Technology? The piston engine is obsolete by at least 50 years.

 

Obsolete by 50 years? Really! What superceded pistons in 1953? Apparently I've missed something.

I do remember the turbine cars from Chrysler, but doesn't seem like they overwhelmed piston engines. Nor have the rotary Mazdas. So what has???

 

How much energy in a gas engine is actually turned into mechanical motion? 70-80% maybe. The rest is heat and friction losses. It's 2003. There has got to be a better way.

 

Lectro, there may be a better way, but we just don't have it figured out yet. I remember back in the mid 1960s predictions that we would all be driving some nuclear powered George Jetson type cars in 2000. Didn't happen. At the present time, liquid hydrocarbons appear to be the best way to carry a concentraited form of energy around with us. I'll bet we will be driving liquid fuel piston engine autos for the forsee-able future. As oil ( from the ground ) becomes more exspensive, I really think ethyl alcohol might become a popular and viable alternative. It doesn't require a bunch of redesign of the car, and lets us do mostly what we do now, albeit with only 2/3rds of the present range. Ethanol for spark igniton and soybean and peanut oil for the diesel guys.....thats what I'd like to see. DF

 

Near term it seems the Hybrids are the way to go. Keep a small piston engine (ideally Diesel - emissions aside) running in a narrow range where its most efficient, and use an electric motor and battery to add power when necessary and regenerate from braking and during minimal power demands. A supercharger on the piston engine would also help efficiency, as would higher octane gasoline (for higher compression) if the oil companies would stop overcharging for it. (Around here, premium runs ~ $.20 more per gallon and I believe their extra cost is about a tenth of that).

Too bad Toyota and Honda are so far ahead of the American companies!

 

Dodge had a diesel/electric hybrid Intrepid in work until Daimler took over and cancelled it. They are pushing fuel cell technology instead. These big companies should be working on several new technologies at once.

I am unfortunately old enough to remember in about 1960 we were told that miniature nuclear reactors would power just about everything.

Jim

 

Yeah, and electricity from Nuclear was going to be so cheap we wouldn't even meter it! I guess the capital costs turned out to be a little more than they figured.

 

You guys are right. Every idea I've thought about is for the most part impractical except for a diesel electric hybrid. Oh well. I have one big ? though. Aluminum alloys while significantly lighter than cast iron, conduct heat better. So doesn't that mean they reject more heat into the atmosphere? Or am I thinking too much?

 

Folks: There was a guy here in Ontario that brewed and distilled his own alcohol fuel from sugar beets. It was pure enough that he ran his Volvo on straight alky with no gas mixed in. The car ran fine but in cool weather it was hard to start. He cured that by installing a glow plug in the carburetor fuel bowl and at each runner in the intake manifold up close to the head. Then winter starting was no problem. It didn't get very good fuel economy or have as much power as with gas, but since the octane was a lot higher, more compression, would give more power and a heated air intake would give better vaporization, so more economy. I don't know what happened to his operation, but the cops were always on his case accusing him of being a moonshiner, but the tech part is mostly figured out. We can get alky gas here, the alky plant is in a town (Chatham) near us and it's rather stinky at times, but another one is planned to be built in our town (Sarnia), and I'm for it. Here's a question for you to ponder: Compared to how much CO2 is reduced in exhaust emissions by using gas with 10% alky in it, and how much CO2 the corn plants consume, does the CO2 produced by the growing of corn (tractor and delivery truck and other involved vehicles emissions, and oil refinery emissions produced by making their fuel, and making of fertilizer from natural gas, and the CO2 produced from brewing and distilling the alky), and the lower fuel economy reported by some users of gas/alky blends, are we really cutting greenhouse gasses, or is it a "shuck and jive" job? What do you all think?

 

Lectrocuted: You are right. Aluminum does reject more heat to the air than iron. If all the fancy heda you see in performance parts catalogues were iron instead of the aluminum they are, they would increase power even more by keeping the heat in the combustion chamber to do more work. The reason they are aluminum is for weight and cost savings, not to make more power. As for the diesel- electric hybrids, thats what the rail locomotives are, and they're rather efficient.

 

Yeah, it's pretty much jive when you go through the whole procedure; especially when the government gets involved. That whole "moonshine" thing is a good example. They should be encouraging ethyl alcohol production, but instead they're worried they might be missing out on some taxes!

