100 mpg carburator

[kallend 2,146]

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>If combustion continues in the exhaust system (catalytic converter)
>that energy is wasted as far as moving the vehicle is concerned.

Right. Which is why the oxygen sensor system keeps combustion stochiometric (or slightly lean of stochiometric.) Significant amounts of unburned fuel in the catalytic converter will quickly destroy it; most catalytic converters see such amounts of unburned fuel only when the system has failed and is running open loop, or on startup where the mixture is purposely enriched to aid starting and to "light off" the catalytic converter (since it must be hot to operate correctly.)

Generally the catalytic converter does three things:

-Turns NOx (nitrous oxides) into nitrogen and oxygen
-Turns CO (carbon monoxide) into CO2
-Turns unburned HC (hydrocarbons) into CO2 and H20

For every mole of CO rather than CO2 that passes the exhaust valves you lose 283kJ of energy.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Gawain 0]

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The American auto industry UNIONS were the downfall of the American auto industry.

Fixed it for you. Car Manufacturers are doing GREAT in the Non-Union South East US.

To blame the ills of the U.S. auto industry on unions is short sighted.

Auto manufacturers did just fine with unions for decades. It was a combination of factors, including non-union competition from foreign manufacturers that contributed to the issues, but the unions, in and of themselves were and are not THE problem.

THE problem is that for a long time US companies were making crap cars that few people wanted to buy.

I have to disagree with you here. Between $2-4000 of every Chevy made goes solely to pay healthcare for unionized workers. Their pension overhead is somewhere in the neighborhood of $6B. When GM didn't mind making money only on Trucks (enough to cover the horrendous losses on many other vehicles), they didn't mind cow-towing to the Union demands.

When GM wants or needs concessions though, the UAW is not willing to do what it takes to survive. So, now GM is forced to cut the workforce. Ford had to buy out its employees. Chrysler is hopefully up to a new start under private ownership.

I'm not anti-union, but the workers are being sorely misrepresented.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[kelpdiver 2]

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Their pension overhead is somewhere in the neighborhood of $6B.

How is pension mismanagement (not contributing during the boom years is exactly that) the fault of the employees?

This sounds much like MLB baseball owners complaining about the high player salaries. The ones they signed a contract to pay.

The only bit I can't fault them too badly for is the health care problem - that's a national problem that just affects older, bigger, companies more.

[willard 0]

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The American auto industry UNIONS were the downfall of the American auto industry.

Fixed it for you. Car Manufacturers are doing GREAT in the Non-Union South East US.

Nonsense. The management is tasked with managing the company.

You mean the auto makers in the south-east aren't doing well?

[willard 0]

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>I was all for the hybrid cars, but they are not the solution either.
>Overstated mileage, and how much to replace the batteries in the Pruis?
>Thousands. Someday you will have to foot that bill.

?? The cars wear out before the batteries do. And most people understand they will have to replace their car someday.

(freethefly said)

>In order to make an engine more efficient, you have to be able to burn
>as much of the fuel taken in as possible.

Agreed - and modern cars DO burn all the fuel taken in. They're closed loop systems. If the car is exhausting unburned gas, the mixture is leaned until you get complete combustion, then leaned a little _more_ until there is a little excess O2 in the exhaust. That's what the oxygen sensor does.

>In the old days we used points.

Ignition systems have very little to do with how much fuel is burned. If ignition begins at all, the flame front propagates until everything is burned. It's like lighting a bonfire. Are bonfires lit with blowtorches bigger/hotter/more impressive than bonfires lit with a match? Nope, it's mainly what's in the bonfire that makes the difference.

Not helping things is the fact that IC engines are extremely inefficient when it comes to converting the enrgy contained in fuel into forward motion. If a car can get 20% of the energy from a gallon of fuel transfered to motion it is doing VERY well. Most operate around 15%. As we both know almost all the rest is lost through the radiator, exhaust pipe, etc.

[billvon 3,107]

>If a car can get 20% of the energy from a gallon of fuel transfered to
>motion it is doing VERY well.

True. It takes some esoteric technologies (like the Atkinson cycle engine in the Prius) to get over that. Thermodynamic efficiency is around 38% for an Atkinson; gas-to-wheels is about 30%. Ironically some is lost due to the regen system, but overall mileage goes up because it's recovering 'lost' energy from braking.

