermostat and air filter, have about 20% alcohol in the tank, but get worse values for co. I took the temperature of the catalytic converter when I got home, it was 245 degrees C (473 f) and the exhaust at 195c (380f). Does that mean the catalytic converter is bad?

Frustrating isn’t it.
You are so close.

What is NOT happening is not enough oxygen is being bound to the fuel carbons. CO + O → CO2.
Your Lamba value says you have enough available oxygen. The high oxygen alcohol in the fuel says you certainly should have enough available oxygen.
As an Emissions Tech I’d be looking at the exhaust oxygen percentage to verify.

To have an idea IF the catalytic converter is maybe ok Jan you read the exhaust pipe temperature BEFORE the Cat versus temp at the cat shell. The oxidization section of the cat must go hundreds of degrees higher.
The problem with that is you should have a dual bed catalytic converter on that year of vehicle. The oxidization bed OK; the reduction bed not. The reduction bed stripping out the oxygen that became bound to nitrogen.
I could go on explaining the steps dual bed, three-way catalytic converters, but it will not help you.

Here is an old, old trick others used.
Remove and ground out one spark plug wire at the spark plug on a pre-warmed up engine. Go out and run load the vehicle hard, hard for at least 1/2 an hour.
You will be pumping a cylinder full of air and fuel into the exhust stream. This should cause a lazy catalytic converter to go into overheat. Can burn clean off deposits from the active surfaces. Usually this is effective in reducing later high HC’s.
And done too long the overheating will damage melt the ceramic honey-comb guts.

But what the hell, eh.
Works, great.
Not works you have good reason to once again replace out that cat.
This Time INSIST they flange mount the replacement! You make up your own flanged pipe substitute to after the test put that new expensive beauty safe on a shelf until the next mandatory testing cycle.
Regards
Steve unruh

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Ok, I had 380f before the cat and 473f on the cat.
I was going to do exactly as you say, buy a new one to use at the inspection, and put it on the shelf for the rest of the year.
I was hoping you would reply before I buy a new one, so Thanks Steve.

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I canged the cat and got the same heat number on the new one, I think the infrared meter is playing tricks on me, doesn’t work on shiny surfaces.
But anyway, I changed the cat and spark plugs, then I remembered that I removed the temp gauge from the intake and put it against the engine, (it got sooty and the engine light was on), so I put back the temp sensor in the intake, and now got I good co values.
Could the temp sensor be the cause of the incorrect co values?

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Maybe.
Did you pass your certification test now?
Yes. I 've has a lot of trouble with contactless Infared temp guns too.
I used to keep a small can of stove black paint to put onto test spots to make all even the same.
S.U.

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For some strange reason, noone ever warns you about this. I once measured my stainless steel pot of near boiling water at something like 300c, thats like a gazilion F :smile: its where l noticed whats going on, the beam reflects.

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I tested how far I can go on a hopper with spruce and willow, last night. I drove about 30km, before the temperature in the hopper started to rise, wondering if I should make smaller holes in the grate? This is what it looks like after I cleaned the unit and the cyclone, about a week’s worth of runs.

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Others more used to big gasifiers will say for sure but my thinking is you are right about where you want it to be.

This isnt wasted fuel, sift it (seems you alredy did) and throw it right back in the hopper over the wood.

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Ok, I usually save it and put it back when I clean the unit completely, but it turns out to be quite a lot. It is not sieved in the bucket, one bucket is directly from the ash hatch and the other from the cyclone.

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I just noticed those are 10 not 30 kg buckets. In that case you got absolutely nothing to worry about!

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I’m just so surprised why I end up with so much wood. JO, do 80km on a hopper and I do 30km on a hopper, and yesterday I wasn’t over 40mph, almost.

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A 10 l bucket every weekend is what I harvest as well. Looks normal.

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I think we would have to compare weight and moisture content of our fuels. The vehicles should’t differ more than 10-20% in consumption.
My hopper holds two full paper bags of chunks and they weigh 8kg each in avarage. I don’t know if that’s helpful information.

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Well if a vehicles petrol consumption is twice that of a nother, same will be with wood. In my experiances, you about double the value. 1l/100km equals 2kg/100km.

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