For the woodgas throttle I am wondering how small I can really go. I have some junked Honda GY6 clone carburetor but their ID is 26mm. Pretty small.
Edit: nevermind they apparently are an electronic throttle. Bogus.
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I still have the original Mazda/Mitsubishi 2 barrel carb. I may see about modifying that. Unfortunately you can’t adjust the lean/rich needle though. If I feel confident in that I may go for the full plunge with the Weber.
https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/dual-fuel-carburetor-zmaz83jfzraw/
It appears that MEN used an Autolite 5200 which was just a licensed Weber 32/36. Might be easier than I thought. Only issue is I have a DGEV(electric choke) and they used a DGV. This can be solved by just making my air adjustment at the air cleaner like I already have it.
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What I might do is use the primary barrel as woodgas, and the secondary for gasoline. I’m not sure if they had tried this but on their build they always go for a separate throttle lever for woodgas.
When it comes to carburetors I know next to nothing, especially when it comes to specifics. Did the Autolite/Motorcraft/Weber carbs have an idle circuit in each barrel or only in the primary barrel? Maybe this is why they chose to use the secondary barrel for woodgas and use a separate throttle.
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MEN used a GM quadrajet carb, it is a 4 barrel.
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They also used an Autolite in their 6 cylinder sawmill. Check out the article I linked.
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I understand why guys using engines with MPFI hybrid with gasoline. Makes no sense with carbs. Propane requires no fuel pump, does not clog jets, is simple to retrofit and if for many reasons gasoline became unavailable there will still be a million propane tanks sitting under BBQ grills all over America. Plus it has no problems with long term storage unlike even treated Gasoline.
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I have a self use level permit for alcohol fuel so I’ve got that covered.
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Back in the day Alcohol as an alternate fuel was the big thing. Not that easy. It will not vaporize under a certain temp. If you look back at those old MEN articles you will see that they all used a pre-heater ahead of the carbs. I gave up on the idea 50 years ago when it became obvious I was never going to be able to produce the feed stock, primarily corn, to ever make quantities in enough gallons to replace gasoline. You may have a better plan.
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For the most part I want to design the Mazda so I won’t be stranded if I run out of either gas or wood. As easy as it would be to make this wood only there may be a day where I have a ton of issues or I’m low on fuel.
This Mazda does still have preheating in the intake manifold, coolant line runs right through it. I still have the warming pad too.
Luckily I could run it primarily on gasoline with liquid fuel and if it looks like gas gets too expensive then I’ll make it start up and stop on alcohol instead. She runs super rich right now with the snorkel I put in.
I’m also super paranoid of propane and woodgas being in the same vehicle. Bad luck follows me like a shadow.
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Over 40 years ago I went to meet a guy that heated his house with alcohol. He planted 1 acre of sorghum sugar cane, he mowed it like hay, took it to an old wringer washing machine, squeezed the juice out. He then fermented it and had a still made from a electric water tank. Filled his oil tanks for oil furnace with the final product, had to adjust air/fuel.
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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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