I drove a Ford F250 6.9 diesel to college for 3 years on WMO. I put about 30K miles on it with used oil. I did try the 80/20 with UR gas. I ended up using a blend of 20 percent diesel with motor oil. In the hotter months and when I was broke I would run straight WMO. It had dual tanks and I kept one tank with pure diesel for start up and shut down. It was an hour drive each way to campus, so plenty of time to get the engine warm before switch to straight motor oil. Love the experiments!
When I worked as an auto shop machinist (back in the 70’s), we would modify the head(s) to run on propane. A local conversion shop would send us the heads and we would mill out all the valve seats and replace them with Stellite seats along with Stellite valves. We would bore the valve guides and insert brass sleeves and then cut down the boss and press on Teflon valve seals. Without these mods, the oil moving down the valve stems would mix with the propane and become a serious grinding compound that would wallow out the valve guides and valve seats. If run to long it would destroy the head(s) and you would need a new head(s) and the modifications.
Propane burns much hotter than gasoline, overheating the valve seats. It's the same thing happening in a head that was made for running leaded fuel when you run unleaded. I had this happening to my daily last year because I'm running it on a LPG blend that's pure propane. In warmer countrys than where I live they run a propane/butane blend that burns much colder than pure propane, and because of the lower EGT they don't have as much a problem with valve seats.
You have to note that many, many of these elections has exploded when they overfilled the oil, lubricating oil in the engine. It splashes it up and then it gets sucked in soldiers. And you get a runaway diesel motor which will tack up and explode. So having that choke on there would be a safety factor if you did have a runaway. These are what they do.They throw a rag in the intake to cut out the currency.If you had a joke there, that would be a good safety device.If the r p m's got over a certain point due to overfilling the oil and I had it happen on a three cylinder diesel going down to florida
I have some bonus information about propane conversions, that was my first gig as a wrench-bender, doing propane conversions. Back in that era, the incoming fuel charge was acting as a thermal sink for the valves. Semi-atomized fuel vapour getting sucked in the intake cools the faces of the valves and the valve seats. Especially leaded fuel. Propane is thoroughly vaporized before it gets to the intake, adn just doesn't have the thermal mass that equivalent droplets of gasoline did, so the combustion surface of the head would run hotter than it ever would on gasoline. Especially when guys would do sloppy conversions, and set the system "dry" or lean, trying to get mileage out of the vehicle, the heads/valves/seats/guides take a wicked beating. Same sloppy guys would then set the system "wet" with propane, which would then promptly wash out the rings, and in not too long they were burning oil, and Their oil was turning a weird brownish colour. :) But yeah, especially 70's Gm's would barely make 50,000miles on stock heads running propane, before an overhaul. Although one they were done properly once, with the stellite seats, etc, they were good to go for way longer.
Does the valves have to be solid stelite or can you get away with valves with a stelite hard face welded to seat?? Also I have heard of conversions using stainless steel valves ???.
I used to have a 2003 diesel jetta . The 1.9 alh engine was bulletproof. I upgraded the fuel nozzles, put in a 2 micron fuel filter kit, and got a tune that was just shy of doubling the stock horsepower. It ran on anything. It ran really well on vegetable oil, new motor oil, used motor oil, transmition fuel, and once i got 55 gallons of used machine oil that i ran through a filter and it loved that too. 47mpg anywhere I went . I sold the car at 320k miles and it still ran well when I sold it. I really miss thag car.
I have a customer who owns a pre emmisions 7.3 f350. He has 973,000miles on the truck. He has always ran it on used oil and gas because he owns a chemical recycling plant. He has some modifications to help the fuel burn. He had a fuel pre heater and lots of fuel filters. At least 3 in-line not to mention the filter when it fills the truck, and the filter in the pickup tube.
