Measuring the effect of air intake temperature in fuel economy

[Buzo]

Project Description:

The first thing I learned when tuning my car is that we need 60% more fuel to get our cars started/running in winter than what we need in summer. It is due to the cold temperature affecting the air density primarily. (It might be other factors like engine wear, but I'll ignore them for this experiment)

For those cars with the hot air hose disconnected between the manifold and the air filter, because the hose is missing, broken, or there was a modification in the intake system and the hose don't longer fit...

Can the fuel economy be improved just by reconnecting that hose? If so, How much?

Background:

From basic physics, we know the air flow entering our engine is defined by:

Air Flow (g/s) =0.058*MAP(kPa)*RPM/IAT(°K)

Where:
0.058 is a constant from the gas law applied to our 2.0L engine. If you don't believe me, its OK, it is just a constant anyway.
MAP is the manifold air pressure in kPA
RPM is the engine speed in revs per minute
IAT is the intake air temperature

If you see, the IAT is dividing the whole thing, so the most the temperature the less the air flow.

Then based in my datalogs from the whole year, my IAT is at an average of 45°C in February and 65° in August with the hose disconnected.

Applying the formula above, (assuming the engine idling at 1000 RPM and 35 kPa) I get an air flow of 6.0g/s at 45°C and 6.38g/s at 65°C - a 6% of difference.

If I connect the hose, I can rise the intake Air temp up to 100°C.

Re-applying the formula now I get an air flow of 5.44 g/s at 100 °C. - a 15% difference!

Then just because the air flow is 15% less, automatically you should need 15% less fuel flow.

If my fuel economy is currently 26 MPG, I should be able to rise it 15% - to 29.9 mpg just by reconnecting that one hose!

Next Step:

Modify my intake system so I can put the old air filter back along with its automatic air temperature control.
Run the car dataloging the IAT and all other factors, using the same routes and same tuning of course.
Run one tank with the hose connected, and another tank with the hose disconnected.
Repeat as many times as needed (like a mini mith-buster)

Compare fuel economy...
Learn...
Kill some time...
Have fun...

NOTE: for those concerned of the effect of too-hot air under high load, the actuator in the air filter case is vacuum activated, so the engine will get cold air under hard acceleration/load, because there is not vacuum built up at WOT.

Due date:

None! this is just for fun and I don't care if it takes me forever to get a result, or if the result is not as expected.
However, I appreciate this great forum for giving us the opportunity to document what we do to our cars!

[Dr_Snooz]

Curious to see what your results are.

[Buzo]

Things are going faster than I thought. I finished adapting the stock air filter to my TBI today. It was nice to see it back in the car.:crying:
I'm actually going to keep it like this regardless of the result of the study and will give it a black re-spray.

So, who's going to help me to recover the ability to put pics in the forum? (big size pics, not thumbnails)

[go2eleven]

I am curious to see these results as well.

I was under the impression that the greater difficulty starting in the winter was more due to the cold affecting things like oil viscosity. I was also under the impression that, driving habits being equal, colder temperature intake air would mean better gas mileage, because the increased density of the air means the engine gets more work per unit volume of air pulled in through the intake.

But I have no science to back this up.

[AccordB20A]

also interested to know. my cars all use more fuel at night. but you can feel its faster at night in the cold too...... im guessing the ecu knows its cold so it adds more fuel to the denser air make more bang and more power.

[2oodoor]

ON my carbed car, the pre-heater removed as well as the electric heater below the carb base, AND I do not have coolant running through the manifold (blocked off).
I am having significant issues with cold air and ambient tempurature causing the fuel to de-atomize under the carb. Fuel is turning back in to liquid and pooling up under the carb on the manifold floor. This really screws with my cold idle mixture until about 20 minutes of driving, even more if the ambient temp is below 46 degrees or so on that day.
The cold affected fuel theory can actually be seen on my car because I can stop the engine and open up the throttle and observe the puddles of gas on the intake floor.

Improvements to this condition on my car would be:
Re-connect the coolant hoses that pass through the intake manifold, this would heat it up some.
Add a spacer or even a swirl spacer under the carb, this would increase the air space and velocity of the atomized fuel to be used before it became liquid again.
Add an air pre-heater of some sort that would allow some hot air in the fresh air intake.

[Buzo]

Thanks all for your comments,

Something is right for both FI and carbed cars, the colder the air the more the power an engine can develop, because more air/fuel can be fit into the same cylinder cavity.

But there are limits like you guys said, too cold air will make difficult the mix of air and fuel and too hot air will lead to a lack of energy.

Once I start using the air heater, I HOPE my car feels less powerful (that means I'd be using less fuel). Remember I am doing this for fuel economy.
My daily trips are through boring streets of the city, a bunch of red lights and speed bumps. I can sacrifice some power I guess.

Got a new air filter and finished painting the filter case. Its not that cold yet here, so while I wait for the winter I am going to be plotting the temp of the air to have a background with the new position of the IAT sensor.

[gp02a0083]

also interested to know. my cars all use more fuel at night. but you can feel its faster at night in the cold too...... im guessing the ecu knows its cold so it adds more fuel to the denser air make more bang and more power.

your absolutely correct B20A, the colder the intake charge = increased density. In a ICE we need to maintain the proper air:fuel ratio to obtain proper operation and performance. This is a common issue that the supercharged nitro methane funny cars and top fuel dragsters contend with and why they typically put down record ET's and MPH records here in englishtown NJ on friday night qualifying sessions rather than Saturday afternoon qualifying sessions. Think of it this way each combustion chamber has about a max volume of 500 cc's. On a N/A engine, a colder denser air charge driven into the cylinder technically weighs more so its allmost like running a hot engine with a larger volume. (Buzo's comment is along the same line here).Thus to keep a 14.7:1 AFR,additional fuel must be injected or introduced into the combustion chamber to maintain this ratio. Feedback to the ECU via the O2 sensor helps maintaining this. FI systems have that advantage over Carbs that they adjust accordingly /quickly in addition to barometric pressure changes. Carbs are crude and require lots of adjustment. Also by introducing a colder intake charge you are minimizing the biggest downfall to a ICE (internal combustion engine), that is the by product of heat. Offsetting this will show some power gains , however if the intake charge is too cold it will run like crap.

2oodoor, i would suggest reconnecting the coolant lines. Even if it was FI, i would suggest doing the same. This would keep the intake air temp more consistent overall and help you tune your carb. the Pre-heater hose you can leave off, i did the same with my 442. I would think at first you may have other issues with the fuel atomizing. To me it sounds like you may not be getting enough fuel pressure and or the jets are not clean, causing the jet pattern to be directed differently.

[Buzo]

All the mechanical work is done.

Finished adapting the filter, put the new filter on and replaced the stock IAT sensor with the GM one.

Test fit over my TBI. The filter case had some time in the direct light of the sun...

http://imageshack.us/a/img713/654/beforem.th.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/beforem.png/)

There is a hole where the stock IAT sensor is installed, I filled it to the size of the new sensor

http://imageshack.us/a/img829/6702/filter1.th.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/829/filter1.png/)

New filter

http://imageshack.us/a/img43/7643/filter4.th.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/43/filter4.png/)

With this project I realized my car needs some brightness, so starting painting all the plastics I can remove from the engine bay.

http://imageshack.us/a/img12/3166/filter2.th.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/12/filter2.png/)

Here is my car idling and getting hot air from the hose that goes to the manifold.

http://imageshack.us/a/img507/3057/filter3.th.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/507/filter3.png/)

[Dr_Snooz]

Bro, start using Photobucket. Imageshack always gives those stupid thumbnails for some reason.

Looks pretty fly. You could even pass California emissions looking like that.

[Buzo]

Bro, start using Photobucket. Imageshack always gives those stupid thumbnails for some reason.

Looks pretty fly. You could even pass California emissions looking like that.

Thanks! Actually we do need to have emissions sticker here in mexico too, but it does not include a visual check.
My car recently passed right in the middle of the Max and Min in all the measurables. The tech was looking at the ARF in my clock when he was running the test, I'll say that he got impressed.

Thanks for the tip of photobucket. I already created my account!

[Buzo]

Want to share this initial picture of the normal behavior of my car in a normal morning of February.
It is from 2012-02-16_06.58.36. It was 18°C.

The red line is the RPM, its there so we know when the car is idling, accelerating, cruising, etc.
The white line is the duty cycle, proportional to the fuel injected to the engine.
The blue line is the coolant temp, once the car gets warm, it stays in an average of 85°C
The green one is the Intake Air temp, as you can see it varies with the normal driving, but the average was around 35-40°C.

The goal is to keep the IAT as constant as possible and see if we see a reduction in the duty cycle.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/2012-02-16_06-58-36.png

[POS carb]

where is your IAT mounted? On the intake tube, tbi, or intake manifold?

[Buzo]

where is your IAT mounted? On the intake tube, tbi, or intake manifold?

It is mounted right in the TBI.

I was planning to put it where the stock IAT is at (intake tube), but changed my mind and put it in the TBI to be as close to the fuel spray as possible-

[Buzo]

This is the first reading with the hot air hose connected.
It was about 40 minutes trip, (double as the initial image).
Slightly dissapointed that the air temp raised at a very low rate.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/firstIATreading.png

[POS carb]

are you using the stock 3geez intake? if you use the hot air intake with the vacuum opener I assume you are using some kind of vacuum thermovalve to open it or are you triggering it with the megasquirt?
Maybe the trap door doesn't seal well or your IAT sensor is getting heat soaked

[Buzo]

Yes, I'm using the stock intake (door/actuator/temp control system). I created a kind of 1" neck over the TBI, then screwed the stock filter case on top of that neck. I sealed the small uneven surfaces using some RVT.

The door actuator gets vacuum directly from the intake manifold, through a check valve and a "T" to the thermo-switch inside the air filter area, which directs the vacuum to the actuator when cold and to the intake when hot. I plugged off the rest of the unused ports in the filter case, but I have to double check everything. I recall this mechanism working very well before, so I assume its something I forgot to plug or something easy.

