creating a vehicle with efficiency and gas mileage

this is a hypothetical idea i had, its not something i want the govt to come knocking on my door about, but i wanted to run it by some of you mechanically minded people and see if it is plausible, practical, and fine theoretically.

So here we go, i read a paper on a guy in the 70s who came across the idea of bypassing the carb and running on heavy fumes. he was workin on his lawnmower when he did something to make him put the fume hose in. it ran for like 90 hrs or something. so he made a car, hard to start, but he did say hundreds of miles a gallon. i have the makings of an idea to fix it. well, i have the idea, but to actually do it, i dont, just something simple for now. it just makes sense of expanding the gas and introducing it in a better, cleaner mix. more power too i would imagine.

with that, what if you could run the gas, like it is, but wrap a copper line around, or next to the exhaust, or next to the exhaust manifold. thereby heating the gas, when the gas goes to the combustion chamber, it mixes more easily with air, hence, expanded gas means more, complete, cleaner, not to mention when you cut the engine, the heating stops. EFFICIENT burn. right? i know the sensors would have to be somewhat fiddled with, maybe the gas pump, i used to work on oil fields welding tanks. my boss and i welded a valve on a full fuel tank. point being without the whole fire triangle, fuel, heat, air. i do not see the fuel in the line exploding unless you run empty, and if you do with this idea, something is wrong. but HYPOTHETICALLY if someone wanted to pursue this, is it plausible. basically i know if it works, the govt will be interested in squashing it and threatening me. so, a way around, instead of the whole patent thing, can i just build it, hypothetically, for my friends and family it they buy the parts? can they say no no if i aint making a dime off of it? im not interested in money, for i get enough caught on, there ya go.

then, to top it off, would you think introducing a hydrogen fuel cell to the mix would help?

so, please, positive opinions, and open discussion. to me it sounds sound theoretically, how about you guys? any ideas, changes, add ons. im open.

You'll get the government knocking on your door, alright. You've already said too much.

I don't know much about the thought pattern behind the gas thing. I would be VERY cautious with hydrogen, it is very dangerous and is probably the main reason (other than it takes more energy to separate hydrogen atoms then it gives).

reply to post by mactheaxe


I don't think it's "the big bad gov't" you need to fear.
Rather, the big bad oil companies that you need to fear.

The theory is just that, a theory.
But it would only work on a vehicle with a carburated system. Not fuel injected.
So today's vehicles would fail, how convenient that everything is fuel injected today...

Simply put, if you could find a way to perpetually keep the gasoline in a vapor state...
Yes, running a line around the exhaust would work because the temp at which gas is vapor is low.
Find the right air-to-fuel ratio to provide the most efficient combustion, it would be possible...
Because the liquid gasoline doesn't ignite...only the vapors do.
Which is why the injectors spray a mist of fuel, mixed with air, into the cylinders.
Not pouring liquid fuel into them, because that produces the "flooded" effect.

So, a pressurized vessel, with a supply of vaporized gasoline, introduced with air and spark...
Should get the desired results.


Good luck, and don't tell anyone.
Youtube has a few videos of this.

Research Tom Ogle to find out more...

well, for the hydrogen, i was thinking of just those homemade gas mile helper ones you can make on youtube.

I made a car that ran 100 miles off a liter of gas using a method similar to this. Unfortunately I posted a YouTube video about it and the Government came and knocked on my door. They took the car and all my plans and I can't remember how I did it.

It's a shame too because I wanted to give it free to the people, even though big oil offered me billions to cease my research.







Oops, was this supposed to be in the short story forum?

that's another thing, all these youtube people with fuel inventions, what comes of them? they seem fine.

I once watched a documentary that was called the hundred mile per gallon car and it talked about basically what you are saying. A guy on their made like a 1950 or 60's car run on fumes. It was fairly well documented and he had a lot of people backing him up. Basically I think they were saying they heated the gas and funnel it into the carburetor.

Sad part about this story was the guy wound up dead from a supposed drug overdose however all his friends and family said he did not drink nor use drugs. Those that knew how his invention worked and had helped him on it were threatened into silence. Some of them have come out in their elder years. If you can find the documentary it is a good watch. I believe I saw it on Netflix.

I have done some reading on the subject and I believe you would need to add a mist of water and oil mixture in with it because from what I understand only 30 to 40% of the fuel in the car is actually burned the rest is used for cooling. The oil would keep the engine from seizing up at least that's the theory.

I have had a idea of using the headers on the car to heat a small steam engine that would in turn create electricity to run a hydrogen fuel cell maybe one day I will try it.

Here is a link to a site that will give you the plans or sell you a small steam engine that is supposed to be very efficient.

Steam Engine

BTW I was thinking of using a fluid with a lower boiling temp in a close system and mounting it in my truck because I would definitely need more room than what a car would hold.

I hope you try to do what you are talking about let us know if it works out.
I have been working a lawnmower engine and a hrdrogen fuel cell with good results, on my truck I have a fuel cell that works pretty good once I changed my altinator out with a PMA that didn't creat the drag on my engine.

From the YouTube video you can see there are ways to get more energy out of fuel.

Do a googlesearch on Smokey Unick. He was an engine designer in the 60's and 70's that did a lot of work on high performance race engines. He developed a carburetor fuel system called Vaporized Fuel or something similar that was capable of producing 40+ mpg on a Chev 350 v8 and running at approx 85% volumetric efficiency and creating exceptional horsepower as well.