@@giggiddy I’ve only done one set of injectors in the truck, and it was because a turbo upgrade. One lifter pump because of poor oem manufacturing. Fuel pump was upgraded with a a pair of 500Lph inline pumps when he went with a a sequential turbo setup. I talked him into keeping the turbos a bit smaller than most builds. I used a precision 6766 and a 7675 just so he can still use the truck, but just has a better power band. This is when I found that one of the oem injectors had a squished Oring from someone else working on the truck. Truck makes 650 whp and 1130wtq. Redline is 3700. Not going into my tuning because like every hood professional I keep my secrets to myself. Yes it had a propane “nos” system. I find propane is better for diesels because it doesn’t combust until the diesel does. Making the boost in power a little more predictable.
@@randomlife718 custom upgraded billet injector pump after the first one shit the bed. Remove and refresh the pump every 250,00miles replacing any components that show even the slightest wear. Oem pump is muleshit, I’ve never seen such bad manufacturing for a heavy duty engineZ
Another thing you can monitor is oil temperature, we have an old Deutz air cooled 6 cylinder diesel on an irrigation pump and that's how we monitor engine temperature without coolant
Also: FIRST GEN S-10! One of the coolest little beaters you can build! Part of my personal favorite Holy Trinity of hatchbacks, station wagons, and compact trucks!
On the "detonation" you observed I think there is validity to it. Propane has an octane rating of around 110 which makes it much more difficult to ignite without a spark than diesel fuel. In a diesel engine typically only the leading edge of the fuel/ air mixture cloud radiating out from the injector ignites because it has the proper conditions. Because of this the burn is relatively smooth because the combustion process is draw out without any, (hopefully), high combustion pressure spikes. However, when you add propane when the diesel ignites then the entire volume propane ignites in a short time causing a spike in combustion chamber pressure creating the "knock: you are hearing. This can also occurs with a cold diesel engine when self ignition of the fuel is relatively delayed and more of the fuel / air mixture ignites at once causing knock.
Yeah Ive read that adding propane has a similar effect to putting in timing on a diesel. Adding too much propane causes the same problems and damage that too much timing does. Your explanation makes sense for why that would be.
Modern diesels will advance and retard injection timing to help control burn time. I'm wondering if you retard the injection timing if it will run better on the propane mix.
@@SpencerHHO Considering LPG/LNG injection is not a new idea, there is definitely literature around to answer these questions and a lot more. Especially large cogeneration units, LNG tankers, some semi trucks and some nutty-savvy car people use LPG/LNG injection. In the first two cases usually not as additional but basically as sole fuel though, with pilot injection of a tiny spritz of diesel acting solely as ignition source. Those cases might be less interesting because there's quite substantial differences in the timing of and the combustion process itself between smaller diesel engines (ie. High speed diesels, max. >1000rpm) and large diesels like used in cargo ships (ie slow speed diesels,
@@RNA0ROGER RCCI is usually used for single fuel engines that operate with a lean (low reactivity) homogeneous charge and a seperate injection to create a richer pocket (higher reactivity) that is able to ignite under the given conditions, which the leads either to combustion from that ignition source or to a HCCI like combustion with the charge igniting at multiple spots/everywhere simultaneously due to the raised pressure and temperature from the rich pocket being combusted. This is usually called Bi-fuel. All those terms are often a bit overlapping in certain aspects and sometimes not very well defined. Much of the principles and knowledge coming from slow and medium speed diesel engines doesn't help either, as they operate quite a bit different in certain regards.
No it isn't. Why would you think that many people are interested in this level of deep diving? It seems that most people want everything dumbed down these days. If he blew stuff up and yelled a lot, he could get 3m subs.
Great Video, Jimbo. Years ago, 80’s farmers used to have propane injection systems for their diesel tractors, when they needed more power. I remember almost buying a late model 4020 diesel that had propane injection. If used correctly it gave horsepower without killing the engine. If I remember correctly it was a forklift style tank, electric solenoid and some piping to the intake of the engine. I don’t remember the manufacturer. Thanks.
