You showoff pickup woodgasers 
You had problems with gas being hot or just decided to make the build eaven fancyer with the ss?
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The cooler felt a bit warm and I was afraid the plastic would start softening. Also I started to get less water in the condensation tank with warmer weather. Most ended up post cooler in the filter barrel. The water caught in these new pipes will as well but they will at least lower the gastemp some.
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Hi Kristijan i going too tri Matts cooler. And extra cyclones allso, i think the finns are a good idea on cylones, i am thinking put air flap under cyclones/coolers/ would add more cooling.in your project you could tri extending the finns out the autio box or mount cyclons in the trunk with no slip joints, solid welds till well out of trunk area ?Or posible put a small vac. Behind the autio box with cyclones for your chimney cleaning tools with cyclones.
Hi Kevin! What do you mean with air flap?
Hmm fins outside the box. Not a bad idea thanks
I just meant an air dam flap under the cyclons with finns too increase the cooling,just a piece if aluminum pulling air up too the place too cool.I know there aint much space on low riding cars, i am getting ready too put the cooler i built under my small truck and not much extra place too get the water too drain out, so i am going too use small pump if i caint let the motor pull the moisture up too a storage tank before the media filter tank if i use it for condencer as Matt sugested worked better after the 3. Little Cyclones up by the air cleaner. I feel your pain not able too find any good little trucks around your area.Those rabit size trucks are rare around here due too the salt.
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Aha got it now!
I have no dubts the motor will suck the condense up! The water breaks in to small droplets when its exposed to high speed gas, those have no problems goeing upstream! Its how my scrubber works (eaven thugh the vacuum pulls just ~15", the water elevates 20" without any problems, und wuld a lot more.
Thanks man That should run much cooler by the ground, thus reducing need for biger cooler.And i am thinking putting a cylone on each side of the rear wheel well next too bumpers as low too the frame as posible for cooling, before running the gas line too the engine compartment cyclones.I been getting a little too much water past my hay filter fouling my spark plugs till waiting 10_15 minuts.So going too try cyclons in place of media filter.
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Hi everyone!
A update/75% learning curve presentation l had with my gasified Chevy.
The car is still a dayly wood burner and soon its gonna be a full year of such diet. In the last few weeks l experimented some with differeng fuel, filters, driveing styles and so on and l think l got close to a sistem that can extract best possible performance out of this wood gas non friendly engine.
I thod l write down what l learned.
First what l learned about fuel.
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Hatchet split oak chunks work good with medium power and occasional bridgeing. They tend to form slag, constipation and produce a bit more soot in the system.
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same goes for rebak chunked oak round wood, except the fuel flow is better.
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spruce limbs are great fuel, spruce log wood terible. Tar, lean gas, char cavity in the reduction after cooldown. The gasifier just isnt made for it.
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rebak chunked hardwoods like beechwood are premium fuel. The chunkers blade make small cracks in the limb chunks that aid to both fast drying times (one week of sun drying) and gasifier performance. They catch fire instantly. Chunked fuel contains a percentige of small chip like bits good for high power and biger bits for idle. They flow great. One has to be carefull to extract ALL the longer thain 2" twigs and spliters by hand thugh, or they will bridge for sure.
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pellets work well only if the hopper is left without cooling. I only use them when l see l might run out of fuel on a trip, allways have a bag of them under the drivers seat just in case. Mix with chunks in such occasions.
Gasifier hearth:
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the ring of fire apears to be working good. Good oxidation with less air restriction thain classical lmbert nozzles.
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the char reserve cross and updraft reduction is a hit and l will most likely use it in my next build. With a slag buster scraper l have no problems with ashplugging and l think l culd make this same gasifier run anything from a 0.5l engine to a 3l, with a modified nozzles, restriction and oxy cone of corse.
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it turns out its better to go too small with the restriction thain too big. It currently too small by the lmbert dimension chart for this engine, but it makes good gas and enough of it.
Cooler: -
vertical pipes are the way to go if one is short on space. I currently have both vertical and horisontal ones, and it seems the vertical perform better. Self rinsing to a point too.
Filtration; this is the one l had by far most headscratching and hundreds of hours of mind surfing.
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hotfilters are good but do not catch 100% of soot. More thain a hayfilter thugh.
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hayfilters are simple but with my plastic intake manifold, a nope.