Its possible the IAT is not "seen" the air flow too, because it got slightly covered with the new filter case...

[Buzo]

It was at 8°C today and was able to measure how the IAT gets hotter slightly quick. I need to compare with my old datalogs in the same temp range to measure the difference.

I noticed the door is making the open/close cycles correctly, but the IAT sensor is getting soaked with the heat of the intake manifold. Once the car is hot, disconnecting the hose makes no big difference in the reading of the sensor.

The questions are, Why Honda put the sensor in the intake tube and GM in the TBI? Which is the real air temp?

[Buzo]

The questions are, Why Honda put the sensor in the intake tube and GM in the TBI? Which is the real air temp?

I think the answers are here.


...they typically put down record ET's and MPH records here in englishtown NJ on friday night qualifying sessions rather than Saturday afternoon qualifying sessions.

and here


...also interested to know. my cars all use more fuel at night. but you can feel its faster at night in the cold too......


The coolant temp is the same at day and night, due to the thermostat and fans controlling it, but still the performance change... Then the cold air of the night is what really makes the difference.

Since I didn't see a real gain with the IAT sensor in the TBI, I changed it to the "honda's way" and installed it up in the intake tube.

[Buzo]

I think I got something good.

Logged some data with the IAT's new location, as you can see now, the IAT (or MAT) follows the door open/close cycles, hot when closed, cold when open.

The colder temp is around 30 C and the hottest is around 65 C.

But I am excited because I found how that white line variable called gammae varies with the MAT. Gammae is a compensations that the MS calculates based in several factors, including the MAT.

In other words, I should be able to save some fuel with the same tune I have now, because that gammae decreases as the IAT temp increases.


http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/gammae.png

And here some background on the gammae from the MegaSquirt site:


What MegaSquirt® does is take this downloaded REQ_FUEL number and then multiply (or adds) values that scale this number, to come up with the injected pulse width [PW]. Therefore, pulse width is:
PW = REQ_FUEL * VE * MAP * E + accel + Injector_open_time
The "E" above is the multiplied result of all enrichments, like warm-up, after-start, barometer and air temperature correction, closed-loop, etc:

E = gamma_Enrich = (Warmup/100) * (O2_Closed Loop/100) * (AirCorr/100) * (BaroCorr/100)
and


Warmup is the warm-up enrichment value from the table the user enters in MegaTune,
O2_Closed Loop is the EGO adjustment based on the EGO sensor feedback and the EGO settings the user enters in MegaTune,
AirCorr is the adjustment for air density (based on the intake air temperature), and
BaroCorr is the barometric correction based on the ambient air pressure (usually taken at start-up, but a second baro pressure sensor can be added to MegaSquirt-II for continuous updates to the BaroCorr).



I'm pretty sure OEM cars also have their compensation for IAT, and carbed cars do it also, but automatically, as the air density is reduced so is reduced the fuel pulled through the venturis.

[Buzo]

And this a pic of the neck I built to be able to fit the stock filter in top of the GM TBI, I cut the top off of the GM filter case thing, drilled holes and screwed the honda filter case from the top. Here is also the location of the IAT sensor in a GM vehicle.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/iatsensor0.png

We all now where the stock IAT is at

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/iatrep.png

And finally, installed in the car

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/iatsensor1.png

[cygnus x-1]

IAT is a notoriously difficult phenomenon to deal with. The air temperature changes as it passes through the manifold (warms up), and also as it mixes with the fuel (cools down), so you will get different readings depending on where you take the measurements. The closer you get to the cylinders, the more accurate the temperature will be. However the sensor is also more likely to be affected by heat from the manifold and cylinder head (heat soak). So I think in the end, the OEMs just put the sensor where it's convenient and only use it for minor fuel trimming.


C|

[Buzo]

So far I was able to rise my intake air temp at the same rate as the coolant temp, but once the car is fully warmed up, the air temp remains almost constant regardless of the hose being connected or disconnected, because it is taking the air from the engine bay and not from the passenger's fender bucket. I can actually see a small rise in the IAT when the fans kick in.

I guess the MAP is the one that indirectly reacts to the air temperature once the air/fuel mix passed the throttle, because it measures the pressure which is proportional to the air temperature.

[Buzo]

Monday, I logged the data in my way to work with the hot air system enabled.
Tuesday same trip, same initial temp, and logged the data with the vacuum hose removed (and plugged off) from the hot air door actuator .

Here some highlights:
It takes 15 minutes to get to the max temp (55 C) with the hose disabled.
It takes 10 minutes to get to same 55 C as above with the hose enabled and 11.5 minutes to get to the max temp of 75 C
It takes 10 minutes for the coolant to get fully warm (89 C)
The total trip length is 25 minutes.
The average IAT while cruising is almost the same. 49.7C enabled, 47.48C disabled.

Last night I noticed my car knocking during a couple of hard accelerations I intentionally made (hot air enabled). I never heard a knock with my old set up before. Need to repeat the same tonight but with the hot air disabled and discard if the knocking is due to the change in the air filter system or due to the higher air temp...

[Buzo]

I didn't know I could compare two datalogs, but here I just found how to. Here is how the IAT sensor gets warmer with the time when the hose is connected. It should save some fuel in that ~8 minutes time frame, I just don't know how much and if it worth.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/IATcompare.png

[Buzo]

Before I start measuring the fuel economy I am going to try to get more separation of the IAT while cruising.
I will put the original plastic tube from the filter case to the passenger's fender, so the engine can get cold air from the outside instead of the engine bay, and cold down the thermo-sw inside the filter case and restart the heating process faster.

[Buzo]

It took me half an hour to put the tube in place. Just waiting for my night trip to report back how it works with outside air compared to taking the air from the engine bay.

[Buzo]

It looks like I was able to raise the temp from an average of 47 to 55 degrees C when cruising.
Its not the best temp control, but I care for the average only. No more charts for now. I'm ready to start measuring the fuel economy.
I didn't do anything new, just reassembled what the honda engineers designed in the 80's.

[Buzo]

OK, One more chart.

This is turning out better than expected. I already showed in below charts that once the engine is fully warm, after 10 minutes of driving, the IAT gets pretty stable at around 47 C due to the heat generated in the engine bay. With or without air heater connected.

With the combination of the hot air hose and the cold air from outside of the engine bay, I raised the temp as much as 87 C when idling and as low as 24 degrees when accelerating. I think its good because it will give more power when I need it and fuel saving when required.

If you see the red line, everytime I accelerated, the door opened and let the cold air get into the engine. And immediately closed and raised the temp again after the pedal is released. It happens automatically over and over during the whole drive.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/coldaccel.png

If this don't meet my expectations for fuel economy, then I plan to put another sort of temperature control, so I avoid it to go too cold. For now I will be driving like this for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

[2oodoor]

this is amazing to be able to see the data measured as results and not just guessing, very impressive work!

[g.frost]

this is amazing to be able to see the data measured as results and not just guessing, very impressive work!

+1 I really enjoy following your projects here Buzo. Your custom OBD board for carb'd 3Geez is amazing. Thanks for all your work here.

[Buzo]

Thanks again for your comments! I only hope to get a measurable difference in fuel economy, don't care if its lower or higher at this point. We can always justify why the data didn't follow the theory haha.

I filled the tank up this morning, I'll wait 100 Miles and fill it up again and record gallons/100 Mi. The car has both, hot and cold hoses connected for this first fuel economy measuring. Then run for another 100 Mi with the hoses disconnected, and compare.

Whatever happens, I am going to keep both hoses connected in the car. It certainly feels different. Better.

[g.frost]

Sorry I did it again here with multiple posts... butterfingers.

My old 88 DX carb is still 100% stock in there with the hot air pipe. The intake air control diaphragm I replaced a few years ago when I went through a troubleshoot. It then checked out functional and also replaced the choke opener and a thermovalve. I can't say what effect it had on gas mileage as the choke opener was what put the dent in my mileage. I don't know for how long that intake air control diaphragm was bad. My old beater gets about 28mpg in town and 34-36 mpg hwy.

[g.frost]

My old 88 DX carb is still 100% stock in there with the hot air pipe. The intake air control diaphragm I replaced a few years ago when I went through a troubleshoot. It then checked out functional and also replaced the choke opener and a thermovalve. I can't say what effect it had on gas mileage as the choke opener was what put the dent in my mileage. I don't know for how long that intake air control diaphragm was bad. My old beater gets about 28mpg in town and 34-36 mpg hwy.

Looking forward to the results of your tests.

[Buzo]

Only 80 Miles since I filled the tank... will wait until get 100 just to be consistent.
In the mean time, I painted my valve cover and converted my old dizzy into a cam sensor.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/cover.png

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/cover1.jpg

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/cover2.jpg

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/cover3.jpg

[Buzo]

Completed 100 miles with the hoses connected and have accumulated 40 miles with the hoses disconnected so far.
I don't know which one will be better in fuel economy at this time.
Honestly, I never used the full-empty-full technique before, so the MPG I got after 100 miles is way below my previously calculated MPG.

[g.frost]

Yeah, relying on the gas pump shut-off when filling up is not going to produce a consistent reliable result. 100 miles is maybe 4 gallons so the 'fill-up' pump shutoff will give you a larger % error than filling an empty tank with 12+ gallons to average out the error. I check mileage at every fill up with the trip odometer, and average from that.

[Buzo]

I'm trying to minimize the variables by using the same pump in the same gas station, same hour of the day, etc. I am repeating even the number of times the pump shuts off before stop filling. But you are right, 100 miles is too low, 5 miles would be equivalent to 1 MPG.

Another idea is to combine the data from my HUD, fuel level and MPH to come up with an instant MPG value. So I'll measure the fuel level when the car is steady in my garage, then accumulate the miles of the day/week and re-measure the fuel level when I'm back at home.

[Buzo]

There is a measurable difference. But it looks like the car likes more a constant intake air temperature than higher peaks but lower valleys.
Hoses connected: 19.7 MPG (car feels stronger than ever)
Hoses disconnected: 21.2 MPG (heard a little knock one time)

This is just the beginning. I plan to add an external door control so the temp spikes are minimized and I can set the idling IAT higher.
I like how the car feels when the door opens and lets cold air enter during hard acceleration though.