He applied for a patent in the late 60'sor or early 70's and was denied the patent. Being from Daytona Beach Fl, the same city Smokey lived in I remember seeing another version of this that he had installed on a mid eighties Ford and it also got exceptional mpg. The car was in a small museum in Daytona after his death but the museum is now closed and the car is gone.

Originally posted by Nucleardiver
Do a googlesearch on Smokey Unick. He was an engine designer in the 60's and 70's that did a lot of work on high performance race engines. He developed a carburetor fuel system called Vaporized Fuel or something similar that was capable of producing 40+ mpg on a Chev 350 v8 and running at approx 85% volumetric efficiency and creating exceptional horsepower as well.

He applied for a patent in the late 60'sor or early 70's and was denied the patent. Being from Daytona Beach Fl, the same city Smokey lived in I remember seeing another version of this that he had installed on a mid eighties Ford and it also got exceptional mpg. The car was in a small museum in Daytona after his death but the museum is now closed and the car is gone.

I found a Sokey Yunik is it the same guy?

People have this delusion that there is lots of liquid fuel in modern engines' combustion which just somehow doesn't get burnt in normal driving, and futzing around with vapor etc will magically help.

This is false, unless there is something wrong with your car.

In practice, nearly all the energy in the fuel is successfully released as heat, i.e. combusted with oxygen. The hard part is to turn as much of that into useful work as possible, and have the engine perform well over a very wide set of loads and operating conditions, and have it not generate too much smog.

This means that the energy expended and the forces generated by the combustion need to be maximally transmitted to the cylinder's motion, and as little as possible lost as heat through the walls and dispersed into the exhaust and through the cooling system.

Thermodynamic cycles also matter, which is why Diesel is known to be more efficient thanks to a higher compression ratio, but then there is problem of more nitrous oxides generated (higher heat), and higher expense and less power without turbocharging.

There is no magic trick. Professional engine designers and engineers know the parameters, and there is no quick fix. Back in the 1960's/1970's, things were much less optimal than now.

Originally posted by Grimpachi

Originally posted by Nucleardiver
Do a googlesearch on Smokey Unick. He was an engine designer in the 60's and 70's that did a lot of work on high performance race engines. He developed a carburetor fuel system called Vaporized Fuel or something similar that was capable of producing 40+ mpg on a Chev 350 v8 and running at approx 85% volumetric efficiency and creating exceptional horsepower as well.

He applied for a patent in the late 60'sor or early 70's and was denied the patent. Being from Daytona Beach Fl, the same city Smokey lived in I remember seeing another version of this that he had installed on a mid eighties Ford and it also got exceptional mpg. The car was in a small museum in Daytona after his death but the museum is now closed and the car is gone.

I found a Sokey Yunik is it the same guy?

That's him. Sorry for the spelling, im posting from my phone and this smart phone isn't very smart......tries to correct every friggin word I type and its usually no where near what im trying to type.

I've looked into the tom oge carb and I believe that his theory is sound... But I think that safey is an issue. Petrol vapour is highly explosive and shouldn't be piped around the car or held in large quantites. A water fuel injector would be a lot safer.

reply to post by Nucleardiver

@Nucleardiver thanks for the Smokey Unick info.

Here is a diagram of his engine:


We have here a turbocharged engine which is additionally preheating the compressed charge to increase pressure and temperature. In the first place this looks like a clever way to reuse wasted heat, 75% for combustion engines.

But the problem is. How is he avoiding charge autoignition? The autoignition temperature of gasoline is 280°C(ethanol 363°C) at normal atmosphere, it goes down with increasing pressure. And he gets 230°C precompressed charge into the cylinder which is going to be compressed further by the cylinder moving up. I don't see how this is possible. It will ignite before reaching the cylinder in the worst case.

Here is a working example for exhaust heat recovery increasing efficiency by about 15%, still not ready for mass production: www.gizmag.com...

Edit:
I think Smokey's idea might work better with direct injection, keeping fuel from the preheated and compressed air. Given that you will find a way to keep the valves from melting, the whole construction will get pretty hot.

If you use all the waste heat from the engine to vaporize the fuel how do you defrost the windows? Run an electric heater which is powered from the engine?

reply to post by samkent

Nah, a 80kW/107hp engine wastes about 240kW heat running at peak power.

reply to post by samkent



or.... well the money youd save from the gas you could find a way. maybe a nice warm jacket and a window platinum, silicon tipped ice scraper.

So why not just use one of the several dozen technologies that are out there that turn heat into electricity to recover some of the wasted energy? This is what I'd like to see done even if you only converted 25% of that 240 kw that's still almost doubling the original kilowattage of the engine output.

reply to post by roguetechie
Who is going to pay for it? Cars are mass produced. New technologies mean high investment, adaption costs and increased risk, which leads to a higher product price. Now you need to explain your customer why he should prefer your more efficient but expensive car instead of the one of the competitors. Fossil fuels are still dirt cheap. And who is considering fuel efficiency when buying a car after all?

this day and age, most of us are thinking about efficiency. and it would be a solution you can add onto the car. atleast thats what i ideally see. what if you could go across the country on a tank of gas? that would pay for itsself in my opinion.