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scrubbers! I am sure they wuld be my No1 choice on a stationary unit. For a mobile application, the venturi scrubber showed some of its dissadvantiges. First, the water draw is paralel to gas draw so at idle, there is not enough water circulateing to rinse the gas. City drives make sooty gas.
A pump wuld be impractical and there is a problem with winter freezeing. -
acombination of scrubber and towel sack filter prooved not good. The towel soaked so much water from the scrubber splashing it become unbreathable like a plastic bag.
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the filter l use now is the same l had on my charcoal powered Seat. A stright forward towel sack filter. Just stich s big thick towel in to a sack and thighten it on the gas inlet in the filter barrel. At gas demand, it inflates and filters the gas. The moist sooty gas produces a cake on the surface. When you let go the gas pedal, it collapses and shakes the moist crust of soot dow. Extracts at least 99% of soot, most likely more. For now, this has showed to be most effective by far. I put a brand new fitting in the barrel, and after about a week of driveing it still looks as clean as new. On any of previous filters it wuld become black after 50 km.
The sack culd be mede as big as one likes! Myne is a bit too smal now and it is a bit restrictive (about 6 squere feet) but l shild have no provlem puting in 3x this size in the currend filter houseing. It was just a test and it showed to work good. How will it perform in winter, how long will the cleaning intervals be, l dont know yet. All l know for the first time since l DOW my throtlebody plate is CLEAN!
Engine!
Like l sayd, not a woodgas friendly one. Small (1,6l), high rpm (driven at 2500-3200rpm), no timing advance, plastic intake manifold, electronic gizmos and sensors, … it propells a full size 1500kg car so any smart experianced woodgaser wuld turn his head away imediatly, but, l learned A lot on it and l squeezed most l can out of it. It gets me where l am goeing, with a quite good performance. Not much more l can and will do about it, except follow JOs advice on trying to spoof some sensors to make the engine advance the timing some. It has 24° now, and when l suddanly let go the gas pedal it jumps to 34 for a second so this is what l have to simulate. If any electronic wizards here culd help, l wuld greatly appriciate it!
Edit! I forgot to mention the venturi scrubber might work great in marryage with Matts cold moist gas cyclone system. The scrubbers droplets collect the soot, and the cyclone collect dirty droplets. Without it, the tiny sooty droplets still found ther way in the engine.
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Thank you for a great and informative summation of your wood gas car.
One question, please. Your towel sack filter it seems will collect the soot and moisture on the inside of the “sack”. Does that mean you have to take the “sack” out of the canister to clean it, as apposed to being able to clean the soot off the bottom of the canister? TomC
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Kristijan, you are certainly doing what most of us can’t, do not want to attempt or not willing to do. Great job on all your work and information that you have given to the DOW site for all of us to use. Keep up the good hard work you are doing for everyone’s benefit.
I consider you one of the leading and introvative DOW Members on the other side of the great pond.
Even though we are all separated by great distances, we can enjoy each other lives though this wonderful DOW site. It is worth every penny it costs to have a life time membership. Some of the best monies I have ever spent for any membership.
Bob
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Tom, this is correct! And you allso pointed out one dissadvantige.
Yes, sack filters usualy work the other way. But in such s system, a support cage is neaded in side of the sack. And, a air injector to inflate the sack in intervals to shake off the cake. I had such on my Seat and Chevys hot filter.
This inside out sack filter is much simpler as it cycles its self. When it collect enough dust at the bottom of the sack, l have to unscrew the sack from the gas suply, wash it, dry, and screw back. When this will happen, we will see.
Bob,
Thanks for the nice words, the truth is l am just haveing fun
You are absolutely rihgt. I know l wuld most likely never DOW if this site wuldnt exist. Its a treasury of knowlidge and great folks!
Btw how is your bale chunker progressing?
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KristtijanL the engine controller will give the maximum ignition advance possible in when the vehicle is sensed to be in top-gear, low-demand-loading. And at higher (lower pressure) altitudes.
Your three sensors to spoof are the throttle position, the Intake Manifold Pressure and the Barometric pressure sensors.
Most system anymore combine the MaP and the Baro sensors. Do a Baro reference reading at key on/and cranking before engine starts. Some systems recheck Baro in full throttle acceleration mode too.