[gp02a0083]

from what you are saying its a 8-9% difference, i would say that is impressive to see a swing like that. I would still keep collecting more data to confirm this

[Buzo]

I ran the car with the hot hose connected and the cold hose disconnected. Once the car is hot, the IAT gets pretty stable at around 55 C. Got 23.4 MPG.

in summary:

Hot/Cold hoses connected: 19.7 MPG
Hot/Cold hoses disconnected: 21.2 MPG
Hot connected/Cold disconnected: 23.4 MPG!

The next step is to use the Solenoid C valve that I have in my car to make the air temp get as hotter as I can without jeopardizing the idle, and connect the cold hose to help with hard acceleration.

[Legend_master]

I wonder if there would be away to add a hot air pipe to a multi-port fuel injection system, and I wonder if it would help.

[Dr_Snooz]

I did some reading on gas vaporization technology a couple years ago. Supposedly, any way of heating up the mix prior to combustion will yield significantly better mileage. I never tested any of it so I am not sure if it actually works.

Buzo, I'm not sure what your interest is in this, but the book I read claimed that simply heating the gas up to coolant temp is supposed to yield very impressive mileage improvements. You can simply run a copper fuel line around or through a coolant line. Beyond that, heating up the mixture to exhaust temps before it goes into the combustion chamber gives genuinely astonishing MPGs, but that gets a lot more complicated.

[Buzo]

There is no specific reason for doing this. I realized that, from the several factors affecting the fuel equation, the air temperature was the only thing I could change. The temperature control was already there for me. I just had to connect a couple of hoses and that was it.

Thanks for the tip of heating the fuel too. It makes sense because the air I heat up is cooled down by the fuel spray. Its certainly something I would like to test.
I think I can run a fuel hose all the way around the filter inside the filter case, so air and fuel will be always at the same temperature.

During all this time without posting an update I probed the measuring method was repeatable, I got 0.3 MPG difference between refilling after 100 miles and refilling after the tank was almost empty. I'll stick with the 100 miles refill because its faster and cheaper.

[Buzo]

I added the new temp control so now I can set any temperature I want between ambient and the coolant temp.
The pic is divided in 3 parts, the first is how the IAT is controlled by the carbed style temp control with this setup I got 23.4 MPG.
The middle part is a test I ran in my driveway to make sure the connections were right, so I set 40C as the limit for tempo control. It passed OK.
The third part is a short drive I did after I set the temp to 80 C. This is how I am going to run the car for my next 100 miles.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/newtempctrl.png

[88Accord-DX]

Can I ask what kind of software your using on your laptop to look at oscilloscope readings like that? Your findings are very interesting.

[Buzo]

Can I ask what kind of software your using on your laptop to look at oscilloscope readings like that? Your findings are very interesting.

I am using a Megasquirt controller in my car and their TunerStudio software. So all the information is processed by the megasquirt controller and sent through the serial port to my laptop.

You know, with all I have learned in the last two years we can adapt our ECU (EFI or carbed) to talk to TunerStudio... Its going to be a "read only software" but it sounds like a cool project!

[Buzo]

This is today's chart with the IAT temperature control set to 80 C compared against an old chart when I was taking the air directly from the engine bay.
Both readings were taken during the same trip, like 10 miles long, at the same hour of the day.
The little door in the air tube intake is vacuum controlled, so when the MAP is above 65 kPa, there is not enough vacuum to keep the door open and cold air is allowed to enter. Which is good because the engine can get more power with colder air than hot air.

I was able to reduce the gamma-enrichment value from 97 to 87 which is a 10% reduction. It means that the ECU is certainly sending less fuel.
Didn't notice any change in performance.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/IATcompare80C.png

[Buzo]

I wonder if there would be away to add a hot air pipe to a multi-port fuel injection system, and I wonder if it would help.

If the results are worth, we can find a way to get hot air by adding a piece of sheet metal to the exhaust manifold, and the right thermovalve from the thousands used in our cars.

[Legend_master]

If the results are worth, we can find a way to get hot air by adding a piece of sheet metal to the exhaust manifold, and the right thermovalve from the thousands used in our cars.

I dont actually use an O2 sensor, so I was thinking I could use the bung hole for that. I would really like to use it to build an EGR, but they are all generally computer controlled. I am always looking for ways to improve gas mileage without loosing daily comforts of the vehicle. AS far as vaporizing fuel, I have hear A LOT about this. It is proven that vaporized fuel is way more efficient then liquid fuel. I think the problem is that it has to be super heated, and that can be very dangerous. I currently plan on running RDX fuel injectors as the atomize the fuel more efficiently. So where exactly is the heater hose going? Is it heating up the air going into the carb, or after the carb?

[2drSE-i]

bung hole
hehe

[2oodoor]

Typicaly those preheat air before carb but I guess you could heat the manifold.. Buzo can answer you there.
I was thinking of adding a pre heat tube from the downpipe end where it has a flange to work with. This would be on the larger four barrel style breather I have for the 38 Weber by using the adapter. That would be out of view if the hardware was reliable.
Oem configurations usually use a sheet metal heater off the exhuast right at the head but since our exhaust runs under the engine I don't see why ( without going out to the car) we couldn't access the heat source there.

[Buzo]

A couple more charts.

The white line is the narrow band oxygen sensor signal. As you know it tells the car if the mix is rich(>0.5V) or lean(<0.5V) and the computer reacts adding more fuel when lean and removing fuel when rich, so its normal a switching trace like this. The faster it switches the best the average of stoichiometric mix is achieved

The first chart is with the IAT taken from the under the hood.
The second chart is the IAT controlled to 80C.

Its clear that the sensor likes more the mix of hot air with fuel than cold air.

I have to stress out that this is the same distance, through the same highway portion from my daily home to work trip, same tune too, just different intake air temperature.

The intention of these charts is that you don't have to believe in my fuel economy calculations. Here the data saying that there is a change (for good) in the performance just by heating the air before its mixed with fuel in the TBI.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/o2warmair.png

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/o2hotair.png

[Buzo]

Bought 8 ft of steel brake line for the fuel heater experiment.

I'm thinking in two options:

1) build a 2 or 3 turns coil inside the filter case, all the way around the filter element and get the heat from the same source I am heating the IAT.
2) build a coil and put it above the intake manifold, more or less where the fuel rail is in a FI car, but more turns and as closer to the metal as possible.

Haven't decided yet, but for tonight I'm sure I'm going to have a fuel heater installed in my car.

With all the datalogs and re-fill measures I have taken, I can tell with one single trip if I am using more or less fuel than the previous trip. I always try to use my cruising section of the trip so I eliminate waits in red lights and so. So far, the quantity of fuel injected according to my datalogs, matches my measured MPGs.

[gp02a0083]

Bought 8 ft of steel brake line for the fuel heater experiment.

I'm thinking in two options:

1) build a 2 or 3 turns coil inside the filter case, all the way around the filter element and get the heat from the same source I am heating the IAT.
2) build a coil and put it above the intake manifold, more or less where the fuel rail is in a FI car, but more turns and as closer to the metal as possible.

Haven't decided yet, but for tonight I'm sure I'm going to have a fuel heater installed in my car.

With all the datalogs and re-fill measures I have taken, I can tell with one single trip if I am using more or less fuel than the previous trip. I always try to use my cruising section of the trip so I eliminate waits in red lights and so. So far, the quantity of fuel injected according to my datalogs, matches my measured MPGs.



Buzo what your describing kinda sounds like what some of my Oldsmobile friends do with their coolant system. they run a copper pipe from the back end of the block to the front on both sides of the intake manifold.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m224/FE3X_CLONE/EFI%20Olds%20Intake/IMG_2167_small.jpg

sorry , i reread your post buzo, the picture i posted is mainly for cooling aspects , but it may give you some idea wehre to go with your experiment

[Buzo]

Thanks for the pic anyway. I wish my coil would look as nice as this one, but I'm sure it won't.
Thinking more about it, I guess I am going to put the coil inside the the filter case with some quick connections to bypass it in case I need to remove the filter.

[gp02a0083]

Thanks for the pic anyway. I wish my coil would look as nice as this one, but I'm sure it won't.
Thinking more about it, I guess I am going to put the coil inside the the filter case with some quick connections to bypass it in case I need to remove the filter.

if im understanding right your putting the coil in the air cleaner assembly or around the fuel filter?

[Legend_master]

hehe

I laughed when I was typing it lol. Sorry for the thread hack!

[Buzo]

Here is a pic of the coil around the filter.
Remember the engine is sucking air as hot as 85 C so that air should heat up the metal pipe and therefore the fuel inside.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/coil1.png

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/coil3.png

I put quick connectors to the hoses so in case of a leak inside, I can bypass the fuel heater with no need of tools.

[Dr_Snooz]

Can't wait to see what you get.

I should send you the gas vaporization book I have. It requires fabbing skills and is quite a bit beyond my skill level. I'll bet you could geek out on it though. The author reports numbers like 80 MPG with domestic V8's in the '70s using the technology. I'd be very interested in a firsthand report of how well it works.

[Buzo]

I laughed when I was typing it lol. Sorry for the thread hack!

no worries, my knwoledge of English is too little that I don't understand the double meaning..!

[Buzo]

Can't wait to see what you get.

I should send you the gas vaporization book I have. It requires fabbing skills and is quite a bit beyond my skill level. I'll bet you could geek out on it though. The author reports numbers like 80 MPG with domestic V8's in the '70s using the technology. I'd be very interested in a firsthand report of how well it works.

If you could share that with me would be great. I have two things many people don't have, a car with a logging system and a lot of spare time! I'll return it, I promise it.

Some people say that the temp of the fuel must be above 350F to get vaporized, so that temp can only be achieved in the exhaust manifold I guess.
With my setup the outlet hose is hotter than the inlet hose by the touch, and since I didn't left any metal exposed, I can't measure the temp directly. So I will assume the fuel temp will be slightly below 80Cs when idling and cooled down during acceleration, just like the air.

