Well, I’m one of those motorhead guys, or at least I used to be. In my lamented youth I build drag bikes and several cars. Never got into exotic fuels. I had the lower end of a Harley engine once that the guy was running on nitro-methane and it blew a big chunk out of the case and just about took off his foot. Nobody used turbos back then, I’m talking middle sixties to mid seventies when I was in the game. Just Roots type blowers.
So I watched this video but never found out any specifics about that piston shape which other than the timing seems to be the secret to this engine. Personally I think that Hydrogen fuel makes more sense than anything else and I’ve heard for years about the difficulty of setting up the infra-structure to reasonably supply it across the country, and of course the dangers involved, but that doesn’t seem to have bothered those EV or hybrid enthusiasts with their huge lithium batteries. If you have ever seen a video of someone frying their nuts because the cell phone in their pocket decides to go nuclear then you have to admit that there is some danger sitting on a couple thousand times the size of that energy source.
I don’t know if anyone has heard or remembers the problems Ralph Moody faced it the late Seventies. He bought Ford Capri bodies without drive trains from Ford and stuck a Perkins diesel in them and got tremendous mileage. Could have went into production and sold many thousands of them but as the story goes he couldn’t afford to go through all the hoopla testing the EPA insisted on for any production vehicle. Of course the rumor was that it was big oil sent their lobbyists in Washington in to squelch anything that could impact their market shares. The point being that we would have a lot of innovation from back yard mechanics and inventors if the government didn’t want to maintain a death grip on all innovation. If wood gas ever got big enough to start impacting the existing fuel industry you wouldn’t be able to build crap.
A very interesting subject. In fact, the very reason I went to Michigan Technological University, and got my mechanical engineering degree. Remember the Fish carburetor? 200 mpg? I got sick of the guys on the barstools, waving their beer at me claiming this kind of thing was real. I had to find out the truth. Turns out the truth is very complicated. Just like laddering carbon down to carbon dioxide.
Sir Harry Ricardo, a British engineer wrote the Bible about internal combustion. The first volume of his two volume work entitled “The Low Speed Internal Combustion Engine” was published before world war I. The second volume, “High Speed Internal Combustion Engines” was published between wars. Sir Harry develops the calculus step by step, showing the fundamental equations governing the efficiency of the Otto cycle internal combustion engine.
One notable tenet developed in that book, was that there is an efficiency limit of 59%. The Wartburg two stroke diesels are running @ 52%. Also efficiency is directly proportional to compression ratio. This was taken to the limit with the idi diesels like the IH 6.9, 7.3, and the DD 6.2, and 6.5, all having the Ricardo Comet precombustion chambers.
The portion of Sir Harry’s work that concerns the wood gas people the most, is in the slow speed book. Here he discusses the fundamentals of running engines on gas. I was spellbound. Every single thing we are trying on this forum is mentioned in great detail in that book. It’s like finding a road map, so you don’t end up lost in some dead end ghetto.
One of my favorite parts is the transition from the non-compression Lenoir (1860) type internal combustion engines (which burned producer gas) to the compression engines of Otto in 1876.
I wanna say 1872ish was when the Corliss valve train came out, which bumped up steam engine efficiency from 6% to 8%, AND then along comes the Otto cycle internal combustion engines with their 10% efficiency, no boilers, and instant starting…it was the only time that steam competed with IC and both engines ran the same fuel.
It’s exciting because this is the time that IC engines were developed specifically to run on carbon monoxide…not lashed up like now.
Even the fundamental method of speed control or governing was different.
Anyhow, it’s snowing like crazy and I gotta go get wet.
Well I worked professionally full time in the Dealer Shops thru 2005, and then switched back to the Independent shops to finish out in 2007.
Dealer work you learned to focus only on that manufacturers products. Sounds easy. But Toyota, Chryslers, Buick, Nissan, Saturn that I’d work with; those spanned decades of put into production changes.
And the Independents . . . . well nearly anything that did get produced and sold. Had to read 4-6 monthly Trades magazines and sign up attend any and all offered classes to try and understand the what’s why’s of it.
There really was not patience-time left for hot-rodding and futuristic jabber-do-nothing like before I’d gone full time flat-rate’er.
ONLY dealership work and Independent shop work As A Master could get me health Insurance for the family.