[sundevil777 102]

I met a guy a few months ago that claimed to know the guy that invented it! He started going on about how one of the big 3 automakers bought it to keep it from the public, blah, blah.

If it could, or had been done as has been claimed (just a carb, to an otherwise regular vehicle) then it would also have been done by others. At the risk of using an analogy, to claim that the desire to keep this off the market would outweigh the business advantage to be had is like claiming that a missile hit the Pentagon.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[quade 4]

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I met a guy a few months ago that claimed to know the guy that invented it! He started going on about how one of the big 3 automakers bought it to keep it from the public, blah, blah.

I have a freekish interest when it comes to talking with loonies. I'd -love- to be able to talk with this guy.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[dorbie 0]

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For every mole of CO rather than CO2 that passes the exhaust valves you lose 283kJ of energy.

How much is that in bananas per furlong?

[sfzombie13 324]

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>Have you ever driven one of those crap cars?

Yes, I was using the literary device called sarcasm, always a danger around here. Diesels are good engines, and a diesel hybrid based on EPA 07 diesel emissions standards might well push 100mpg even with current technology - and be relatively clean.

relatively? if someone were to use a little inventiveness, they are totally emissions free: when you mix vegatable oil with a couple of things, you get biodiesel and the only emission is water. if the govt had balls, they could do away with gasoline engines in 10 years, requiring diesel hybrids to replace gas engines, and all diesel to be biodiesel. if that is, there weren't so much profit in oil.

_________________________________________
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes

[dorbie 0]

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when you mix vegatable oil with a couple of things, you get biodiesel and the only emission is water.

Only Hydrogen has that characteristic.

[sundevil777 102]

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when you mix vegatable oil with a couple of things, you get biodiesel and the only emission is water.

Only Hydrogen has that characteristic.

Quite right, hydrocarbons have carbon, so it usually goes out as carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide.

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[billvon 3,107]

>and the only emission is water.

Nope, you still get CO2 and HC emissions and NOx. (Air has nitrogen in it; diesels operate at high temperatures, so you get nitrogen and oxygen combined to make NOx.) You can consider the CO2 neutral since CO2 is used to grow the plants though.

[freethefly 6]

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Ignition systems have very little to do with how much fuel is burned.

Not so. Ask anyone who has been around racecars and streetrods. A weak ignition means a weak engine. If ignition had very little to do with burning the fuel, companies such as Accel, D.U.I., Mallory or MSD would not be sought after for high performance ignitions. NASCAR and NHRA teams do not use stock ignitions due to their weak spark. One of the first things that a streetrodder sends to the waste bin is the weak stock ignition. Stock HEI systems have weak coils and unreliable HEI amplifier modules. Past a certian rpm point, such as 4500 rpm, you simply are not burning all of your fuel resulting in cylinder load up. A stock coil puts out, I'm guessing, about 30,000 volts? Where as a performance coil gives you 45,000 to over 50,000 volts and burns the fuel more completely. Other componets come into play such as spark plugs (plug type and gap is extremely important), modules for dwell control for coil charging, spark wires that are compatible for your system, a high performance distributor to get the fire where it belongs (advance weights and springs, bushings, capacitor, rotor and cap as well as bearings and the vacuum advance cannister), a good timing chain (a slack chain causes erratic timing making all the other parts not able to perform their duty), properly adjusted valves, properly prepared heads (valve grinds, seats, springs), a compatible intake system (whether it's carburator, TBI or FI) and exhaust system. Any of these things that are not up to snuff will cause problems, loss of HP, weak acceleration and low mpg. The ignition system is the heart of your engine. Any amount of fuel that is not burned throughout the ignition stroke is fuel lost. Even with closed loop systems there are variables that come into play that can cause problems that are not readily noticable. Sensors over time become unreliable rsulting in less than favorable conditions in the fuel/air mixture. Anything less than a 14.7 to 1 ratio is a loss of hp and lower mpg.
I personally prefer carburation and no computer systems to monitor my engine. But, then I am a gearhead and just enjoy working on engines. My 355 chevy had zero pollution controls, except for a hp catback connected to headers, on it and passed an emission test with flying colors. It ultimately failed inspection in St. Louis county due to lack of devices. I went and registered it in another county that did not have the Clean Air rule. Most problems can be overcomed with a combination of componets designed to work together.
Side note; when I bought my El Camino, the guy before me had swapped out the 305 heads and replaced them with heads from a 350. 350 heads on a 305 will cause lower compression resulting in cylinder load up, weak acceleration and lousey mpg. A wet cylinder will not fire properly. I replaced those heads with hp 305 heads and also swapped out the 305 cam for a Crane 327, 300hp fireball cam and also swapped in the MSD 6AL along with headers and a catback. I eventually swapped out engines from the 305 to the 355. Due to a weak componet, rocker studs, I ventilated the engine.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[idrankwhat 0]