I know this is not the right place to take the temperature, because the air is flowing from the opposite side down to the throttle. I just wanted to show off the nice thermometer I have hehehe.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/coil4.png

[gp02a0083]

If you could share that with me would be great. I have two things many people don't have, a car with a logging system and a lot of spare time! I'll return it, I promise it.

Some people say that the temp of the fuel must be above 350F to get vaporized, so that temp can only be achieved in the exhaust manifold I guess.
With my setup the outlet hose is hotter than the inlet hose by the touch, and since I didn't left any metal exposed, I can't measure the temp directly. So I will assume the fuel temp will be slightly below 80Cs when idling and cooled down during acceleration, just like the air.



I know this is not the right place to take the temperature, because the air is flowing from the opposite side down to the throttle. I just wanted to show off the nice thermometer I have hehehe.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/coil4.png


i use the same Fluke meters at work , you using a type J thermocouple ?

[Buzo]

With the fuel passing through the coil in the filter, I measured a 5% reduction in the total time the injector was open during the whole trip today, compared with yesterday's trip with no fuel heater. Not very promising but I need to wait for the tank refill.

My conclusion so far is that taking the air from the engine bay (55C) is better than taking the air from the outside (20C), for fuel economy.
Heating the air a little more (80C) has very little effect because the intake manifold "regulates" the air temperature down to 55C during the travel of the mix from the throttle down to the head.

But something good is that mixing the fuel with hot air makes the oxygen sensor to react faster for some reason.
So a new tune can be made based in this new speed in the sensors response.

The next step I see is to heat the air some more (100 C perhaps?) and see what happen, but then I'll start get concerned with the durability of my parts, air filter, the RVT I put for sealing, rubber hoses, etc.

In order to increase the contact of the hot air with the metal of the coil, I put a barrier with an "U" shape last night between the filter and the coil with the opening of the U in the opposite side of the inlet of the hot air, so the hot air needs to travel all the way through the sides of the filter, to finally enter the engine.

[Dr_Snooz]

If you could share that with me would be great. I have two things many people don't have, a car with a logging system and a lot of spare time! I'll return it, I promise it.

All I have is a *.pdf scan but you're welcome to it. I've posted it at http://snooz.cc/secret-page/. You want the link to "Dave's Book". I'll leave the page up for a week or so.

Let me know what you think.

[Buzo]

All I have is a *.pdf scan but you're welcome to it. I've posted it at http://snooz.cc/secret-page/. You want the link to "Dave's Book". I'll leave the page up for a week or so.

Let me know what you think.

Downloading... thanks a lot.


Asking over the megasquirt forums I found a way to measure the actual Used Fuel out of my datalogs (in Gallons!).
I am pleased to find that I am using 12% less fuel after I increased the IAT temp to 100C and put the coil inside the filter case.

At this time you 2 or 3 guys following this post must be familiar with the colors in the chart.
I added the white and gray ones which are the FuelUsed field which is an automatic calculation of the used fuel that takes into account the size of the injector, number of injectors, etc. It is pretty accurate because I tested it against my tank refill measurements and it matches.

For the same section of the highway, same hour of the day, aprox same speed, there is a reduction from 0.260 Gallons with the temp set at 80C to .229 Gallons with the temp set to 100 and the fuel heater in the filter case.

Its a 12% reduction.


http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/comp100vs80.png

[Buzo]

Comparing the worst case: Cold hose connected, so its sucking air from the ambient: 0.293 gallons of used fuel
versus the best case: Air heater set to 100C and the fuel heater in the air filter: 0.235 gallons of used fuel

20% difference!

But also look that when the Air temperature reached 100 degrees is when the slope of the used fuel lines started to get a real separation. This probes the the theory of hotter air/gas = less fuel by itself.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/compcoldvshot.png

[Buzo]

There is always a next step, so now I am going to get rid of the vacuum controlled actuator and I will put a 12V solenoid instead, so I can heat the air a lot sooner and open it only under really hard acceleration (like RPM>4500).

[Buzo]

Just finished reading the book. Very interesting. We can combine the author's vaporization old technology with our present technology.

He used a nozzle and mechanically driven pressure regulator and temp controls.
We have electronics that already do the same thing. So in order to adapt to the modern times what the book says about fuel vaporization, we can replace his fuel nozzle with our standard injector. And his mechanical temperature and pressure controls with some electronics

Imagine my current filter case is his fuel heater box with the manifold lines and all that. So the injector will be in top of the filter instead of the top of the TBI, then the sprayed fuel must pass through the area where the filter was, (but now we have the heater tubes). I will heat the fuel spray until it vaporizes to finally get into the throttle. The computer will be closed-loop controlling the fuel quantity just as normal.

It doesn't sound too complicated in an already closed loop setup.

[Buzo]

What do you think about this sketch Dr_Snooz?

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/fuelvap.png

[Buzo]

Thinking twice about it, I'll be less concerned if I put the vaporizer below the TBI just like the OEM heater, in that way we wouldn't need to change the injector's hardware and the mix would stay below the throttle plate and not above in case of a backfire. Can the TBI get melted by the intense heat? Maybe...

[Buzo]

We are gonna be testing this sooner than I expected. I have this very old carb base I made some time ago for my car. I am going to close the sides of it so the hot air from the exhaust will be passing through the sides and the fuel through the center.
I need to weld some pieces of metal in the center so I create a tortuous path for the fuel, and it l can hit against hot surfaces during its travel and get evaporated. Again, maybe something like the OEM heater has.

The source of the heat is going to be the old exhaust recirculation pipe of the car.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/carbbase.png

[Dr_Snooz]

What do you think about this sketch Dr_Snooz?

I think you're the expert on this kind of stuff. You're really well positioned to test this. The Megasquirt controller is going to give you lots of data and allow you to fine tune the mix to take advantage of any mods. I'm surprised you got such a big improvement with the couple coils you installed. It sounds like there really is something to this gas vaporization thing. I will follow your project anxiously. Maybe when you get it all dialed in we can write up a How-To for others.

Do you have smog testing there? I wonder what will happen to your smog numbers. Supposedly, heating up the combustion process will produce a lot of NOx. We'll see.

Do you anticipate having to make a lot of changes to sensor readings, etc. or will the current FI setup be able to handle the vaporization?

[Dr_Snooz]

Question. Did you make any chances to the mixture after installing the coils or did the stock setup do that for you? Could I get similar results by installing a coil on a stock FI setup?

[Buzo]

I think you're the expert on this kind of stuff. You're really well positioned to test this. The Megasquirt controller is going to give you lots of data and allow you to fine tune the mix to take advantage of any mods. I'm surprised you got such a big improvement with the couple coils you installed. It sounds like there really is something to this gas vaporization thing. I will follow your project anxiously. Maybe when you get it all dialed in we can write up a How-To for others.

Do you have smog testing there? I wonder what will happen to your smog numbers. Supposedly, heating up the combustion process will produce a lot of NOx. We'll see.

Do you anticipate having to make a lot of changes to sensor readings, etc. or will the current FI setup be able to handle the vaporization?

We do have smog test here and I do have the detailed readings. I passed with no problems two months ago. So I will be able to compare after I finish the mods against something official.

Supposedly the OEM computers "learn" the running conditions through the time and they automatically updates the tables. So if we put this system (assuming it works) with an OEM FI computer, it should be able to adjust itself with the time.

I'll wait until the next tank refill to really see if the benefit I am seeing with the "simple system" of hotter air/fuel is real for all conditions, or if its only for cruising. The UsedFuel I am seeing is consistently lower compared with the old readings.

[Buzo]

Question. Did you make any chances to the mixture after installing the coils or did the stock setup do that for you? Could I get similar results by installing a coil on a stock FI setup?

I haven't touched the mixture settings since I started this project. So all data I have taken so far has been taken exactly with the same fuel tables.

I think someone else should try this air/fuel heater. Just because the Oxygen Sensor gets "less lazy" its a huge benefit already.
Hope someone with the stock carb could run the re-fill test with and without the cold intake tube and report the results here.

[Buzo]

New ideas come up after re-reading the thread with your comments. For instance, I was thinking in replacing the vacuum actuator with a electric solenoid, and then I thought, its better just reducing the spring rate, so it needs less vacuum to move the door up. So I did it already and I'm waiting for the next road test to log the change.
I expect to keep the air/fuel hot even during normal acceleration.

[Oldblueaccord]

Buzo

You have over 1400 looks at this thread. Me along with a lot of others are following. I don't comment unless I have something to add to the discussion. So far you have covered about everything I could think of. I wish I had more of you guys where I work. We can't find people who can think in my area.


wp

[Oldblueaccord]

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/engine/hrdp_1009_what_ever_happened_to_smokeys_hot_vapor_ engine/viewall.html

do some google search on this guy.


wp

[Dr_Snooz]

Gas vaporization is nothing new (http://panacea-bocaf.org/fuelvaporizationtechnology.htm). It's been rearing its head off and on for decades. Tom Ogle was another "inventor" of gas vaporization). Charles Pogue was another. Unfortunately, just about the time that the technology is ready to go to market, something happens that makes it all unravel (including the mysterious death of the inventor). Hmmmm...

If anyone else is interested, the link for the book is here: http://snooz.cc/secret-page/. It's called "Dave's Book".

The way the author lays out the theory makes the most sense to me. Liquid gas doesn't burn, it has to be vaporized first. Most carbs and FI setups, however, send mostly gas droplets into the combustion chamber. Those don't burn and in turn get blown out the tailpipe, making HC emissions. That's why you need a catalytic converter to burn up all that raw gas. If you heat up the mixture prior to burn, you get much cleaner exhaust and much better performance.

The author was mindful that the technology could get him killed, so he satisfied himself with printing a book and letting the issue go. If any of us turns up in a ditch now, we'll know why.

[Buzo]

Wow 1400 visits, I didn't know that...

OK, It looks like we are going to have 2 subjects now. The first one is the air/fuel heater. I changed the spring of the hot air's vacuum actuator and it worked pretty good.

