Hello Don,
Wow thats a gorgeous truck!
Definitely not the easy power gains I was hoping for then 
and if it dramatically increases the wood consumption, if anything its a power killer huh?
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47mph? yeah thats definitely not that impressive compared to expectation. So what performance upgrades would you recommend Wayne? Is it more about upgrading the engine or optimising the gasifier?
Unfortunately here in Europe, we can’t access your gasifier plans so I’m using Ben Peterson’s builder’s bible. But any pointers would be greatly appreciated
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Hi Bob,
This is great advice, thank you. I think the biggest engine I can shoehorn into my truck is a 323cu in Jaguar V12. Unfortunately, as awesome as american market engines are, our import taxes here in the UK make them prohibitively expensive to buy and repair.
Upping the compression is a great call and I’ll do some research to see if theres a workaround to get an American engine
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Hi Alex , welcome along , what truck do you have ? you mention 3.5 v8 so i am guessing its the trusty old rover engine ?
When i lived in the UK getting hold of left hand drive American cars were pretty easy and not too costly , i guess these days though with petrol prices what they are there now wont be so many around unless there all on lpg , here in Australia we still have the big engines but fuel prices now catching up with you over there , plus the cost of living over here is a real killer these days .
Dave
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Hi Dave, thank you. I have a Land Rover Defender currently a Td5 engine but she’s in bad need of a complete rebuild (chassis corrosion) Aye thats right! the rover engine was what I was first looking at but considering I do a lot of towing with my business, I would rather have something with more grunt.
Yeah there are still a lot of american cars here but the prices are now astronomical and thanks to the new UK tax laws, importing parts is so expensive.
Petrol prices have skyrocketed yeah and with the fuel shortages we are currently experiencing, I’ve decided to stop relying on the pumps and start taking some responsibility for my own fuel. I run a green waste company so wood is plentiful and free.
Do you have a truck running? and if so what truck and engine are you using Dave?
When did you move over to Australia?
Alex
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Hello Alex, Wayne is right in theory boosting the intake pressure will work to increase power, but I have found out it is not that simple.
[email protected]
Vesa has turbocharged woodgas successfully,he also had a book with quite a lot of detailed instructions and gasifier plans, very good reading and instructions !!
My attempt was not so great, my truck has an inline 6cyl 300 cid pretty heavy truck 3/4 ton, I was already getting 55-65 mph with woodgas, without a blower and was just curious if it could be made to run 75mph so I added a Buick M60 supercharger, and got 5lbs boost, resized the gasifier 25%.
Now on gasoline this truck will fly!! On woodgas not so good about 45mph, so I exchanged the 1 5/8 in pully with a 3in one and now am getting 55-60 mph so the woodgas was too weak ,and am considering going back to the naturally asperated setup.( like Wayne said, much simpler and still works well)
I am sure it will work, but havent figured it out , I hope this helps if you do go with boosting the woodgas I would like to see it working. 
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Hi Ron,
Thank you for the link. You have such a beautiful truck!
It sounds already like you’ve tinkered a lot with forced induction. I was planning to go down this very same route so you’ve saved me a lot of time and frustration trying all this again.
This being the case, I think I’ll get the biggest engine I can and see if I can up the compression ratio slightly with a skim. Then once I’m more confident, I will look into perhaps a forced draw on the woodgas after I’ve read Vesa’s work
I saw on one of your videos that you were saying about intake manifold modification. How did you modify them if you don’t mind my asking?
This was extremely helpful, thank you again
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I simple low tech way is to use the Ametek blowers and use a battery to power them. Only use them when you need the boost for accelerating, then recharge the batt at speed.
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Hello everyone, I think that you shouldn’t go after a huge engine for the car to run fast on generator gas. I would prefer to pay attention not to the volume of the engine, but to its traction characteristics (especially in the low rev range), to the compression ratio and to the transmission that works with it. It must be remembered that on wood gas engines very poorly overcome, under load, the 4000 rpm mark due to the low combustion rate. And if we consider, as an example, my Opel - in it, at a speed of 100 km / h, the engine has a speed of 3500 rpm, then increasing the engine without changing the transmission will not lead to an increase in my maximum speed of 130 km / h at a speed of 4.2k. In general, I would recommend paying attention to the engine speed when driving, because with a 1.8 liter engine I do not experience a power shortage, unlike a speed deficit.
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Gear change can make a big difference in a dino powers vehicle, but you also need to have the power to pull those gears. My beloved Toyotas are sub hundred horse power in stock form but will cruise at 70mph easily. Little Honda cars will do 100mph plus with a 130hp stock 4cylinder. My chevotafire would benefit from some taller gears and has the power to pull them on woodgas it seems, but I’m content to do 50-60 mph, it doesn’t need to be a fast high speed for commuting purposes like I plan to do with it. A little extra would be nice for hills but I think I’ll learn to be fine with it as I learn how the system operates
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Hi Alex,
You’re interested in getting POWER out of a little engine? I studied Jan Olson’s thread JO’s gasified Volvo thread. There’s just a huge amount of info there.
Sample: subaru has an interesting engine construction, ej18, ej20 and even ej25 have the same geometry, so the cylinder heads can be easily installed between the mentioned types. So I installed the ej18 engine heads on the ej20 and replaced the original 1.6 mm thick gasket with a 0.6 mm gasket so the mathematical compression ratio is somewhere around 1:13. in the original it has 1:10
Rindert
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At 13:1 ratio can you still run on gasoline? Or are you now a straight wood gas engine for the vehicle? Also are you running the engine on charcoal or woodgas? What year of engine are you doing on, 92 to 95 years?
Bob
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Yes Joni, the engines that make the horsepower at 3000 to 3500 rpms. are better. Also I like what you did by upping the compression ratio helps in gasification on wood gas. What was your compression ratio you finally settle on for your engine setting for wood gasification.
Bob
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Robert, my Subaru is a 99 year old and works as I wrote at the time on LPG (propane) and occasionally on petrol. These are the EJ 18 and EJ20 engine generations, and the EJ25 (I’m not sure about that) has the same geometry, so the heads fit when replaced.
My opinion about the wood gas turbo engine:
-older generations of turbo gasoline engines have low compression ratios (1: 7-8), because with the intensive operation of the turbine, this also changes to 1:13, which seems very good for wood gas
-the newer turbo petrol engines basically have a compression ratio of 1:10, which increases to 1:16 when the turbine is running, which seems impossible to run on petrol, but with direct multi-point fuel injection they work nicely, but what about wood gas, I think this would be a very efficient engine …
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Hi Rindert,
Thank you for the links! JO’s Volvo is really something! I’d love to know if he fixed the tar issue and whether he had any success with it. There are so many talented builders here and everyone seems so welcoming and eager to share their experience.
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Hi Matt,
This is an interesting idea. so basically electric supercharging for the gasifier? Is there anyone on here who has actually used this as a booster with any success? It sounds brilliant. and how does that work in terms of the mix? The thing about superchargers is that the flow rate will scale with engine rpms so would you have to use this method sparingly?
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I’m sure a few guys here with the wk systems have played with turning on the pusher blowers while driving down the road?
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The blower or turbine is a big difference, the blower does not reach even 0.1 bar overpressure while driving, and the turbine driven by exhaust gases easily 0.5 bar when the engine is loaded
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Not necessarily as a “boost” over pressure, but as a oxygen feed to the gassifier, a temporary electrical simulated hard pull for momentary boost of power like up a hill or passing traffic. Not as a fix for the loss of horsepower but a temporary push of power
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