Hey Jimbo, regarding the propane testing, what you saw was exactly what should have happened. I work at a University and we do alot of dual fuel testing with diesel engines that have port injection of high octane fuels like propane, gasoline, ethanol, methanol, etc. What you saw is exactly what normally happens. The combustion will get alot faster and louder, as it is knocking; which you heard and saw with the lower EGTs. Also when you port inject fuel, some of it will not burn, which is common and which is why you can smell propane in the exhaust. The main reason to run dual fuel engines is that they can have alot less soot and NOx, but they will have more unburned fuel and CO emissions. The brake thermal efficiency is also a bit better due to the faster and louder combustion. Also regarding the carburetor, I think it would be interesting to use it in future for your own dual fuel testing to inject fuels like gasoline, E85, methanol, etc and see how it effects the engine performance.
@@goosenotmaverick1156 Is that because a leaf blower is just a glorified fan, and a compressor needs to be "fully enclosed" (dont know the fancy word for it) i.e. in a roots blower (no way for the air to travel "backwards")?
It's a shame TH-cam won't allow commenters to add images or links.......... I could have turned that quote into a nice motivational poster to put here. :D
I was hoping you would test water in the carburetor. I think it would get a lot more water vapor in the engine than the sonic vaporizers, and without the need for a power supply.
The propane ignites after the diesel, increasing the peak pressure drastically. This is known as diesel knock. Diesel knock happens when you burn low cetan fuel, which ignites to slow. The fire in the cylinder starts slow and increases in speed drastically, once the temperature in the combustion starts rising with partiale burnt fuel. This usually happens with vegetable oil on direct injected high speed diesels.
@@robotcantina8957 if you could retard the injection timing, you could try to make the engine run more stable with some propane. Try looking into HCCI engines
@@bdkw1 yep and that is where many alt fuel users fail.... they do not adjust timing of the injection to match the combustion characteristics of the alternative light oil concoction they are using. as a fuel. (Diesel is a light oil essentially )
Exactly the kind of nerdy experiments i come here for 😎 No coffee today, redbull! I have things to do, but they can wait til im done here checking up on what the Cantina has gotten up to, hope you had a good week, Jimbo!
Really silly Idea, but Marine Diesel Engines are having "Green" Methanol systems (Pure Methanol made from hydrogen as an additional fuel source, not water/meth injection) fitted as a way to reduce emissions. It would be neat to see how your engine runs with an alcohol based fuel being supplied by the carburetor. It would also be neat to see if a carb could act as a traditional water/meth system.
For homemade diesel, years ago on Trucks with Stacey David, he made some with old fry oil, lye which is used as a catalyst and racing methanol. not sure of ratios but im sure the episode probably listed it.
That would have been Biodiesel and is a much more refined fuel. You mix a certain amount of KOH or NaOH with ~20 methanol and mix it with veg oil at 125F. That reacts together and glycerine will settle out and leave thinner fuel on the top. If you use it right away, all you have to do is filter it to finish. If you plan on stock piling it, you'll need to wash the soap ions out of the fuel or it will settle out over time and clog filters. I've put about 70k gallons of it in the farm tractors, trucks, and even use it as a home heating oil replacement with a tuned oil burner.
I ran a pretty thorough experiment many years ago. Used motor oil, preferably very used motor oil will burn better than unused oil, but never quite as good as diesel.
I Also used an old diesel tractor for my fuel experments. But I used 80% - used motor oil filtered thru 10 micron fuel filters to ensure no debris stopped up the injectors. added 20% standard diesel fuel. Old tractor ran great. Then went to my 1999 Ford F250 Power stroke. Also ran great in the summertime. For the winter ratio went to 70% oil and 30% diesel, for starting purposes. Later found that used Filtered Transmission fluid mixed the same ratio as the diesel blend Ran even better, but fuel mileage increased nearly 20 %. Still Have the Power stroke with no issues at 431,000 miles. Enjoy all the projects.. Also an Danny Diode guy.