My recreation fun became hunting and fishing.
Plus the various manufacturers were too good at pushing out “better” systems that could not cut it out in the real world.
I’m fighting now the PTU no-service for life unit in the wife’s now 140K all wheel drive Ford Edge. These are overheat grenade’ing at 60-150K. ONLY 1/2 quart capacity of 85W-145 gear oil. Yes. I can too suck these out. And long tube force in changes of full synthetic every year. Hoping for 250K service life. $950. + to change out.
Then . . . the timing chain driven deep guts internal water pump!! 60-130K failures. Bullshit design. “Designed” to sell new cars at 7 years longest.
Now four different coolant types changes since 2007 by Ford just to try and extend this engine killing better-idea failure. Colant directly into engine oil kills that engine. Opps. This engine became the Police Pursuit vehicles engine. Ain’t a long evolved 4.6L SOHC V-8 in those Crown Vics.
I watch a particular youtuber who is getting past 300K on his Edges.
How? He full coolant flushes every 20-30K to keep the coolant alkaline biased; not become abrasive “chunky” from particulates clumping.
No exotic coolants. Just standard Peak brand.
My point fellows is all of the different real world factors over rides woo-woo tech.
Yep. Bruce is right. The good engineers know well the theoretical limits.
Service Engineers know the practical necessities.
I am now driving a 2004 Camry with throttle-by-wire; chain driven DOHC with exhaust phaser camshaft. The wife’s l-o-n-g chaindrive water pump Ford is DOHC with all four cams variable timing phaser controlled.
I’d be happier back in 3.3L V6 and I-6 4.0L short chain cam-in-block pushrod world. Easy 300K with non-exotic oil changes. Nice simple valves cleaning timed port F.I. systems
Just like the personals computer world a fellow does have to keep up. But NOT be the lead goat!
Ha! That is what I like about this Scotty Kilmar fellow. He keeps up knowledge-wise. But his own use. Like me he wants 5-10 years in-service proof. Let the sheeple-goats do the proving. Take the dollars lost depreciations.
Just like me.
Now two different family with Mazda SkyActive. Four different family with different gahk!! Gasoline Direct Injected. Intake valve oil cokers as bad as any woodgas used. With no good in-service cleaning solutions. Two other family members with dual turbo small engine EcoBoosts in their full sized pickups. GDI to boot. Really need an add on PCV system oil separators! Net search these to find. Theses family do not care. Buy. Use. Buy new again. Bad-bad used vehicles to fall into down the road.
New woo-woo is no damn good.
Trust a 13 year old kid with your life? Nope.
Goota’be at least a 24-26 y.o. And be hard learned wise.
One of the last projects I worked on when I was an Ironworker in Detroit was the conveyor line for the Cadillac Northstar engine. So we saw a lot of that engine in it’s post-development phase. I thought it was a total thing of beauty. Had a hard time understanding why the starter was under the valley pan so that you had to pull the entire fuel delivery system off to service it and I guess that did In fact turn out to be a cluster-fluck but those heads were fascinating. They were the first OHC and four valve per cylinder engines I had ever seen. Made total sense to eliminate push rods, rocker arms. After a nearly twenty year run Cadillac went old school and is back to the basic engine GM has been building since what, 1954 or 55. Also worked on the infrastructure when GM decided to build a rotary engine back in the seventies and tooled up a whole section of the Willow Run plant and then never ran a production engine down the line.
I don’t know if there is a point to this other than I have stuck pretty close to running small block Chevy’s for most of my life. I could probably assemble one in my sleep. When Checker Cab was in business they bought 327 Chevy engines. Took them apart, blueprinted them and were getting over 300,000 miles out of them, city driving and a lot of idling time and this was at a time when the average consumer was lucky to see 80,000. I thought we would be driving nuclear fusion air cars by now but we still can’t seem to design much past a sixty five year old engine and the folks here are putting in a lot of hours to fuel them with pre-gasoline fuel. One of these days, someone is going to market a steam car again.
I remember that. I also remember you won that “Escape From Berkeley” race. Or maybe I should say you were the winner of the participants who didn’t cheat. I hate to start any s#@t, but I really lost respect for JM after that. It’s why I never went out there when they were working on gasifying that Lister.
