I’ve been interested in growing sugarcane. Would be the simplest way to make alcohol.
Sugarcane is super simple to grow, too. Dig a trench and drop a cane in the dirt.
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Jerusalem Artichokes (not Artichokes and not from Jerusalem) aka, Sunchokes have high sugar content and grow on poor ground in colder climates.
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Is it sugar sugars or more starchy sugars that need an enzyme like a Sugar Beet?
Edit: just read up on it, unlike Sugar Beets you have to boil jerusalem artichokes in a 2ph solution to break the inulin to fructose.
With sugar beets you just shred then boil and add yeast when it’s cooled enough.
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So I am going to buy a spare intake manifold for the Mazda and have a safe look at the obstructions put into the EGR port.
If it’s as I fear and is part of the water jacket then I won’t have much I could do and hope it doesn’t affect vacuum demand.
If it’s just an odd casting obstruction I’ll drill out my spare manifold and place that in the truck.
I’ll either find a junked motorcycle carburetor and do a MEN style plumbing or I’ll just make my own throttle body. The old Zenith Harley Davidson carbs look promising. Drill out where the float bowl used to be and epoxy in the woodgas line. With some work I could also just make my own woodgas throttle with a new air mixer butterfly to boot.
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I bought a throttle body for a volvo v40 on the car scrap for my Illern, quite easy to use and cheap.
http://www.bildelsbasen.se/?link=item&searchmode=9&listmode=2&pc1=106&page=1&order=price&asc=1&pc[0]=106104108&post_id=33555983
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Jan, thanks for giving another brand to look for when it comes to cable throttle bodies. Ebay isn’t helpful unless you look for specifics. The former EGR port is pretty small though so I may save that for a different build.
I am actually pretty interested in the older style of gas mixers showed in Gengas. Particularly the one on the left shown in this picture. It’s interesting that they only show a butterfly for the gas line and not an air damper. Would this have been a sized to the engine sort of setup I wonder? Surely an air damper is placed upstream before this junction. I like the idea of the woodgas valve itself is the fuel throttle. When you have it shut off then there’s no need for a second cutoff valve.
Or I could attempt something like this.
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Got me some Ring Job In A Can.
Thus poor truck has just over 200,000 Miles on the clock and still records fine. When I take off the oil fill cap I can really feel strong puffs of air coming out of the valve cover. My first guess is bad rings, or maybe it just puffs like that because of the OHC? Either way this stuff is chock full of Zinc and Lead additive and will bring up the compression by a noticeable amount. Project Farm has brought back a misbehaving Ford Diesel tractor with just one course of this additive.
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If the rings are bad then you have nothing to lose. Certainly not going to make them worse. Let us know your results.
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I figured the worst I’ll have to do is a total rebuild. It doesnt have any other indication that it needs one so I’m trying to stretch out time beforehand.
Rebuild kits for these aren’t terribly expensive. I’m just wondering if I can go ahead and order a kit with stock sized rings or if I should wait until I have it open and measure my ring size needed.
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I actually use that stuff during engine break in, it seems to get the rings to seat quicker then the ol atf trick. I have run it in a few miled out Toyota motors and they will usually quite smoking within a few days. The zinc helps a lot but from tearing down high milage motors I normally saw sunken rings in high rpm motors, or daily driver motors that were never really worked hard I would see carbon stuck in the ring lands that would stick the rings and lower compression. I have saved a snowmobile and a few quads but removing the ring, scraping the ring lands clean, ball hone the cylinder and reassemble with the old parts and compression comes right back. Benefits of being poor and stingy with your money you learn how to limp things along after death 
that being said those Mazda motors like to leak around valve seals a bit, few buddy’s run 5-20 oil to mitigate the smoke as it runs back to the bottom end faster, less time hanging around in the head with time to get into the valve seals. Suzuki samurai motors benefit from the same treatment as well
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That’s another thing I’m going to address when it’s time to rebuild. I actually need to double check and see if the kit comes with new valve guides and seals.
