Vapor carburation

[Hickory]

Has anyone besides myself played with vapor carburation. I think our old cars are prime candidate's 

[desoto1939]

Hickory: What are you asking.  All cars vaporise the fuel. The fuel come into the carb and then gets mixed with air. It is not a stream of gas but atomized fuel with air mixture.

either with an up draft or down draft carb.

Rich Hartung

[Sniper]

That gas isn't vaporized, it is atomized, which is not the same thing in the context of what I think Hickory is referring to.  In this case, atomized means very small liquid state particles and vaporized means gasoline that has gone from liquid to gaseous state.

 

 

[OUTFXD]

I think he is reffering to the "fish" carberator system,  that allegedly got 30-60 % fuel mileage increase on a v-8  before the inventor got a visit from the government and the carberator vanished ovbernight.

[Hickory]

Sniper is correct, the first vapor carb set-up I had included heating the gas using a heater core. You use a pool of gas and draw intake air across the top of it. Burning just fumes a car gets unbelievable fuel mileage but runs cleaned and more efficient. Less carbon build up ect. The trade off is dangerous fuel fumes are flammable and a backfire becomes a bomb.

[Hickory]

So back in 1990 we built one on a 78 Chevy Silverado and got 65 mpg on that old pig. We also had a fire causing me to dump the system. But last night I was thinking about the backfire issues and how people are putting half assed check valves in their homemade systems. I think I came up with a whole new system in my head. Cold starts and backfires are an issue that can be rectified by using a screw style blower. This has me dreaming again about fitting another system to a flathead with a small blower.

[Los_Control]

27 minutes ago, Hickory said:

Has anyone besides myself played with vapor carburation. I think our old cars are prime candidate's 

 

 

Just now, Hickory said:

The trade off is dangerous fuel fumes are flammable and a backfire becomes a bomb.

 

 

Hrm ... A 70 year old carburetor car with cheap Chinese  ignition system parts available .... Hrm!

[OUTFXD]

Not the "fish system" but it is what I was thinking of,   Cant remember what the system was called but Ill keep looking and update when I find out.  

 

Keep me informed as to what you find out.  After my stroke in 2012 I shifted from modifying cars for horsepower to modifying cars for milage.  

 

I had a 93 Geo Metro with 200,000 miles tjat got 56 MPG standard and a one time best of 62 mpg.  Mainly through Streamlining and driving practices

[Hickory]

One of the original designs was the pogue design. 

 

[Hickory]

Read the story and the car. It was a 29 imperial.

[desoto1939]

4 hours ago, OUTFXD said:

Not the "fish system" but it is what I was thinking of,   Cant remember what the system was called but Ill keep looking and update when I find out.  

 

Keep me informed as to what you find out.  After my stroke in 2012 I shifted from modifying cars for horsepower to modifying cars for milage.  

 

I had a 93 Geo Metro with 200,000 miles tjat got 56 MPG standard and a one time best of 62 mpg.  Mainly through Streamlining and driving practices

So if you could get 56-62 mpg with an older car then why is the gov't not pushing the car manufacturers to get the same mileage results.  There was a ford car that was donated to the Boyertown Transportation museum back in the 70's if i remember correctly. That car was set up to get 60+ mpg then and was during the Gas embargo era.  So our technology is there but there is greed that is stopping this technology from being implemented.

 

Rich Hartung

[OUTFXD]

6 hours ago, desoto1939 said:

So if you could get 56-62 mpg with an older car then why is the gov't not pushing the car manufacturers to get the same mileage results.  There was a ford car that was donated to the Boyertown Transportation museum back in the 70's if i remember correctly. That car was set up to get 60+ mpg then and was during the Gas embargo era.  So our technology is there but there is greed that is stopping this technology from being implemented.

 

Rich Hartung

Well said!  Well said...

[Hickory]

Tons of people have got over 100 mpg in the past playing with carburation. There is a greed and money aspect to this and big company interference. And of course a performance want from the general public. There is a small performance drop to achieve the great fuel mileage. But my recent dream of using a super charger as a check valve for safety would also increase performance and efficiency.

[Hickory]

This is a similar system to what I have done 

[Sniper]

I recently watched a YouTube video from a guy that ran a lawn mower carb on his Maverick, with a 302.  With no real special effort he got 40mpg.

 

 

[Hickory]

I watched that to. Interesting but it seems like wot would suck without a acceleration pump. I would think it would fall on its face and then recover.