 

Does using a higher energy fuel alone increase gas mileage?

Does increasing compression alone, increase gas mileage? (I'm assuming with increases compression the engine runs normally, there is no knocking etc).

What is the relationship between octane rating and compression ratio? By this I mean, if I have an engine with say, 100 psi compression with gasoline rated at 87 octane, there is no knock. What octance rating would the gasoline need to not knock at 200 psi? Is it an octane rating of double ... namely 174? If you double compression, do you double octane rating too? Is there a direct relationship?

Also, where exactly does the power come from in gasoline? My brother is under the impression that, when gasoline burns, the heat causes the air to expand in the cylinder, thus there is power. But I am thinking, that, the gasoline "unfolds" in the cylinder, thus trying to take up more space in a confined area, thus creating power. Anyone know the answer to this?

===================
Ok ... there's my PROPANE story, I hope it helps someone out, even though I know it is about propane and not ethanol, but it is in the broader category of alternative fuels. Plus I experienced it directly so I know it is accurate.

I had a van on propane. I got 13 mpg (Canadian gallons). This was fine when propane was $1.59 (cdn) a canadian gallon (35 cents a liter) but it jumped up as high as $2.40 (cdn) a canadian gallon (53 cents a liter).

I sold the propane van and bought a gasoline van. I was really worried my over all costs of operating the gasoline van would go way up because I used both vans for commercial deliveries and I was now paying for higher priced gasoline $3.38 (cdn) a canadian gallon.

Looks like propane beats gasoline hands down doesn't it? Guess what? When gasoline is 74 cents a liter, and propane is 47 cents a liter, the fuel cost of running the van was equal. At propanes highest price, it was WAY more expensive to burn propane.

I was driving commercially and thus I put on a lot of miles in a month, and when it all came out in the wash, I was spending about $40.00 a month more for the gasoline van. With propane I had to fill up everyday. With gasoline I filled up every 3 days.

To be fair, the propane van had about 550,000 km (341,000 miles) on it when I finally smashed it up, and I put 350,000 (217,000 miles) on it myself (all in town driving), so I know that the engine was not rebuilt and no major work was done to it while I owned it for 7 years (3 water pumps 2 alternators). Even after all that driving, the engine had 160 pounds of compression (20 pounds times 8 cylinders). Actually I never did do a compression test. The engine sounded like it had about 20,000 miles on it ... no ticking no rattling no knocking ... it sounded perfect.

As for the bad propane gas milage, I've heard of people burning out their exhaust valves because propane burns hotter than gasoline, so, when I took it in for a tune up (it took me 3 times to find a shop that knew what it was doing) I told him to make sure the mixture was rich so it would burn cooler and thus didn't burn out my valves, thus I may have had worse gas mileage, but in asking other propane vehicle owners, I know they had the same mileage as me.

With the gasoline van I got 19.5 miles to the gallon and it burns oil. It was an abused plumbling van ($500) and the engine rattles and ticks like it has 2 billion miles on it, but it keeps running. The propane van had a short wheel base. The gasoline van has a "normal" thus longer wheel base, and thus more weight and the engine had to work more. The engines were identical in cubic inches.

I used synthetic oil in both vans, winter and summer, and both are V8.

The big disadvantage of propane was, (and this will apply to ethanol too) propane has 20 per cent less energy and the propane tank was small at 20 US gallons, BUT it could be filled only to 80 percent of that ... so all I could carry is 16 US gallons of propane ... and of those 16 gallons I could go only as far as 12.8 gallons of gasoline. In short I was filling up literally everyday ... if I understand ethanol, it has 60 percent as much energy as gasoline thus, a 20 gallon tank of ethanol = 12 gallons of gasoline. YIKES! This means with ethanol, you will have to install a tank that carries 33 gallons to equal the range of a 20 gallon gasoline tank.

This also impacts the production of ethanol, in that, for every gallon of gas you buy right now, you will have to make 1.6 gallons of ethanol.

With my propane van I could barely drive 180 miles on one tank. If I had a head wind, I would run out for sure. (also, to drive 180 miles, I crammed it 100 percent full of propane then got on the hiway immediately and quickly burned off fuel to depressure the fuel tank.)