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>and the only emission is water.

Nope, you still get CO2 and HC emissions and NOx. (Air has nitrogen in it; diesels operate at high temperatures, so you get nitrogen and oxygen combined to make NOx.) You can consider the CO2 neutral since CO2 is used to grow the plants though.

The newer ultra low sulfur diesel fuels are much much lower in sulfur and I think that by 2010 the EPA has mandated that all stations carry ULSD. In addition, the post combustion clean up systems are getting better. There's a Selective Reduction Catalyst system that uses urea to supposedly reduce the NOx's to nitrogen and water.

[willard 0]

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Ignition systems have very little to do with how much fuel is burned.

Not so. Ask anyone who has been around racecars and streetrods. A weak ignition means a weak engine. If ignition had very little to do with burning the fuel, companies such as Accel, D.U.I., Mallory or MSD would not be sought after for high performance ignitions. NASCAR and NHRA teams do not use stock ignitions due to their weak spark. One of the first things that a streetrodder sends to the waste bin is the weak stock ignition. Stock HEI systems have weak coils and unreliable HEI amplifier modules. Past a certian rpm point, such as 4500 rpm, you simply are not burning all of your fuel resulting in cylinder load up. A stock coil puts out, I'm guessing, about 30,000 volts? Where as a performance coil gives you 45,000 to over 50,000 volts and burns the fuel more completely. Other componets come into play such as spark plugs (plug type and gap is extremely important), modules for dwell control for coil charging, spark wires that are compatible for your system, a high performance distributor to get the fire where it belongs (advance weights and springs, bushings, capacitor, rotor and cap as well as bearings and the vacuum advance cannister), a good timing chain (a slack chain causes erratic timing making all the other parts not able to perform their duty), properly adjusted valves, properly prepared heads (valve grinds, seats, springs), a compatible intake system (whether it's carburator, TBI or FI) and exhaust system. Any of these things that are not up to snuff will cause problems, loss of HP, weak acceleration and low mpg. The ignition system is the heart of your engine. Any amount of fuel that is not burned throughout the ignition stroke is fuel lost. Even with closed loop systems there are variables that come into play that can cause problems that are not readily noticable. Sensors over time become unreliable rsulting in less than favorable conditions in the fuel/air mixture. Anything less than a 14.7 to 1 ratio is a loss of hp and lower mpg.
I personally prefer carburation and no computer systems to monitor my engine. But, then I am a gearhead and just enjoy working on engines. My 355 chevy had zero pollution controls, except for a hp catback connected to headers, on it and passed an emission test with flying colors. It ultimately failed inspection in St. Louis county due to lack of devices. I went and registered it in another county that did not have the Clean Air rule. Most problems can be overcomed with a combination of componets designed to work together.
Side note; when I bought my El Camino, the guy before me had swapped out the 305 heads and replaced them with heads from a 350. 350 heads on a 305 will cause lower compression resulting in cylinder load up, weak acceleration and lousey mpg. A wet cylinder will not fire properly. I replaced those heads with hp 305 heads and also swapped out the 305 cam for a Crane 327, 300hp fireball cam and also swapped in the MSD 6AL along with headers and a catback. I eventually swapped out engines from the 305 to the 355. Due to a weak componet, rocker studs, I ventilated the engine.

Ignition systems have everything in the world to do with how the fuel is ignited, but once that occures how the fuel burns is, for the most part, independent of how it was ignited.

[kallend 2,146]

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The American auto industry UNIONS were the downfall of the American auto industry.

