Motor Zipper, (gas saver)

[T120]

During WWII with gasoline rationing in effect, a company in Calgary,Alberta was selling this device they claimed would increase gas mileage.The top info sheet supplied explains the theory of operation and the bottom sheet has testimonials. It wasn't cheap,$9.85, in 1942.....?

  

 

 

[DJ194950]

Are those available now for new cars and trucks, they are certainly needed badly.  ?

 

Any engineers/machinists on the forum?  Please help your forum members!!!  WE NEED YOU_ NOW!  ??

 

DJ

[plymjim]

Found a similar device in my old Almquist Engineering catalog

from the early 60's called a "Mini Supercharger". Available for

single, 2, & 4 barrel carbs. It had a little fan in a plate that was 

inserted between the carb & manifold. Cute but did it work??

Sorry I can't post a photo but the scan came out too big (6.4 mg whatever that means).

By the way, they were $8.95, $10.95 & $15.95 for 1, 2, & 4 barrel versions.

[Plymouthy Adams]

be unique to find one of these just for the fact of display at cruise in and such as a conversation starter.  Hopefully they did not all disintegrate and got ingested into the engine.  Like the Pogue carb...bought up and placed aside as a threat to the fuel suppliers at best one of the biggest conspiracies since Roswell.   I still like to look at all the add on that say get this much fuel saving here and so much over there and well next thing you know you losing all your driving time to having to stop and drain excess fuel from your tank with enough power from the engine to escape earth gravity and orbit the earth. 

[T120]

I can see what the idea was behind the design. The one I have doesn't appear to have been installed. I'm skeptical of any advantage more than a properly tuned would provide ... It will remain a conversation piece. ?

 

[DonaldSmith]

I think most gas saving wonder devices are fancy in theory, with disappointing real-world results.  

The old saw is that the auto makers and oil companies conspire against such devices. 

But in wartime, I would think that, if the device really worked, the  government would ramp up production and mandate its use.   

[Plymouthy Adams]

IF the whirling of the fan is directly dependent on the inrush of air through the carb body as developed by the downstroke of the piston....then I would think the loss of air flow to drive the impeller would be greater than the effect of the impeller to accelerate further and the inrush of air through that side jet over overrides a spring with suction....how are you going to change metering for the fuel as it is control by the jet and venturi effect taking place above this device......could be wrong here but hard to visualize how this small added charge of induction of air could boost the charge of A/F as it is robbing air movement to create a unknown air movement....this the effectiveness of this would be phycological at best.  Like folks who over carb an engine and kick it down for a lag only to have the engine recover and pick up speed, the seat of the pants power effect without regard to the speed and power drop and recovery time taken in consideration.  Like so many that pop up the cam duration and lift for added HP and never read the fine print where you just lost 20-30 HP at street RPM where the car is drive 95% of the time usually at a tradeoff to less than desirable street manners.

[DJ194950]

Maybe so Plymouthy,  with the big cams and carbs the boys on the downtown Saturday night cruise were  Very impressed with the rough idle like a drag car.

Might have difficult to breath behind the car for the unburnt fuel, but sure  Sounded fast.  ?

 

Fast?  Could not past a gas station!

 

DJ

 

 

[plymjim]

  Hey, if any of those things really worked you would still be

able to get them but not for $8.95. Am I right?

  May I side track here for a minute & tell you about

a "gas additive" my cousin invented years ago. 

  He had a clapped out Model A in which the fuel tank

had been relocated to the rumble seat. He would pull into a filling station,

take their water hose & proceed to fill the "gas tank" on the cowl

with water, then take an aspirin tablet out of his pocket & chuck

it into the tank, then start the car.

  Onlookers were offered the "gas tablets" for a small fee.

Don't send out the fraud squad. He's been dead for years.

I have been given this story  as truth but you be the judge. (place smiley face here)

[T120]

The #3 part in the diagram referred to as the "air whirler", it would appear doesn't actually physically spin. The triangular shape of the fins projecting towards the intake are bent such that I gather are supposed to creates a whirling effect, (turbulence?) on the fuel air mixture as it rushes by. The air intake above is adjustable. I'm not confident that it  would work as a gas saver. ?

[Tooljunkie]

A youtuber recently installed a lawnmower carburetor on his ford 302. And engineered a metered vacuum leak controlled digitally to keep the air/fuel ratio at optimum mixture. 70 mph and was getting 40 ish mpg. 
thunderhead289 is his handle if you want to check it out. 
 

there was a vortex type block available for later model vehicles,cant see how it worked but people bought them. 

[Ulu]

They started putting fins in the carb throat in the early slant-six days.

 

I remember a friend breaking them out to make the car go faster. It went slower until he also removed the muffler.

[Ulu]

BTW you don’t need some gizmo to make the air swirl. You stick a “finger” into the airflow and a vortex will shed from the tip.

 

Because the airflow over the sides of the “finger” (fin) will never be perfectly equal, when you get to the tip, one flow will spin the other into a little tornado.

 

This is a form of drag on an aircraft wing and they do special things to the wings to control this extra drag.

 

and while this vortex in your carburetor might increase atomization and fuel economy at low to normal speeds, when you stick something in your Venturi you’re decreasing the area of your wide-open throttle.

 

Now you have to make the carburetor a little bit bigger. It was a dead end technology. Everybody wanted to make the carburetor smaller to save money. A snake eating its own tail.

 

Nowadays all that swirling action is modeled into the airflow on computers, and you’re not going to improve it in most cases without a lot of knowledge.

 

Where will you be able to improve it?

 

In cases where the manufacturer decided they would sacrifice a little bit in order to save money on production.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Ulu

[ggdad1951]

All such are snake oil IMO.  Just like cow magnets in the 70's people were putting on their fuel lines....

 

[Sniper]

the most generous thing that could be said about this device is that it helps break up the fuel droplets.  Allowing a more consistent fuel/air mix.

[T120]

Some of you may have guessed, I'm a sucker for picking up period items for servicing old vehicles ,also some accessory items that were meant to improve performance - not so much the bling  type accessory items, (not my preference).

As mentioned ,the "Motor Zipper" photos I posted are an item I bought that was marketed locally in southern Alberta during  WWII to conserve gasoline which was being rationed to aid in the war effort. When the price of gasoline was in the order of 20 cents a gallon, this device was selling at $9.85 - Not cheap. According to the CPI (consumer price index) calculator, In today's dollars, that would be around $3.25 per  gallon for gas,while the "Motor Zipper" would cost around $160.

I don't plan to use it, I bought it at a sale for a little more than the original price in 1942 dollars.

It doesn't take up much space in my garage and as Plymouthy suggested, it is more of a conversation item.

Ulu had, I thought, good points regarding the idea behind the design. 

[Kilgore47]

WOW $9.85 was probably two or three days pay back then.  If I see one of those I'll pick it up also.  Fun display piece at cruise night.