I’m not sure. There’s moisture along the entire system.
The lid has a good seal, and I’ve made sure to silicone up any of my welds. Only leaky point could be the vacuum cleaner hose I was using temporarily.
It’s always had issues with moisture since I built it.
I’m wondering if this little engine isn’t putting out enough demand to crack the moisture that is present in the charcoal. It’s been turned on and off multiple times so I’m sure it’s sucked in moisture on cool down.
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This is beond me. I never got that much moisture even burning green wood. Something is wery wrong here…
I dont think suction is a problem. But something clearly is
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I’m just glad I didn’t get soot after the filter. The bag did its job.
I really have no idea what is going on with this thing but it is irritating me.
The filter box had about a quarter cup of black water, cyclone had almost a cup. Moisture on the lid of the reactor itself and moisture all in the piping that wasn’t there before I started.
Take my SWAG for what it’s worth
The little Mazda isn’t a heavy breather in stock form, I think it only requires something like 300cfm at WOT. The single small gas line is fairly restrictive, making the engine suck through a hypothetical straw wanting more. High velocity force being choked down. I don’t think the gassifier is being pulled on hard enough! It’s building heat and gas yes, enough to run the engine but the water traveling with the gas I “think” would be a sign of weak gas as after the burn zone the H20 is able to rebind? With the gas, diluting it down into a weaker state. So my theory is the gassifier is not being pulled on hard enough to crack the water? Only thing I can think of to change is a fresh batch of charcoal and get the gassifier raging hot with blower fan before starting the engine and see if throttle response improves?
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As far as the hose diameter, it matches the ID of the rest of the hard line from the reactor. 2" ID conduit and PVC.
But yeah I think it’s not pulling hard enough.
I noticed I couldn’t reach redline even with no load on the engine so the gas must be really weak. When I get some more rubber couplings I’m going to try to plumb this into the Sierra’s 4.3l and see if it will drive that.
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I’m also going to bulk order some SS scrubbing pads and fill the void of the filter box with that to help cool the gas more. Higher gas demand will probably make it run super hot.
Did you advance timing yet? And do you have an afr gauge to see how close the mixture is to stoichiometric target?
Not yet, but I plan on getting an AFR gauge soon even if it’s just a narrow band.
And I haven’t adjusted the timing yet but it’s very accessible.
I’m glad my new exhaust still has an O2 bung for a gauge.
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In your video it sounded ok I didn’t hear any pops are farts, but timing should help throttle response and in turn with high rpm more air flow to pull harder on the gassifier
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It definitely doesn’t help that I’m using sub standard hose so I can’t rule out air leaks right now. I’m going to test this again once I get more PVC to properly plumb it into the engine.
The butterfly was almost closed to get it to run at all.
I also had made sure to warm up the gasifier before running it to the engine, waited until i could see that all the flute holes were lit and glowing brightly through the holes.
Also warmed up the truck to make sure the choke wasn’t messing anything up.
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I think you are doing well for a first start. This is more complicated than the stuff I have built and even that had some ups and downs. If you think that hose is an issue wrap it with some good tape and eliminate that as a issue. I wouldn’t abandon ship just yet. It all looks real good.
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The fact that it runs at all is assuring. I think that with this particular vehicle though I need something with less drag on the system like a cross draft.
I would test this on the Cherokee but it has so many vacuum leaks it isn’t funny.
I still have 3 unused 55 gallon drums with lids ready to go.
If I were to go about with a cross draft I would make it water jacketed like what @Chuckw uses. Wondering if a 1" ID nozzle is enough for that, I’m awful at sizing for engines. I could make a sideways grate/blast shield for the gas exit out of the side of a propane tank, I have gobs of those already purged. I have two big fire extinguishers ready to be made into cyclone filters when I need those.
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Charcoal can adsorb a lot of water. I agree that fresh charcoal is needed. I sure hope this water mystery can be solved.
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I will resonate what everyone else has said.
fresh dry charcoal should help a lot I don’t see how you are getting that much water into a charcoal gasifier if the char is dry unless you air inlet has gotten confused with a water spigot or something 
.
Also if you have to close off your air valve to make it run then you have an air leak or a few.
It can not be your filter that is too tight, so you do not get speed on the air?
Can you not try anything else, foam rubber mattress of about 4 "works quite well.
Thats just not how a charcoal gasifier works. I dont get it. Rewached the video. It is wery possible your problems are weak gas related rather thain air leaks. But why the gas is weak is beond me.
You probably dont have a hot leak (gas burning inside). Moist weak gas is a simptom of that but the temps are too cold. And a char gasifier shuld never produce that much water, let alone a DOWNDRAFT!
I dont think dryer charcoal will do much metter. Water is a sign of a gasifier not working properly and if it doesent crack water properly it will not crack other gases properly. Weak gas.
A tight bed fits low power with good idle and closed up air valve. But not the water.
Or, culd the grate be so plugged the engine cant suck in enaugh gas, in term not geting up to water cracking temps? Its a posibility!
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The reactor got jostled around a good bit before I tested it yesterday, and I had driven around before testing as well so any bumps would have shaken the unit. Not sure.
The reactor was about half old charcoal and half newer charcoal at the top. I didn’t add any water to the char and I have removed the char that did have water added.
I’m going to rotate the flutes to a downward angle again and see if that gets me better gas. Maybe the slightly upward angle isn’t letting the flame fronts meet each other.
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I kinda wanted to add a small roots supercharger to this truck maybe I should to bump up the air volume 
Nah that would make life worse for me.
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Before I go modifying the reactor itself I decided to put it on the Sierra for final testing at this jet angle. Going to try to use just PVC to route to the engine. Bought 20 feet of 2" sch40 PVC and once I get the routing figured out I’ll cement them in place to be extra sure it’ll be sealed. Luckily since the Sierra is a V6 I have gobs of room to bring in the gas line.
Found a neat elbow that runs 3"-3"-2". I’ll cut the intake at one of the elbows to replace with that if I can get it to reliably drive.
Luckily I can test it all before having to permanently modify it.