Fooling with the TP sensor on this MPFI may just confuse the issue. Use a DTDP switch paralleled with a junk yard sensor mounted with a knob inside with you to spoof-away to prove yeah,nay.
Pulling a negative pressure while driving is easy with a squeeze hand dianostic pump. And I’ve used fishtank air flow control valves for the lines flow switching over.
Have fun.
J-I-C Steve Unruh
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Kristijan, you are welcome, truth is truth, having fun is in the truth. My bale chunker is on the back burner. Still trying to get the other projects finished. If I had all the wood prossessed that I could burn, I would never get any more projects done. DOW.
Bob
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Kristijan,
Thank you for this great report! We are all benefitting from your many hours of thoughtful “fun.” Your filter experience is very exciting for me because it is transferable to charcoal rigs as well. It is a good day when we discover that something simple works best.
BTW, if not too far off topic, do you or others have an opinion on the value of using an AFR gauge vs. just going by feel on an old car without electronics (my charcoal powered 1976 MGB).
DOW, is a happy place for me. Smart, friendly, humble guys like you are inspiring.
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Kristijan,
Does the gas go into the towel filter before or after the cooling tubes? To cake, I would think before the cooler, is a his correct?
Bryan Stater
check into hp tunners they cover a lot of chevy programs its a bit pricey but you could program anything you want the car to do . or if there is performance shops over there you could have this done cheaper just many trips back and forth I’m sure they don’t have a woodgas program on hand . I’m looking at upgrading my pcm to one that’s compatibal
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Nice work fun project, Glad too see you left your design for small gas miser cars, and Thanks for the extra thoughts of the 75% operator skills on your type design.If we get enough sun before fall a hope too chunk about 4000 pounds worth took get drying.when i had a tracker. It got mostly 24 Mpg my s10 average about 21 mpg. No wood to the s10 yet.
Thanks Kristijan i was not sure if you posted a pic of the ring of fire modification.Are you useing the ceramic blanket or is that on your next build test.did you have a horizonal hearth just befor the grait, as i never did see what your last build. Looked like, though your first 8" burn tube was easy too follow.???
Steve,
Thank you so much for the tip! Wanted to test what you sayd above but my OBD2 connector looks like dead. Cheap chinese crap. I am waiting to get a new one.
Bruce,
It sure seems like it
On the O2 sensor, l think once you get the feel for it, there is no more need for it. I dont have lt, l dont miss it but it sure wuldnt hurt to have one.
There will be one in my next build thugh, , becouse my next build will be a woman DOW driver friendlyer system. Wife burns me a lot of dyno 
Bryan,
Yes, the towel filter is in place of a hay filter, after the cooler.
Kevin,
There is a lot of pictures abd videos above in the topic on the ring of fire, but it is essentualy a air injection sistem that makea a curtain of air instead of jet, like clasical lmberts.
No, l have a WK style heat recovery firetube, insulated with s sort of refractory cement made of ash mixed with water glass. Next time l think l will go cheramic blanket way thugh…
On my first gasifier, l had s stright forward fixed grate, like JO. Now, the gas goes trugh the restriction, in a large reseroar of charcoal, where it first goes down some, then sideways and up. NO grate! Just the pot that holds in charcoal.
The advantige of this is l can never get constipated (the upstream of gas fluffs the charbed) diharea (loose charbed-there is enough volume to absorb the heat) and its harder to overpull the gasifier. The only thing that can happen is l run out of charcoal reserve at extremely hard pulls or the ash accumulates around the pot, restricting gasfliw, but this l plan to take care of by puting the cyclone lower, thus sucking all the dust bedore it can collect.
Paul,
Yes, thats my last choice, if everything else fails. I prefer to try the cheap DIY solutions first, then buy if nessesery
Perhaps eaven a “powerboost chip” culd help, l suspect they mihgt advance timeing too.
l didnt drain the cooler condense in time so l pulled some trugh to the towel filter tonight. Engine still runs ok but l can feel more restriction on the gas flow as the towel is wet. I have about 300 miles on it, so l think lll pull it out, inspect, dry and make a video today.
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I got this obd2 dongle. It works off bluetooth and you can use whatever software you want with it, which I used forscan, but I don’t know if it will do engine tuning offhand. I have seen other stuff that supposedly did which will work with it. Just fyi. 