Here is the new spring size I used, now it requires a very little vacuum for the gate to be kept open.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/newspringrate.png

The chart shows that only 2 times the temp went below 95C, one when I shut the car off and the other during a WOT.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/newspring.png

[Buzo]

I started building why I think is the fuel vaporizer to be installed in the TBI' base..

From the hardware store I bought these little nipples. I bought five but I could install only 3. My drill bits got damaged before I could make more holes.
With the electric welder I sealed them.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/vap1.png

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/vap3.png

[Buzo]

Before putting more effort in this little piece decided to run a test in the car just to see how hot it could get.

So I connected the flexible tube from the exhaust manifold source... but found that I can turn it hotter with the direct light of the sun than with this setup.
I idled the car for 10 minutes or so and the air out of the orifices of the vaporizer was around 100F.
The inlet of the tube is at 250F though as shown in the pic.

Any recommendation? I need to make sure it gets hot before I attempt to install it in the car.

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/vap5.png

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/vap7.png

[Buzo]

Another option if the gas recirculation pipe doesn't work is to use the coolant lines I have there from when the car was carb'd.
As I have demonstrated with my readings, the intake temp is around 55C, rising it up to the coolant temp (90 C) would be almost double.

But I'll wait to see if anyone have an idea why my vaporizer didn't turn red hot hahaha,

[jbabb]

have you considered an electric style heater like the one that came with the OE carb?

[Buzo]

have you considered an electric style heater like the one that came with the OE carb?

I actually still have the heater stored somewhere, so it would be interesting to test what temperature it can reach. In the car, it works only for the first 15 minutes after start. In the book sketches they pass all the gases of the exhaust through the vaporizer, I am passing only a fraction of it, so that might be the reason why reached so low temp.

[Buzo]

OMG, that little carb heater was able to give me 309F with a current draw of 1.2 A!
Thanks jbabb for the Idea!

Temp > 300F
http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/heater300F.jpg

Current draw:
http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/heatercuurdraw.jpg

A couple of water drops turned quickly into vapor:
http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/heaterwatervapor.jpg

[Buzo]

Its sad its Sunday. So most of my local yards will be closed today.
I'll go anyway and if I can find another heater I am going to make one out of two by implanting another heat element in the secondary hole.
If not, I guess I can test with one single and see if I get an improvement at least with low engine speeds.

Want to take the opportunity to explain a little bit how the narrow band oxygen sensor feedback works in the megasquirt controller.

The O2 sensor can modify the mix only a certain percentage of the total mix. It is called sensor authority and its currently is set to +/- 15%

So everything starts with 100%
If the mix is lean it will apply 101%, if still lean will increase 102& and so on until 115%. If the mix is still lean, the O2 sensor can do nothing else and will stay in 115%.
If the mix is rich it will substract fuel and will apply 99%, 98 % until reaches 85%, if the mix is still rich, the sensor can do nothing else.
In a well tuned car, The NB O2 sensor will be varying anywhere between 85 and 115.

Wanted to explain that because, if this vaporizer thing works, we should see the O2 sensor authority in the lower 85's and the mix still rich, right?

[Buzo]

This is something that a guy with a stock carb can test. Just give +12V Ignition to the heater and report back what happen.
Just be careful please! I do all these testing with my nose ready in case of the minor fuel smell and a big bottle of coke as fire extinguisher :)

The only problem is when the secondary opens it will bypass the heater. But its OK because if the secondary opens is because we need power.

[Buzo]

Finished installing the second heater in the carb base and installed it in the car.
About to run the first functional test and will be logging the data to see if there is a difference with the heater on vs heater off.
I got pictures of everything but I will run the test first and upload everything later.

[Buzo]

The test is a complete success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Went for a short drive as usual and found that the car ran very rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It happened exactly what I stated below. The sensor got to its 85% authority and it was unable to bring it to stoichiometric.
It is the same tune and you guys know per the charts I have posted how the oxygen sensor went up and down at very high speed before.

I don't know what it means in terms of fuel economy yet, but it must be something good. I need to re-calibrate my fuel tables and then I will know because there is no sense to keep running it rich.

I will upload everything in a moment.

The bad news for those with a carbed car is that this is happening after the fuel has been already mixed with the air, so the carb will be metering the same quantity of air.

[A18A]

this thread is very interesting reading :)

[Buzo]

testing flicker...

This is the oxygen sensor response BEFORE (hot air/fuel)


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8068/8258869039_ba78c76ab6.jpg


And this is AFTER (hot air/fuel and two 350F fuel vaporizers in the base of the TBI)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8060/8259936540_44db67f51b.jpg

[Buzo]

View of the two fuel heaters through the TBI. I am holding the throttle wide open with my hand.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8483/8258904053_e34abf9857_b.jpg

[Buzo]

Installed in the intake manifold, and my TBI's adapter plate on top

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8347/8259985710_e76332c790_b.jpg

[Buzo]

this thread is very interesting reading :)

Thanks! thinking more about it, this will not benefit the FI cars neither, unless we can put the heaters where the fuel is injected... Could this be the return of the TBIs?

This is the stock Heater and the spare one I bought. Already dismounted and ready to be added to the secondary.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8077/8258931751_3685b2f30f_b.jpg

And here is already installed.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8356/8258932895_11bc70c340_b.jpg

[Buzo]

One more pic showing the TBI, adapter plate and modified heater.

Forgot to say that this 1/2" increase in height didn't affected my filter setup. So I can keep using my air/fuel heater on top.


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8211/8260044784_0239355866_b.jpg

[Buzo]

The bad news for those with a carbed car is that this is happening after the fuel has been already mixed with the air, so the carb will be metering the same quantity of air.

Actually it can be OK for carbed cars, if some adjustment to the jetting is made. It will need to pull less fuel for the same given amount of air.

[Buzo]

testing flicker...

This is the oxygen sensor response BEFORE (hot air/fuel)


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8068/8258869039_ba78c76ab6.jpg


And this is AFTER (hot air/fuel and two 350F fuel vaporizers in the base of the TBI)

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8060/8259936540_44db67f51b.jpg

Is there any question with these charts?

They are the proof of the success. If we focus in the idling area -where the red line is flat- the oxygen sensor in the top chart was in range to substract fuel and it was able to make the mix lean and rich over and over.

With the fuel vaporized in the bottom chart, the engine is able to burn it more efficiently, so now it looks like is there was excess of fuel. But the fuel injected is the same for both charts!

It means that now we can reduce the amount of fuel injected to make the sensor be in range again.

[Buzo]

Somebody might say that I added an air restriction by putting the heaters there and that's why the car is rich now, well, I ran a test for that and I can change the O2 sensor correction % just by turning the heaters on and off. This chart shows the results of the test. The green line is the O2 sensor authority, adding fuel when the heaters are OFF and subtracting fuel when the heaters are ON. Everything in the same run.

Conclusion: the mix of my car is now rich because its burning the fuel more efficiently.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8498/8259252481_7382e854df_b.jpg

[Legend_master]

I'm thinking with a fuel injected car we could heat the fuel filter, or the fuel rail itself. My biggest concern would be the fuel being so hot it melts the plastic and rubber parts of the fuel injectors.

[Legend_master]

Check this out (http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Caggiano's_Fuel_Vaporizor_System_(FIVS))

and this one (http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Fuel_Pre-Heating_for_Mileage_Improvement)

[Buzo]

I will describe new car's performance in one single sentence:

"I can remove my hands from the steering wheel and it won't produce the usual rattle noise"

I told my 14 years old daughter while we where in a red light "look, I can release the steering wheel" she asked "What did you do to the car that feels so different?"

Of course I also did the test of smelling the tail pipe and it doesn't smell like before. It smelled like fresh air!

I know the heaters I am using are pretty low power, so when the car is pulling more gas during acceleration, the flow of the gas colds the heaters down and the current draw increases. But at idle its a huge difference because the fuel flow is very little and it can be fully vaporized.

I started to modify my tune and I was able to reduce my Volumetric Efficiency (fuel tables) in the idling section from an average of 32 to an average of 25. and still working in the cruising section, but the numbers have been changed from ~45 to ~39 so far.

I didn't see a dramatic difference in my FuelUsed variable this morning though, (heaters need more power?) but need to finish the new tune first and then make further conclusions.

[Buzo]

Check this out (http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Caggiano's_Fuel_Vaporizor_System_(FIVS))

and this one (http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Fuel_Pre-Heating_for_Mileage_Improvement)

From what I learned from school I remember that magnetism is a property exclusive of metals. Don't quite understand how a magnetic field can affect fuel.
An electrostatic field will certainly affect the fuel, but not magnetism. Haven't gone through the whole articles yet.. so I might be wrong...

[Buzo]

I'm thinking with a fuel injected car we could heat the fuel filter, or the fuel rail itself. My biggest concern would be the fuel being so hot it melts the plastic and rubber parts of the fuel injectors.

Yeah, we need to somehow prepare our car for higher pressures of the hot fuel contained in the lines.

With my 100C heater I noticed a difficulty for a hot-restart after I installed it, the fuel in the coil got hot soaked while the car was off increasing the fuel pressure.
The the usual "purge pulse" sent by the controller contained more fuel (same open time for the injector resulted in higher flow due to the higher pressure in the fuel line) so sometimes I had to press the pedal to re-start the car. It didn't happen before the fuel heater installation.

[Buzo]

Forgot to connect the coil for the fuel heater last night! So I ran today without the fuel heater, and it is logic that cold fuel is not good for the heaters and the vaporization process.

[cygnus x-1]

That heater is also going to heat the incoming air as well as the fuel, thereby making it less dense. This could also explain why you are observing a rich mixture with the heater; there is less air (mass) getting into the cylinders. This might not be a bad thing though if fuel economy is the goal. Smokey Yunick did some work in the '80s on hot vapor engine induction that was pretty interesting and ground breaking at the time.

http://www.rexresearch.com/yunick/yunick.htm


C|

[Buzo]

Mi smog test certificate.
When done with the new tune I am going to take another and compare. With this ultimate test, nobody can refute the results, whatever they are.
http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/smogtest.png

[Legend_master]

Yeah, we need to somehow prepare our car for higher pressures of the hot fuel contained in the lines.