When you run out of propane (my gas guage never did work, the electric device inside the propane tank was too expensive to replace) ... it's a real pro-pain in the butt. I was towed in more than once at the cost of $80 a tow. The tow truck driver has to tow you to the nearest "OPEN" propane station (which may be extra far if it's 2 am which it was on one occasion). I finally bought a BBQ propane bottle and connector hose to use as a "gas can". You know how you can pour gasoline straight into the gas tank? It isn't quite that easy with propane. I ended up connecting the BBQ propane bottle straight to the vans' propane tank, and placing the BBQ bottle upside down inside the van, and slamming the back door shut on the hose. If I tried to empty the BBQ bottle like you would a can of gasoline, I would get enough propane in the main tank for about 3 miles of driving, then I'd have to do it all over again every 3 miles. What a mess.

With propane, you don't get any warning that you are out of fuel ... the engine coughs once, and dies 30 seconds later.

My propane system was made by Impco and was extremely reliable. It started in very cold weather, down to -25C, only then did it need to be plugged in. The secret to this, was syntheic oil. The engine turned over like it was summer time, and I also replaced the battery every 2-3 years just before winter arrived. (It was used commerically and it simply had to start).

One place I took it for a propane tune-up screwed it up and it wouldn't start at -15C, so that is important too.

I used sythetic oil in the differential.

So, driving commercially I saved about $40.00 a month in fuel using propane. Extrapolating this, I'd guess that a non-commercial user would save about $13.00 a month in fuel. Is propane worth it? Nope.

If you had a fleet of 10 vans ($400 a month savings)... maybe it would be worth it, but I doubt it. Right now it costs about $2,500.00 to convert a vehilce ... saving $40.00 a month that's payback in about 62 months (5 years) commercially, and non-commercial it's about 192 months (16 years).

Plus many under ground garages ban propane vehicles.

I gotta say the propane engine just kept running and running and running. Also, I noticed, when I was looking to buy a propane vehicle, every last one of them ran smooth, no ticking no rattling no knocking, as opposed to gasoline engines with half the mileage that sounded horrible. I am convinced that 120,000 miles on a propane engine is nothing.

BTW, propane has an octane rating of 120 (if I remember right), this means you can increase the compression A LOT, like 14 to 1 or so! This might increase gas mileage, (which I'm not sure) and thus make propane more economical.

From talking my buddy he said if you put 305 heads on a 350 block, that alone, will dramatically increase compression. Perhaps this is all that is needed for a cheap powerful propane engine.

My buddy asked about shaving the head and block etc ... but that causes misalignment bolting up the exhaust manifold etc and it turns into a nightmare ... so the 305 heads in place of the 350 heads avoid that problem.

Also with propane, my tanks were at the very rear of the vehicle. I had to search for 3 weeks to find a shop to install a trailer hitch, because the tanks basically bolted on to where the hitch should go. It was sheer luck that a mechanic off handedly said a hitch should fit no problem. The point of all this is, the hitch shops were too lazy\afraid to remove the propane tank and install the hitch. I found an out-of-town shop to do it.

 

Blue, propane looks nice, and probably is, if you can stay local, or only drive to somewhere that has it available. Yes, it is hot stuff, the better conversions have replaceable hard seats under the exhaust valves for that very reason. As far as energy content goes, I think alot of the MPGs could be balanced out ( alcohol or propane ) by increasing the compression ratio enough. I'm thinking like 12 to 1 at least. Most conversions don't seem to have enough compression, IMO. Yes, there is a realationship between cylinder pressure and octane value, but it isn't exactly linear, and is differant for liquid and gaseous fuels. From what I have seen and read so far, rasing the compression to about 12 should give me the same MPG on ethanol as previous had been acheivable on gasoline. The downside is that it will no longer be able to run on pump gasoline. But I have a 150 gallon fuel tank, just in case. DF

 

Just a heads-up guys... I'll be moving this thread from Oil and Lubrication to the Alternative Fuels forum. That forum didn't exist when this thread started.

Dino! Havn't seen you in a while. Good to have you back!

 

Screw the Opec countries-Go Corn Sqeezins'!!!!! The more American Farmed ethanol, the better. Henry Ford built his first cars to run on alcohol and we need to get back to his practical thinking!!