How long were you out on the road before and after the race?
Hard frozen down here last night. Dry wind for the next two days.
I un-tarped my reserve wood stack. Was ground contact too wet to put up in the woodshed.
Hoping for at least one winter extended always frozen spell.
Woodstoving actual wettest now hard frozen wood has taught me a bit what many live with happy, most of their winter.
BruceJ. I agree with APL race disenchantment.
But by the set up rules to their, “Escape from Berkley by Any Means Possible” the vegetable oil car winner was within their rules.
Ha! O.K. Next time some Urban contrives an Escape Race, I swear I’m gonna’ show up with my gasoline Toyota. My green plastic low coolant drain pan. And an angle cordless electric drill.
Just crawl under and “tap” any and all unattended vehicles for fuel. “Any Means”.
My plastic coolant drain pan even has a nice built-in nozzle.
True shtf and a vegi-oil car would have to be a grocery store looter. Ha! Tee-shirts trading would not cut it. Silver coin, ammo trading, sets you up for down the road being bushwhacked.
History lessons. Current todays Syria lessons.
Gamers, game. Real life teaches best.
S.U.
…wrote Escape from Berkeley organizer Jim Mason in an e-mail announcing the new race. “Where DARPA had the Grand Challenge, the rednecks the Cannonball Run, the truckers a Convoy, and the hippies a bunch of WVO buses broken down on the side of the road, now the collected geek tribes propose to start their ‘engines’ on something other than a petroleum-based fuel, and cause their varied schemes for land-based transport to not be in Berkeley, and somehow, by some means, show up in Las Vegas three days later, using only fuels/power/motive force scavenged ‘for free’ along the route.”
Jim says it right there…“other than petroleum based fuel”. Fresh soybean oil cannot exist without petroleum. Petroleum fertilizer, petroleum powered farm equipment, and petroleum powered delivery equipment. The ROI is negative. Wayne Keith had the only ride there that fit the definition. Well, I guess the pedal bikers and wood fired steam engines were good too.
If you want to split those hairs, then a guy could have taken a diesel electric train to Los Vegas.
I run thousands of gallons of vegatable oil powered hours on my equipment, only because of the unique situation involving my location. We are too far from the renderers for it to pay for them to come up here and get used vegetable oil. So often times I can get the restaurants to clean and filter the oil and place it back in the cubes it comes in all for free. This means there’s much less work for me than cutting wood. I’m under no delusion that vegetable oil is a sustainable fuel. In fact it is more expensive than regular petroleum when you consider the fact that I’m burning fuel that is really food. I know that one day petroleum will be priced beyond my means again, and I will be burning wood. At the present time, wood is the only road motor fuel replacement for petroleum. That is extremely scary. Nobody really realizes that. That’s why I keep my hand in this wood gas business so that I’m not caught too far off guard.
Thanks BruceJ. I was wrong.
Too long ago. I’d forgotten the specifics.
The three most powerful words in the English language?
“I was wrong.”
Ha! As I was writing this the wifie shoved two of her latest purchases for the kids at me. Couple of some kind of orange plastic flat lights. Needed 2 triple AAAs each. I’d refused to use my expensive made-in-Japan rechargeables yesterday. She slammed down some cheapest made-in-China AAA disposables .
“What kinnda light s are these? They only strobe flash.”
Pumpkin lights, she says.
“What’s wrong with wax candles?” asks I.
Oh husband. Nobody uses candles anymore.
Really?
I am I so stuck back in the last millennia?
Figure this. The energy to make, ship and then dispose of these use one season then break consumer plastics.
Versus just a bit’o petroleum wax. (could be bees wax)
Sigh.
At least we still primary heat with renewable carbon neutral wood.
S.U.
hello all. I have been out of the loop for a while. Had a string of health problems lately. Kidney stones, back pain, and now just getting over Covid-19. But God is good, and we have all we need. Thanks for the prayers. Billy
Wife and I walked a few miles up the mountain this morning. I’ve been close by a lot, but this is the first time in 45 years I stumbeled across this old fireplace.
My grandfather took me here in the early 70s to show me where he and his brother slept as teenagers, when cutting timber during WW1. There used to be a small log cabin/shed around this fireplace. Just enough to fit two spruce branch beds.