With my 100C heater I noticed a difficulty for a hot-restart after I installed it, the fuel in the coil got hot soaked while the car was off increasing the fuel pressure.
The the usual "purge pulse" sent by the controller contained more fuel (same open time for the injector resulted in higher flow due to the higher pressure in the fuel line) so sometimes I had to press the pedal to re-start the car. It didn't happen before the fuel heater installation.

Its actually an in line fuel vaporizer, and magnatizer. I don't really agree with the magnet thing, but the vaporizer is what intrigued me. I'm thinking if you ran metal lines from the fuel filter to the vaporizer, and then to the fuel rail pressure should not be an issue. Loving your project, keep up the good work.

[Buzo]

Wow, those stories in the links are like horror tales! The guy that burned himself, then being in jail and persecuted all his life! The writer spent more time describing the poor life of the inventors than giving test data. It looks like the stories were written for those big companies to discourage others.

If I don't see a real benefit with the new tune, I will consider this fuel heater too risky for 3 or 4 MPG gain. It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop using the heaters, but I can use them to superheat the air only and not the mix. The problem I am noticing is a small fuel odor when I release the pedal. I assume the back pressure during a deceleration is expelling the vapors out through the throttle.

As Cygnus stated below, the heaters are doing their job by heating the air pretty high, that the air is changing its volume, so the car needs less fuel in consequence.

With this I can accomplish the goal set when I started the thread so I can relocate the heaters to the air intake tube... and test, and test again.

[Buzo]

However, the car runs really smooth. The quiet steering wheel says it everything even while warming up in today's cold morning of 35 F.

I don't know, maybe because I read the articles I got scared. I think we all have some degree of fuel odor in the engine bay, Do we?

[Buzo]

I think I know what to do to avoid this fuel odor that concerns me. I just read Smokey's link. The answer is there in the little turbines, but I'll take another approach.

[Buzo]

Not very encouraging news...

I am not longer measuring the fuel economy by the fill/refill method. I am using my highway miles vs the FuelUsed value method (which matches very close anyway). Once I get something promising, I will confirm with the standard fill/refill method.

When I set the Air/Gas heater to 80-85 C got 25 MPG (compared to the 19 MPG I got with cold air, it is 24% improvement!).
With the fuel vaporizer, Air/Gas temp set to 95-100 C, fuel tables reduced... got 22.6 MPG :(

There is something else going on that I don't understand. I know the heaters put more load to the alternator, but I hopped that the change in the efficiency would give me enough power to run the heaters and some extra for the engine.

I'm going to try to put some isolation in the intake manifold to avoid the fuel vapors to cool down while traveling from the throttle to the head.

[Buzo]

Just to make sure I explained myself correctly with my MPG calculations. This is a typical datalog chart of my daily way to work.
There is one 6.5 Miles section with no lights and light traffic.
I like to use that section because the car is fully warm already and is very consistent, the disadvantage is that its too short.
The great advantage is that I can open any old datalog and compare it vs my most recent actions for fuel economy improvements.
I found one configuration where mi car gave me 27 MPG. It was when I still had my dizzy. Since my current configuration is COPs in wasted spark mode, I know I am "wasting" some current draw to ignite one coil that is not needed. I'm not worried because that gain is already there, I just need to change to sequential ignition configuration to get 27 MPH plus what I can get with the air/fuel heaters.

Here is a typical chart and how I use it:

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/highway.png

[Dr_Snooz]

I'm thinking with a fuel injected car we could heat the fuel filter, or the fuel rail itself. My biggest concern would be the fuel being so hot it melts the plastic and rubber parts of the fuel injectors.

There is an FI setup outlined in the book. In this version of gas vaporization, you heat the gas only to coolant temp, 180-190. The intake air gets heated up to exhaust manifold temp, which is quite a bit hotter. In this context, you should be able to do vaporization with OE injectors. Of course, it would be well to monitor intake manifold temps to make sure the intake isn't heating up the injectors too much.


When I set the Air/Gas heater to 80-85 C got 25 MPG (compared to the 19 MPG I got with cold air, it is 24% improvement!).

With the fuel vaporizer, Air/Gas temp set to 95-100 C, fuel tables reduced... got 22.6 MPG :(

Interesting. How well do you know your heaters? If I read correctly above, the heaters have a modest draw at idle, but the draw is variable depending on engine load. Also, their draw might be exponential. In other words, turning the heat up by x turns the draw up by 2x. The higher you turn them, the higher still the draw, in effect offsetting any vaporization savings. Are you able to monitor their draw while driving?

Another potential issue with the heaters is that you're not really heating the mix across a wide area. You have a lot of heat for a very short distance. My guess is that you aren't heating the mix as much as you're cooling your heaters.

The heat coming off the exhaust manifold is pretty intense and is effectively free for the taking. You might consider trying a shroud on the manifold to conduct that heat.

I'm not sitting there with you, of course, so I am probably missing a lot. Just brainstorming over the internet.

I'm having a hard time gauging, but does it seem to you that you should be getting a lot more impressive results? I mean, the book cited 40 MPG just from heating the fuel to 180. That was for a '70s era V8. I'd think you'd be getting orders of magnitude better mileage by this time. On the other hand, you got some pretty impressive results (20%) simply heating your fuel a little bit. You had a couple coils going through the air cleaner. I don't think that ever got your fuel to 180 deg., so getting the mileage you did is impressive.

[Buzo]

I think I know whats going on.

I moved the IAT sensor to its original position, right in the neck where the fuel is injected. The average temperature there was 35-40 degrees C this morning.
So regardless of how hot the air is when measured in the inlet part of the filter, it gets dissipated during its travel through the filter case and through the fuel coil.

So the little improvement I saw was just the reduction of the air temperature enrichment part of the fuel equation, because I was cheating the computer making it believe the air was hotter than it really was.

I feel better because I have a clue now.

What I am going to do is to start a really serious insulation work from the filter case down to the intake-head area, plus a coil with coolant temperature around the TBI. The idea of this coil is to replace the OEM's coolant lines in the base of the carb.

The explanation for why I am seeing a reduction in the fuel economy is because it got really cold since Sunday, so the colder temp is taking its toll.

[Buzo]

Snooz, you are right in all what you said. I am not seeing impressive results because all the heaters I put are all low power. So they cool down with a simple change in the ambient temp or changes in the air (and fuel) flow during acceleration.

The 20% came from making the ECU remove the IAT compensation, and maybe a little bit from the O2 sensor "thinking faster". So its is not that it is more efficient now, but perhaps it was too rich before...

I of course want to keep going with the exhaust gas heater for the base of the carb, I just need to make it at least the same diameter so I don't add a restriction. Instead of trying to build it myself, I am going to hire one machine shop. I'm about to finish the drawings for that heater.

One good think of all these previous experimentation, is that using the UsedFuel method to measure the fuel economy has been proven to be accurate.

Step#1.- Repeatable measuring method - DONE! (-five- pages for the step one!)

[Oldblueaccord]

I think I know whats going on.

I moved the IAT sensor to its original position, right in the neck where the fuel is injected. The average temperature there was 35-40 degrees C this morning.
So regardless of how hot the air is when measured in the inlet part of the filter, it gets dissipated during its travel through the filter case and through the fuel coil.

So the little improvement I saw was just the reduction of the air temperature enrichment part of the fuel equation, because I was cheating the computer making it believe the air was hotter than it really was.

I feel better because I have a clue now.

What I am going to do is to start a really serious insulation work from the filter case down to the intake-head area, plus a coil with coolant temperature around the TBI. The idea of this coil is to replace the OEM's coolant lines in the base of the carb.

The explanation for why I am seeing a reduction in the fuel economy is because it got really cold since Sunday, so the colder temp is taking its toll.

Yes air temp for me on a stock fi cars effects the mpg. I get the best at around 60 f. So spring and fall here. Its only 2 mpg difference but its repeatable.

Wp

[Buzo]

Yes air temp for me on a stock fi cars effects the mpg. I get the best at around 60 f. So spring and fall here. Its only 2 mpg difference but its repeatable.

Wp

There you go.
Before trying to increase the power of the heaters, I am going to reduce the heat losses as much as I can. Just like we all do with the chillers at home.

[cygnus x-1]

There is another variable you might have to consider too; the fuel mix. I don't know how it is where you are, but in the midwest US they change the composition of the fuel during the winter to make it vaporize better at colder temperatures. The downside is that the winter blend fuel contains less energy than the summer fuel. My truck for example loses about 2MPG on average in the winter.

For your purposes you can eliminate this variable by running your tests side by side using the same fuel. Just be aware that you may not be able to compare test results that were taken during different seasons.


C|

[Buzo]

The expectation is if we can do this vaporization thing, The MPG must be so high that we should not be worried for +/-5 MPG.
So far we have proven that we will not get it working with a couple of 60W heaters. Its time for the next step...

[Buzo]

Just got a brilliant idea :naughty:

I do have a cheap heat gun at home. I know it can reach ~750F because I use it for soldering, the question is if it will keep the power once the fuel is flowing through the heater.

I know it will work for Idle only, since it has to be connected to 110VAC. But the heat gun can be turned ON and OFF during the test and log the reactions of the engine.

If the heat gun is not enough, I can try with electric resistors...All I need is an indication this vaporization thing works before I mess with the exhaust tubes.

[Buzo]

An update on the Intake Air temperature.

I was able to rise the temperature in the inlet of the TBI to 70C by insulating the filter case from the ambient temp. I know it is hot for real because now I can make my engine to knock.

Logged a buch of short trips at different hours of the day. The only thing I need to do now is to log the data without the heater and compare. I can not compare to old datalogs anymore because my tune and the ambient temperature have changed.

[Oldblueaccord]

Yes fuel mix here does add into the equation. I just had a "gas pump" discussion on my fill up today with someone.

Buzo i would use coolant for your heat source its easy and safe. I worry about electrical esp. 110v. Draw back is coolant temp will be low on start up and limited to 200f or less.

