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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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Yes I have on small engines with success. I boost the gas mixture so both the gas and the air premixed pre blower. This certainly is not going to boost the engine but I will help deliver a more energy dense charge. One of the blowers would probably be plenty sufficient the engine you are working with.
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I have tried this, at different rpms. And I have found there is no difference when going up a hill with the push blower on or off or driving down the flat highway.
It really surprised me, and this what called, facts are facts. Now were my pusher blowers to weak to make a difference, I don’t know. May be my Kirby vaccum blower that has more power could prove differently. I do know this pushing the gases is not the way to do it.
Bob
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A V8 is going to need around 300 or more CFM to even make a dent.
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Wow. Here is an interesting thread. I’m always interested in the possibilities of boost. About the compression ratio. I’m not sure exactly what the ratios are but when you are talking about boosting already high compression engines you will blow them up unless you ramp up the octane rating of gasoline. 16 to 1 and you will need at least 106 octane or more and you better have forged pistons and connecting rods and a forged crank. You can’t get that kind of octane without adding alcohol as far as I know. The highest compression engine I ever built was 11 to 1 and it was still used as a daily driver. However you have to remember that an engine is an engineered system of parts and you cannot change one without effecting all the others. For instance a lot of people think they can stick a bigger cam in and use the same valve springs that they were using in a stock motor. Bad idea. I have talked with SteveU about boosted wood gas and he pointed out that you can’t get enough vacuum to let wood gas fill the cylinders. I haven’t quite wrapped my head around this yet, the relationship between pressure and vacuum but I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about so I think adding a discussion about vacuum and wood gas would be welcomed.
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If you boost only the wood gas then you create positive pressure to the intake of the engine. So you no longer have any vacuum pull in your air to mix with the gas. You need to boost both your air mixture and the wood gas together otherwise it is impossible to get proper air mixture or even pull in the air you need to mix with the gas.
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My comments about exhaust turbo-charger for wood to the engine were this:
since the intake will no longer have negative pressure it cannot possibly suck the gasifier system flows.
So . . . the inlet side of the turbo charger, or blower must do the gasifier system sucking.
The seals to the turbo central bearings are for positive pressure. Not for negative pressure.
Many are the turbo systems I’ve seen drooling out engine oil from worn center bearings wobbling and worn seals. Remember that turbo center bearing is engine oil pressure fed. 15-45/60 PSI fed engine oil pushing out against the turbo shaft seals.
Belt driven super chargers like RonL. used; have end bearing lubrication reservoirs. The end bearings are wick fed lubrication. Not Pressurized. And these are two widely spaced outer end shaft bearings. So the oil seals are not “wobble” shaft worn.
Now on the other spin-flinging pressurizing woodgas . . . I have this working theory that I adhere to: woodgas is molecularly fragile; and barely stable. Flow handle it gently to not force-make changes into incombustible CO2, and carbon soots formations.
Of course the educated chemical and maths jonney-guys say that I cannot possibly be correct. Not what they learned in classes. Not in their chemical engineering books.
Whatever. I go by the soots deposited just past the edge of the throttling plates. On the down stream side of flow piping and valves turbulence areas.
Maybe. Just maybe, this explains the worse engine performance some boost ripping the woodgas have experienced.
S.U.
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