[Hickory]

In our design (my father and me) we did not use air from around the exhaust, cool air more power. I was only 15 at the time and not knowing then how backwoods my father was the vapor carb we built worked, the selection of materials did not. My father used moms vacuum cleaner hoses on it and the fuel are it away causing the small fire. Boy I miss that old farmer. I think I want another run at it with my modern skills.

[soth122003]

I have to say damn if that wasn't impressive!! You may be sacrificing some get up and go, but the run ability with the gas mileage is very impressive. Makes you wonder how it would work on a flathead?

 

Joe Lee

[FarmerJon]

I have heard that back in the '50s many fuel company's would convert their delivery trucks to propane, due to how cheap it was (byproduct, not yet popular with consumers) 

Some used "dual fuel" conversions that kept the gasoline carb but could switch over to propane. These didn't perform very well.

Others set them up with dedicated propane fuel metering. (Just like a forklift) These, especially straight sixes, preformed generally better than the gas, due to significantly better air/fuel mixture and distribution. 

They also lived longer, since propane engines don't get carbon and sludge build up like gas ones do. 

 

I would think our flathead sixes would see similar gains from your vapor carb.

However, there is one aspect I don't understand:

If you use hot coolant to vaporize the fuel, how do you cold start the thing?

[Hickory]

Draw air into the liquid fuel to cause bubbles. You can use a choke cable and plate to slowly switch between the two systems. That's why I feel a belt driven supercharger screw style would be an improvement.

[Sniper]

8 minutes ago, Hickory said:

I watched that to. Interesting but it seems like wot would suck without a acceleration pump. I would think it would fall on its face and then recover.

 

I think it works as a sort of Atkinson cycle variant, where the fuel air mixture isn't sufficient for full power but it takes advantage of the longer stroke to get more use out of what it has.

[Merle Coggins]

2 hours ago, FarmerJon said:

I have heard that back in the '50s many fuel company's would convert their delivery trucks to propane, due to how cheap it was (byproduct, not yet popular with consumers) 

Some used "dual fuel" conversions that kept the gasoline carb but could switch over to propane. These didn't perform very well.

Others set them up with dedicated propane fuel metering. (Just like a forklift) These, especially straight sixes, preformed generally better than the gas, due to significantly better air/fuel mixture and distribution. 

They also lived longer, since propane engines don't get carbon and sludge build up like gas ones do. 

 

I would think our flathead sixes would see similar gains from your vapor carb.

However, there is one aspect I don't understand:

If you use hot coolant to vaporize the fuel, how do you cold start the thing?

 

When I first got promoted from the shop into a service truck I was issued a 1985 GMC 3500 with a 454 that ran on gas or propane. It had a 70 gallon propane tank in the bed along with the stock gas tank. It didn't have as much power when running on propane, but it ran very smooth. You could really lug it down without it chugging and bucking. The downside was cold starts in the winter. If I knew it would be below freezing in the mornings I'd switch it back to gas before parking it so it would start easy in the morning. If it was too cold the propane wouldn't flow through the regulator to supply the engine with enough fuel. There were coolant hoses routed through the regulator to warm it up, so once the engine was warm you could switch it back over. Switching back and forth was a process... From gas to propane you'd switch off the fuel pump and let it run the carb dry, then activate the valve for the propane. From propane back to gas was a similar process. This one would take more time for the engine to 'catch' as the float bowl would have to refill with gas. This worked best when driving down the road so that you could use your momentum to keep the engine spinning until it had enough gas to relight the engine. Ahhh... memories... 

[Sniper]

2 hours ago, Hickory said:

Draw air into the liquid fuel to cause bubbles. You can use a choke cable and plate to slowly switch between the two systems. That's why I feel a belt driven supercharger screw style would be an improvement.

 

Interesting sort of test

 

 

[OUTFXD]

On 7/26/2023 at 6:50 AM, Sniper said:

recently watched a YouTube video from a guy that ran a lawn mower carb on his Maverick, with a 302.  With no real special effort he got 40mpg.

 

I love that video!  My favorite part is at the end where he is all quite and contemplative "I could release a bitchin Ytube video,  but I might get disappeared by the CIA"

[OUTFXD]

 

21 hours ago, Sniper said:

Interesting sort of test

2-3% mileage increase may not seam like much,  but on a vehicle that gets 50-100 MPG 2-3% increase is actually pretty significant! (Replying to the video)