Wp

[Buzo]

Supposedly coolant temperature is not enough for the level of vaporization we need. The book mentioned 750 F.
I did test my heat gun in my redesigned carb base, It reached 400F after 10 minutes even when I was spraying some water on it.
I had a huge cloud of water vapor in my garage as you can imagine.

Everything's ready for the testing in the car hopefully tomorrow.

[Buzo]

These are the numbers of the Hot Air Intake study:

http://www.3geez.com/forum/image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAe4AAAChCAIAAAC ODMsMAAAZ7ElEQVR4nO1d27GsOAwkPAIinMmFPLZ2a0JhPxhAt iU/ZIyRT3f5414GOK0HjTHGmv759z80NDQ0NNNt+uff/zagH6Zp6k2hA6xbDf6DwbpDpmmClHeG9RzSwbrV4D8YrDsEUt4 f1nNIB+tWg/9gsO4QSHl/WM8hHaxbDf6DwbpDIOX9YT2HdLBuNfgPBusOqZDydZkcLOvN3P 4KrOeQDg9YvS4Ns7I5/3WZ5s/31vNRb/zNrIvAukOUUr4uk59nzKYd38/cR/G/n5n9a4TQK24/dTn0/cyO3/3/S8fIpu/3aO93MbxalFv9i5tPfKd7cKM8H5TywKP1QkzO4PWadDY9LuXZ8 ZIsc5Wj9bWqdYjmAmwBlZSfSXbG4fwvYwM17fuZn9NPQbDW5ZF LPR8vk/J1meZliWn9LdBJ+Tz71q3LtCy8bo4k5fXi0EXKk/GipjnqsC6ufK9L44z8i1L+/czz50uj8P3My0p+8Xd3o3UdRIJznsy5FbtRjtye/Z42f5YYM77nI/1dbnvW32TQUspDnimWeyA4aTo2rMs0fz5LZVdJJ+XL6spasI0K litefCjJ1rLrL1/KuT8h5NW1ef584lIuXD7yybtIeU68yM8nxw69rDZSzsZCil3Vl TVN5VL+uz8y+ZWUcv/fQi56uzp3a65jf3W05T/A2sFkFD2KJhQ9s7Rd2hJHMykX/RbxzOEI/7SulFeJ+A6tlAf9OHeTJOV8yFIpks1flnLuTwj546eYTspzkjb g3wK58XJ17+glPv683EDKpQswIuX6K+shKSfww3qd1DnU69VQ8 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http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/table_zps2461facb.png

1) All the tests were ran with the heaters in the base of the carb ON.
2) Same route from home to work (10.6 M) and back (9.6 M) (I drop mi daughter at school every morning that's why the 1 mile difference)
3) The hot air hose connected will improve from 15-22% in the morning trip ONLY. Hope to see more improvement as the weather gets colder.
4) The hot air has no effect once the car has been heat-soaked, or heated up by the light of the sun

I don't know about you guys, but I'll keep that hose connected for all the winter.

Just for fun I will disconnect the heater in the base of the carb and re-run the test. But next year because tomorrow is my first day on vacation...

NOTE: Don't get scared with the "low" MPG, this is the whole trip including warm up (total used fuel / total miles in the odometer) not only the highway portion.

[Buzo]

After a really cold and rainy day, I got 14.9 MPG in my way back home. So yes, any cloudy day will take 5 MPG out of your fuel economy if you don't have a hot air source.

Going back to the fuel vaporization, the only missing step is to put the TBI on top of the whole assembly (sorry guys, no detailed pictures this time) but I will certainly upload pictures of the thing assembled in the car and charts of the results, of course. Planning to test it first time tomorrow morning.

Stay tuned!

[g.frost]

Been following your work here with great interest. Thanks for keeping us posted.
I will hard wire my intake hot air control full open for the winter to see what difference it will make with my stock carb. It will be a month before I will be able to tell anything. I don't put many miles on it. No sophisticated instruments here, but I have tracked gas mileage for many years. Winter is the worst for my car as it is usually only short trips of 5-6 miles; barely time to warm up the oil. I still get around 26mpg with this routine though, not complaining about that.

[Buzo]

Thanks for your comment!
I hope you see something similar as I did. If you can repeat the change in the fuel economy with simply preventing the hot air enter the engine, it will benefit those with no hot air supply. They can add this hose and instantly improve 5 MPG.

The new vaporizer is installed in the car. I'm about to run it with the heat off, check for leaks issues, etc and then turn it on and log the changes!!!

[Dr_Snooz]

I know it is hot for real because now I can make my engine to knock.

I've been meaning to mention this. These cars don't have knock sensors, and pinging is (for me at least) very hard to hear in the cabin. I made a real mess of my first engine because I couldn't hear it pinging away. I finally heard it one day when I was driving under a bridge. *Doh!*

I keep meaning to look for a way to install a knock sensor next time I go to the junkyard. You know how that goes though.


Supposedly coolant temperature is not enough for the level of vaporization we need. The book mentioned 750 F.

I always thought the fuel was supposed to be coolant temp. How hot can you get it in an FI setup before vapor lock becomes an issue?

[Buzo]

Everything was leak tested and passed. I put the exhaust gases through the vaporizer and drove through the neighborhood only. It reached 270 F in a couple of miles and I went low speed only.

Later just drove the car with the vaporizer in place, but with the exhaust gases valve closed. No issues, so I am ready to turn the heat on for a longer trip...

I am waiting for a friend to go with me during the road test. If there is a fire or something it would be easier to do something about it between two guys.

[Buzo]

I'm going to keep secret what is inside the box below the TBI, but in general this is how the external connections look like.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8219/8275601609_f77e82b2fc_c.jpg

[Buzo]

I've been meaning to mention this. These cars don't have knock sensors, and pinging is (for me at least) very hard to hear in the cabin. I made a real mess of my first engine because I couldn't hear it pinging away. I finally heard it one day when I was driving under a bridge. *Doh!*

I keep meaning to look for a way to install a knock sensor next time I go to the junkyard. You know how that goes though.



I always thought the fuel was supposed to be coolant temp. How hot can you get it in an FI setup before vapor lock becomes an issue?


I though vapor lock was an issue for the pump in the tank only. How can an injector get vapor locked?

[Buzo]

My main concern has always been the intense heat generated by the muffler tube below the TBI, it has plastic parts like the TPS that could get damaged when the car is shut off after a long drive. But last night I thought about a solution for this. I am going to add a small 12V fan to blow cold air for several minutes to the system after the car is shut off. With this, the heat must go away and keep my TBI safe. This little fan can also serve as temperature control, if I define that the heat is getting too hot, I'll turn the fan on to regulate the temperature.
Sunday morning... It looks like a good hour of the day for the first highway drive.

[Buzo]

The temperature of inlet tube of the vaporizer reached 320 F only during the trip.
I think I need to restrict the flow of the main exhaust so more flow is sent through the TBI.

I feel more confident now, nothing exploded during the first test.

[Buzo]

Well, added the fuel coil to the exhaust gas inlet hose just in case the cold fuel was cooling down everything.

My computer don't seem to find a difference between normal or passing the exhaust gases below the TBI.

One next step would be to pass the main exhaust tube. But the aluminum inlet hose you see in the picture is already turning blackish due to the intense heat. I don't know. I am going to re-read the book in case I am missing something.

[Buzo]

Even though the tubes inside the box are 320F, the box itself remains cold to the touch all the time. Its something good, I guess.
I removed the vaporizer from the car and observed that everything is getting black due to the heat, except the parts where the flow of the fuel hits when injected.

I'm going to give this vaporizer project one more chance. I'll ask the muffler's shop to solder some connections, like an "H" so I can bring the heat up to the TBI or I can connect it normally.

I'm not that scared with testing the system anymore, the fuel flowing does a very good job keeping the temperature down.

Saw only two differences from my system and the one in the book, they have more and longer tubes inside the vaporizer, and they claim they can reach 1000F. Why am I only getting 320?

[gp02a0083]

Even though the tubes inside the box are 320F, the box itself remains cold to the touch all the time. Its something good, I guess.
I removed the vaporizer from the car and observed that everything is getting black due to the heat, except the parts where the flow of the fuel hits when injected.

I'm going to give this vaporizer project one more chance. I'll ask the muffler's shop to solder some connections, like an "H" so I can bring the heat up to the TBI or I can connect it normally.

I'm not that scared with testing the system anymore, the fuel flowing does a very good job keeping the temperature down.

Saw only two differences from my system and the one in the book, they have more and longer tubes inside the vaporizer, and they claim they can reach 1000F. Why am I only getting 320?


Could be a number of things buzo. If they have more and longer tubes, they have that much more surface area to heat its surroundings. Also was this vaporizer designed with a decent air flow passing over the system? 1k F is really really up there , its in the lower 500C range. I would be very cautious and concerned about plastic parts and whatever the system can or does come in contact with at that temperature. But this might not be as bad as say a red hot turbo. in an FI system I rarely ever heard of vapor lock, carb'd cars tho i do hear vapor lock happen quite often. One aspect that can contribute to this is the amount of fuel pressure on each system. Carb'd typically runs on a lower pressure.

[Buzo]

Contacted my friend at his muffler shop. I am going to modify the exhaust tubes tomorrow to pass the main stream through the vaporizer and also plan to add more little tubes inside the box. I'll ask him to build some sort of flaps for me so I can redirect the flow at my convenience to adjust the temperature.

I think I've been too rude with this system and wanted it to give me immediate results.

[Legend_master]

Contacted my friend at his muffler shop. I am going to modify the exhaust tubes tomorrow to pass the main stream through the vaporizer and also plan to add more little tubes inside the box. I'll ask him to build some sort of flaps for me so I can redirect the flow at my convenience to adjust the temperature.