Fixed it for you. Car Manufacturers are doing GREAT in the Non-Union South East US.

Nonsense. The management is tasked with managing the company.

You mean the auto makers in the south-east aren't doing well?

No, it means exactly what it says: that management is responsible for managing the company - don't blame the unions for management's shortcomings.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[willard 0]

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The American auto industry UNIONS were the downfall of the American auto industry.

Fixed it for you. Car Manufacturers are doing GREAT in the Non-Union South East US.

Nonsense. The management is tasked with managing the company.

You mean the auto makers in the south-east aren't doing well?

No, it means exactly what it says: that management is responsible for managing the company - don't blame the unions for management's shortcomings.

So sorry, I thought you were replying to the statement concerning the status of automakers in the southeast since that was the post your reply was quoting.
As far as who is to blame...unions or management...they both can claim a share. Neither is without fault. How much of that blame falls on each is a matter of opinion, a debate that has been ongoing for years and will, most likely, never be settled. Since I witnessed first hand the downfall of a company as a direct result of a union I tend to place more of the blame on them. You may see things differently and probably do.

[Thanatos340 1]

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Ignition systems have everything in the world to do with how the fuel is ignited, but once that occures how the fuel burns is, for the most part, independent of how it was ignited.

An MSD System (Multiple Spark Discharge) can greatly improve Combustion and improve Fuel Economy by ensuring that more fuel is ignited with the Cylinder and greatly improves horsepower.

[willard 0]

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Ignition systems have everything in the world to do with how the fuel is ignited, but once that occures how the fuel burns is, for the most part, independent of how it was ignited.

An MSD System (Multiple Spark Discharge) can greatly improve Combustion and improve Fuel Economy by ensuring that more fuel is ignited with the Cylinder and greatly improves horsepower.

Absolutely. An MSB ignition does provide for a greater opportunity for ignition to take place.
But that is still part of the ignition sequence, not the burn sequence.
Burn characteristics are influenced by, among other things, compression ratio, piston shape & texture, combustion chamber shape & texture, pre-ignition and post-ignition turbulence, spark plug position, piston speed, and thermal properties of the cumbustion area.
The greatest influence the ignition sequence has on the burn characteristics is ignition timing.
I have nothing against an MSD unit and have recommended them to people before. They are a good ignition and worth the money. One thing that does show up on the dyno and at the track is that the better the ignition system is designed and installed before MSD the less of a difference will be seen.

[billvon 3,107]

>There's a Selective Reduction Catalyst system that uses urea
>to supposedly reduce the NOx's to nitrogen and water.

Yep. As with gas engines, there are several ways to clean up the waste products of diesel engines. Since they are inherently lean burn engines, though, it's a lot harder to run a catalytic converter in their waste stream. Hence the need for urea or equivalent.

[billvon 3,107]

>An MSD System (Multiple Spark Discharge) can greatly improve
> Combustion and improve Fuel Economy by ensuring that more fuel is
>ignited with the Cylinder and greatly improves horsepower.

Not really. Once ignition begins, repeated sparking just sends a spark through burned gases, and doesn't contribute much to energy. Multiple spark sources can improve efficiency (depending on engine design) by allowing more rapid combustion (two locations to begin propagation) but that's because both are firing in a combustible mixture.

[kallend 2,146]

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For every mole of CO rather than CO2 that passes the exhaust valves you lose 283kJ of energy.

How much is that in bananas per furlong?

Forty-two.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Krip 2]

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I met a guy a few months ago that claimed to know the guy that invented it! He started going on about how one of the big 3 automakers bought it to keep it from the public, blah, blah.

If it could, or had been done as has been claimed (just a carb, to an otherwise regular vehicle) then it would also have been done by others. At the risk of using an analogy, to claim that the desire to keep this off the market would outweigh the business advantage to be had is like claiming that a missile hit the Pentagon.

Hi Sundevil

How the hell are you
I've been toying with the idea of tuning up my neighbors car (Mcnasty) so he could get 100mpg.

Easy enough to do all it would take is a 5 gallon gas can and a nightly visit to his car.

Mcnasty: "Honey have you filled the car with gas lately? Why no dear I thought you had" God Damn Our prayers have been answered We're getting 100mpg thank you lord

Try it you might like it
R.I.P.