Smoking isn’t terrible after it’s warmed up but I do get a little poot of it when I hit the throttle.
Also keep in mind I don’t have a CAT so maybe that plays a factor?
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As far as viscosity goes I’ve been using Mobil-1 15w40 Diesel synthetic oil that I get from work. Techs throw out the bottles with a few ounces still in them because they get rushed.
I also run a quart of Marvel Mystery Oil to degunk this engine. Not sure what the viscocity would be after 1/4 of the oil is MMO but it’s probably as thin as 5w30 I would guess.
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I find doing replacing your own valve guides pretty iffy. I always just had them done at the machine shop. Not that pricey and then you know they are sized right. Sizing your guides with out the right equipment is a crap shoot in my opinion and you are not going to know if they are good until you get the engine running again.
Could just be that I have a beak, feathers and lay eggs.
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Okidoke so I finally got my spare intake manifold in.
The EGR port is incredibly small. The bottom port I have no idea where it leads to but it leads to a port going to the block. Not sure about any of that.
Orifice that actually goes to the intake is 13mm in diameter and it hits a cast in barrier as pictured with my chopstick indicator.
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The bottom orifice leads to this port right here.
The other two ports of the same size are part of coolant flow. I have no clue if this is how the EGR got exhaust gas or if this is some sort of other preheating mechanism or what.
What I’m wondering is, if I can simply block off this orifice and wallow out the two holes to make a bigger port for woodgas to flow into?
I took a look at some photos of a cylinder head for this year and that orifice does lead into the head.
It’s very confusing because it’s just an open hole. There’s no way the EGR just went into one cylinder? Was this for vacuum pressure?
Very vexing.
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I’ve been searching on eBay and Ithink I’ll order an old rebuilt Ford Pinto carburetor. The Holley made Weber clones. Since MEN’s instructions are for the water temp choke pinto carbs for the 2bbl I’ll just do a direct copy. The 32/36 I have is electric choke so there may be subtle but big differences in passageways and jets.
I can nab a pinto Holley on eBay rebuilt for 99 bucks it seems so that’s not so bad. And it’ll keep me from wrecking my relatively new Weber.
My only other options it seems would be to make a whole new port for woodgas to come in, probably from the bottom. I would just need to mill out a flat spot for a flange and drill a hole. Route that and add a homemade woodgas mixer throttle.
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I had a 1977 Chevette. POS but had a holly-weber 5210C carb. Just one more data point for you.
Rindert
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The more I think about it the more I want to leave the Weber alone as much as possible. I have two manifolds now so if I goof it up I have the original. Going to try to make a spot for an intake. It’ll be dead center 180 degrees of the carburetor so I know the flow will be balanced for the most part. Plus I have a ton of room beneath the manifold, only thing I can think of that is even remotely in the way is the oil filter but that’s almost 8 inches below the intake.
Edit: Just had another good look at the spare intake, looks like the water jacket has foiled me again.
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I keep staring at the EGR port and I think I may be able to drill it out to 30mm for a custom throttle. I laid my calipers over the hole checking out the wall between the two ports and it may just barely miss the separating wall. If I have to I can lay down some JB weld or aluminum braze to build it back up and simply plug off that port entirely.
Scouring Mazda mini truck forums I found out that port goes to the #1 Exhaust port. I have a Pacesetter Header exhaust so this no longer works so I’m going to plug off that bad boy and mill away to my heart’s content.
What I’ll probably do is at the flange side of the manifold I’ll tap the hole for a flush plug or big grub screw. I can also plug up all the extra vacuum ports that I don’t need.
For my distributor advance I’ll use a manifold port instead of the carburetor’s port so I’ll know for sure it’s getting proper vacuum.
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Cody,
Careful! That manifold probably isn’t aluminum. Its zinc. So don’t try to aluminum braze on it. I know this from working in a foundry. Under hood parts I grew up thinking were aluminum are all zinc, usually ZA-30 alloy.
Rindert
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