Gas engine running on Veggie oil - need help

brewnog

I understand what you're doing, in fact I'm currently putting together some engineering plans for pyrolysis and syngas engines. Ignore the comments about octane and cetane number, these don't apply for gaseous fuels. For traditional gaseous fuels in an SI engine, methane number is the best indication of knock resistance. However for gases weak in methane but rich in hydrogen and carbon monoxide, the model falls over. Your first step is to get a gas sample analysed, let's see what's in it and then we can build up an idea of what you're likely to get. Failing this, an idea of exhaust emissions (NOx and O2) will help things, and failing that, a measure of air fuel ratio.

parkland

I want to run it in a spark ignition engine for these reasons:

1. Gasoline vehicles are cheap to come by; My old chev 1/2 ton 1990 might fetch 1500$ if I sold it, why not do something useful?

2. I love diesel vehicles, I own a ford 7.3 liter powerstroke truck, but realistically, diesel trucks are not just laying around for the taking- they are either completely destroyed, or still worth decent cash.

3. Diesel vehicles are mostly limited to larger trucks. Asides the jetta, there are really no diesel cars, meaning selection is limited. If I can make this work on a V8 gas truck, 4 cyl sunfire should be possible for someone with a puny budget.

4. If I can get this to work, I can market an E-book and become a millionaire! You know, 90% off, but only if you order RIGHT NOW!!!! LOL, just kidding.

brewnog

Before you go down the gasifier route, why not just buy a european Diesel? Ten a penny round here, pretty much every car on the motorways here are Diesels.

parkland

I don't know where you're from, but here in canada, diesel cars are rare.

Another reason to use a gas vehicle: I've been down the diesel engine WVO route, and it takes a while to actually begin using WVO instead of diesel, you need to wait until everything is all warmed up. You also need to switch back to diesel before you shut it off, for up to 10 minutes, to prevent leaving any veg oil in the lines or injectors.

On a vehicle mounted gasifier, how i picture it with the gasifier tubing in the exhaust, a supplemental burner (either diesel or propane) would burn to start the vehicle, or possibly idling in cold conditions, meaning you could take even a small trip and still spend way less than gas or diesel at the pump.

This is how I visualize it working, anyways.

Cheers!