I think I've been too rude with this system and wanted it to give me immediate results.


you could use something like this (http://www.jegs.com/p/Race-Ready/Race-Ready-Performance-Electric-Exhaust-Cutout-Kits/757985/10002/-1)

[gp02a0083]

Contacted my friend at his muffler shop. I am going to modify the exhaust tubes tomorrow to pass the main stream through the vaporizer and also plan to add more little tubes inside the box. I'll ask him to build some sort of flaps for me so I can redirect the flow at my convenience to adjust the temperature.

I think I've been too rude with this system and wanted it to give me immediate results.

Take your time buzo, i know the feeling i want immediate results from any reaction i do in the lab, but sometimes you need to be patient and walk away from it for a little bit then come back to it with fresh ideas

[Buzo]

I played a little bit today with my electric heaters in the base of the TBI.

My car really like those heaters. Since I tuned my car with the heaters ON, It will not idle if I disconnect them.
I put in one chart below the reaction of the oxygen sensor. I confirmed it again during my test today.

The only problem with them is they put a heavy load to the alternator. So again, lets find a way to use the heat from the exhaust manifold. Any level of fuel vaporization seems to be good.

[Buzo]

The job in the muffler is done. We put a "Y" and sent one flexible tube up to the carb area.
Also added more material inside the vaporizer box so no fuel can get to the base of the box without hitting against a hot metal piece before.
I'm going to reinstall everything tomorrow and will be monitoring the inlet temperature. I know 300's is not enough to make a difference, so I hope to get more than that with this setup. If I see the temp going crazy (I hope) I can just shut the car off.

Te electrical heaters are doing "something" already because the car runs very lean with them OFF, and it ran OK with the heaters ON. However, it is too little to tell a difference in the UsedFuel variable vs my 15 miles trips.

I'm thinking that I can fill the entire box with a fabric made out of metal strands. Like the ones our grandmothers used to clean the stove.

Anybody remember those?

[cygnus x-1]

I'm thinking that I can fill the entire box with a fabric made out of metal strands. Like the ones our grandmothers used to clean the stove.

Anybody remember those?


http://www.brillo.com/steel-wool-soap-pads-car.asp


There were also some very coarse types that were not soaped. Those would be better if you can find some.


C|

[Dr_Snooz]

I think you're on to something. If the car runs better and leaner, then you are probably headed in the right direction. Sometimes you have to ignore all the data and go with your gut.

You can get steel wool at the hardware store in big packs. HOWEVER, steel wool rusts extremely quickly. My guess is that unless you have your box hermetically sealed, moisture will collect on the steel wool and it will disappear relatively quickly. I think you can also buy steel wool made out of stainless steel. It's much coarser and possibly only available in the dish detergent aisle as little pads.

[gp02a0083]

I played a little bit today with my electric heaters in the base of the TBI.

My car really like those heaters. Since I tuned my car with the heaters ON, It will not idle if I disconnect them.
I put in one chart below the reaction of the oxygen sensor. I confirmed it again during my test today.

The only problem with them is they put a heavy load to the alternator. So again, lets find a way to use the heat from the exhaust manifold. Any level of fuel vaporization seems to be good.

if this is taking the altinator that much you might be able to use a simple RC circuit to lessen the load, all depends on the voltage and current required. As far as the steel wool, look for something along the lines of stainless steel or aluminum. Both still have great heat transfer qualities and reduce the chance of corrosion. However , the Aluminum will corrode and form an oxide easier at high temperatures. Stainless steel would be the better candidate for the material at that point but it will cost a bit more. Take a look at McMaster Carr 's catalog online, you may find stuff there you can use.

Buzo , also look into Kapton type heaters if your looking for another alternative for heating, i believe i used Minco brand flat thin film resistive heaters before. Used them for low temperature / high vac for spacecraft components. I think you might be able to call them and acquire a few samples for free if you talk to them right. Another thought is just bypassing a coolant line and use that. Im not sure what your target temp range is so im not sure if that may work at all.

[Buzo]

Buzo is on vacation and far away from the car. But I have been reading a lot about fuel vaporization methods and I think I have a clear idea now of how to make it work. 50 or 60 MPH is possible.

[Dr_Snooz]

:d

[Buzo]

I have my exhaust pipe already modified and the box below the carb improved with more hot surfaces.
But its too cold outside to work underneath the car and make the necessary connections. Things need to wait for a warmer weekend to give the vaporizer its second try.

In the meantime I got a very thick-wall tank - its a 1/4 gallon metal container of the size of a glass designed to hold ultra high pressures.
The plan is to put one oz of fuel, heat it up and record the max pressure achieved when the fuel inside is completely vaporized.
Repeat the test with 2, 3, 4 oz until I can get at least 300 kPa which would be equal to my fuel pressure.

Then I plan to inject the pressurized fuel vapor using a commercial LPG mixer in the top of the TBI. I have read that if fuel vapors are mixed with water vapor, the result is Natural Gas, so the car would have an On-Demand Natural Gas source and would run just like any car with commercial LPG system. This is my second option only if the exhaust tube below the TBI doesn't work.

I do have a third option, but I am going to start a new thread in the performance section.

[Buzo]

Discovered a 33% improvement in my fuel economy for this winter time. No changes at all in the car set up since my last report.
The only thing I did different was to let the car to fully warm up in my driveway before I started my trip to work (10.6 miles).

Used fuel with fully warmed car: 0.501 of a gallon
Used fuel with 1 minute warm up: 0.758 of a gallon
difference: 33.9%

I did not measured the fuel required to fully warm the car on purpose, I wanted to exclusively measure the fuel consumption over distance.
But I know per my datalogs that idling the car for several minutes will use lot less fuel than driving the car for the same length of time.
I will add the fuel used during warm up time during my next trip.

No, I am not getting crazy or obsessed with fuel economy. I have the following picture to prove what I said above.
The top chart was taken 2 days ago, the average MAT was 25 C, UsedFuel 0.758 Gals, the bottom chart was taken today, the average MAT was 40 C, UsedFuel 0.501 Gals. The blue line is the Coolant temp.

I have always started my drive as soon as the car fires up, that's why I have never noticed this improvement.
Now we can include this practice in the list of good habits to improve fuel economy (winter only).

http://i1295.photobucket.com/albums/b624/Buzo3geez/warmup_zps4f9557a2.jpg

[Buzo]

Bad news for this project of using the exhaust manifold as fuel vaporizer.

I found one guy that is running his truck in gas vapors, he said something that makes a lot of sense to me, he said that the temperature of the exhaust manifold in his truck is so low that you can touch it with your bare hand. It will be hot, but will not produce burns in the skin as when the engine runs in gasoline.

It makes sense because the intense heat of the exhaust is produced by the fuel that continues to burn after the exhaust valve has opened.
So, if the gas vapors burn better in the combustion chamber, there will be no fuel to burn in the exhaust manifold to produce the intense heat to convert the fuel into vapor. And a never ending loop starts.

This guy is vaporizing the fuel using electrical heaters, which is not a re-used energy as the book & the hundred of fuel vapor patents state.

[Dr_Snooz]

I had wondered about that. I don't think using exhaust manifold heat will be completely fruitless, though. You'll still get results, they just might not be as good as they could be. Instead of getting, say, 100 MPG, you'll only get 50 MPG. That's not record-setting, but I'd still take it.

The real downside of using exhaust heat is the extraordinarily intricate apparatus needed to harness it. You'll have to spend a lot of time building a big, ugly heat exchanger and then figuring out how to stuff it under the hood. If you look at the book author's build, there is a small space station enveloping the engine. That's fine on his car, because he has plenty room in the engine bay. We have quite a lot less space under the hood. When you figure out how much time you'll spend designing and building the heat exchanger, it might not be worth it.

The bottom line is, if the guy you talked to built a successful vaporization rig, then you should give his advice a lot of weight. The best part about the electric heaters is that you can control the intake temp very precisely. With a heat exchanger, it will be a lot more difficult. Did he mention what kind of mileage he's getting? Did he give you any other good ideas?

What I wonder is, if he's getting the intake temp up to 300F+, how does that get cooled down in its short trip to the exhaust manifold? If you heat up the mix, then light it on fire, how does that make it cooler?

[noroads88mph]

wow... you have done a lot of great research. Now I think I should replace my IAT. I've been looking to improve my fuel economy. getting about 23mpg. 88 dx carb. But in order for everything to work properly I would also need to replace the air control diaphragm on top of the air box. (currently doesn't hold a vacuum). and probably need to replace the o2 sensor. (its the original). Still works, but I don't think its very effective after 28 years.

[noroads88mph]

wow... you have done a lot of great research. Now I think I should replace my IAT. I've been looking to improve my fuel economy. getting about 23mpg. 88 dx carb. But in order for everything to work properly I would also need to replace the air control diaphragm on top of the air box. (currently doesn't hold a vacuum). and probably need to replace the o2 sensor. (its the original). Still works, but I don't think its very effective after 28 years.

[Dr_Snooz]

The idea of gas vaporization has been around for a pretty long time. For instance, the Pogue Carburetor (Pogue Carburetor, 'Gasoline Vapor Maker' Increase Mileage - Sepp Hasslberger (http://blog.hasslberger.com/2007/04/pogue_carburetor_gasoline_vapo.html)), which operated on the same principle, was invented in the 1930s. In doing some further research since I last posted in this thread, it seems that following the invention (and subsequent suppression) of the Pogue Carburetor, the oil companies began adding things to the gasoline to keep it from working. One of those additives was lead (History Of 'New Energy' Invention Suppression Cases (http://rense.com/general72/oinvent.htm)), which did a very nice job of clogging up the Pogue Carburetor, and causing other neurological effects in humans. More recently, ethanol has taken the place of lead, and would likewise help to keep gas vaporization from working. All that to say, if we had the old style gasoline, gas vaporization would probably work a lot better.

I know that in the current energy debate, we're only allowed to 1.) talk about how much more money we'd like to give to bankers in the form of carbon taxes, or 2.) insist that there is nothing wrong in the environment whatsoever. So at the risk of being politically incorrect (horrors!), I'd like to propose an alternative position, 3.) that the oil oligopoly be dismantled and all the energy patents from Pogue, Tesla and others currently being suppressed by oil corporations and the US Patent Office, be released into the public domain.