R.I.P.

[freethefly 6]

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>An MSD System (Multiple Spark Discharge) can greatly improve
> Combustion and improve Fuel Economy by ensuring that more fuel is
>ignited with the Cylinder and greatly improves horsepower.

Not really. Once ignition begins, repeated sparking just sends a spark through burned gases, and doesn't contribute much to energy. Multiple spark sources can improve efficiency (depending on engine design) by allowing more rapid combustion (two locations to begin propagation) but that's because both are firing in a combustible mixture.

From the MSD website.
WHY DO YOU NEED AN MSD?

Most performance enthusiasts know that one of the first things you do to increase power from a vehicle is to add an ignition with a hotter spark, such as an MSD. If you really stop and think about this, why isn't just one small spark sufficient? In the cylinder you have a finely atomized mixture of oxygen and highly combustible fuel under compression. Common sense would say that if just one tiny spark occurs, there will be a big explosion and combustion of the air/fuel mixture will occur in the cylinder.

The problem lies in our basic assumptions. Under perfect conditions a single small spark is all that would be necessary for combustion. However, variables occur during each engine cycle that produce less than ideal combustion conditions. For example, large variations occur in the atomization of the fuel molecules. Long manifold runners, chamber turbulence, poorly tuned fuel systems, overly rich mixtures etc. all vary the air/fuel composition in the cylinders and therefore affect the combustion.

Many other factors vary in the combustion process so that perfect combustion conditions rarely exist and the air/fuel molecule composition at the spark plug is never the same from engine cycle to engine cycle. These variations change the time that it takes to burn the cylinder contents on each engine cycle and this is a major cause of lost power, performance and efficiency. The result of these variations is that you can never tune for one condition as the conditions change.

A good analogy of these changing conditions can be made using a common wood 2x4 and a kitchen match. In the first instance, the 2x4 is cut into fine shavings. A single kitchen match can be use to quickly ignite and burn all the wood. This is representative of finely atomized air/fuel molecules in a cylinder being ignited by a single, small spark produced by a stock ignition. Under these favorable conditions the stock ignition worked fine.

Now let's take the same 2x4 and try to ignite it whole using the kitchen match. This is very difficult to do as it takes time for the heat to build and for combustion to start. If we ever do get the 2x4 to burn, it will take much longer than burning the 2x4 cut into shavings. This is the difference between having lots of finely atomized droplets in a cylinder and having a few large droplets that are difficult to ignite. Since the composition of these droplets vary from one engine cycle to the next, the rate of burning also varies between engine cycles. These variations affect power, performance and fuel economy.

How do you overcome these variances in burn times? To answer this, lets go back to our 2x4 analogy. This time, lets's change the kitchen match to powerful flame thrower. If you ignite the solid 2x4 with the flame thrower, the wood is going to burn and be consumed just as fast as if you ignited the 2x4 shavings with a flame thrower. The superior ignition of the flame thrower provides instantaneous and complete combustion of the wood, no matter what the composition of the molecules. There are no variances in the burning times of the 2x4s as there is no smoldering or heat build-up time. The wood is ignited and burned at the same rate no matter what form it was in.

In the real world, this is how an MSD Ignition works. At low rpm the MSD produces a series of sparks during each firing instead of one like a conventional ignition. At low engine speeds when the air/fuel molecules are not finely atomized, the multiple spark feature still ignites the mixture. But this isn't the only feature. The number of sparks produced by the MSD Is reduced as engine rpm increases simply because "time" becomes too short to repeat a spark. However, the spark series always lasts for 20 degrees of crankshaft rotation no matter what the rpm and no matter whether it is a single spark or a series of four or five spark. This 20 degree duration spark sequence insures that the air/fuel mixture is ignited and completely burned. Also each spark the MSD produces is an extremely high current spark. Current is like the heat of the flamethrower. Current is what actually does the work or in this case ignites the fuel mixture. Together, the multiple sparks, the high current and the 20 degree duration, produce an ignition that is superior to any other ignition. More importantly though, the MSD Ignition ignites the fuel mixture in the cylinder instantly and insure complete combustion, no matter what the molecular composition is. The result is reduced variations in burn times and therefore more engine power, better throttle response, easier starting and better fuel economy.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young