Another brilliant use of a half hour on Sunday afternoon Great work Jimbo, and another fine edit. Don’t you just love it when you ask several good questions, it almost always means you are now better placed to ask some even more specific questions again!!! Thanks, I can hardly wait to see the Propane/Vapor generator for the Insight Kubota engine. Don’t blow yourself up x
I LOVE the theme music! Does anyone else get up and dance like nobody's watching when it comes on? Since I ALWAYS listen to the end ... I spotted that poor, innocent pickup truck. I have a feeling something weird and wonderful is going to happen to it. A wood-burning turbo gasifier perhaps?
Last few Sundays been off cus on no theme music. I thought I was the only weird one watching. IDK if I can watch without the music, even if its at the end.
Excellent! Next time try Hydrogen. You only need 12volts or less at 2amps DC. In a bucket of water put two wires from the power source. The water will break into hydrogen and oxygen. Run the possitive lead into the bucket through a tube vented outside of the bucket. That will keep the hydrogen from being catalyzed (explosive) by it in the bucket after its split. The bubbles that come off the negative wire in the bucket will be pure hydrogen. You can make it with the bucket you used for the water vapor experiment. The amount of hydrogen bubbles can be controlled with a rheostat so that you aren't making more than the engine can "burn". You don't want to flood the garage with hydrogen.
Jimbo! You are great!! I have ran wmo in my Mercedes’ om606 as well as my tractors. I have ran the wmo straight and found lack of power with excessive smoke. 50/50 runs great! I have also ran kerosene. In the 80’s Mercedes Bens recommended running 50/50 diesel kerosene mix during the winter months. Keep up the good work!
The propane thing brought back an old memory. A million years ago while in the army we tried an experiment on one of our trucks and I couldn't believe it but we added white kerosene to the diesel fuel and it started better, ran cleaner (and quieter), plus made more power. Not sure I would do that with anything modern but it sure was fun.
In cold climates, spiking #2 with Kero (or now ULSD #1 almost same thing) is quite common....and 5% Gasoline in cold weather is also common...We get a week or two of -40 weather here and we deal with it like that.
Gotta compliment u Jimbo, that was a very interesting vid. Luv cn experimental ideas like this, they really lock in my curiosity. Another great vid. 👍👍👍
Carburetor is a great demonstration of the CAC throttle and mixer unit on a modern diesel used to raise exhaust temperature for the start of regen in the dpf
Ok, welp, this channel needs more subscribers! In the 1970s the "Torque Topper" was marketed to increase power of your farm tractor. I suspect the system died off as tractor engines also died from over application of propane.
i learned a lot more from this than you'd think. i'm planning on getting a larger version of this engine as a backup generator paired with batteries, solar, and inverters.
Propane or lpg systems can be added to a diesel engine and it inproves diesel consumption, adds power and reduces pollution, they are getting more attention in my country (poland) mostly in semi trucks, heavy equipment and farming equipment. I would love seeing you explore this further.
I always loved these tinkering videos that get sprinkled into each season. Its nice to have a break from the grind of building and troubleshooting and just experiment in the shop with something thats a little less expensive (and dangerous) should something go wrong. Plus it usually results in some new inspiration for the big project.
I have messed around with that exact engine and you can adjust the pop off pressure in the injector very easily. I also noticed removing two of the three gaskets between the injector pump and side case increases fuel pressure. it would be interesting to see the power difference with added fuel, and thank you for making a patreon, I subbed immediately!
It would be interesting to see how water injection would affect fuel economy. Reinstall the carburetor, keep it wired wide open, and hook it up to water instead of fuel. It should do a very nice job of both atomizing the water and metering it so that you don't ingest too much and damage the engine. Best to use distilled water, minerals in the water will turn into particles when the water evaporates in the combustion chamber. I suspect you will see the water injection result in a small savings in diesel, although I'm not really sure how easy it would be to implement this on the car. I've enjoyed this entire series since you started adapting the Kubota engine to the old car. Keep up the good work!
As for the carburettor/ throttle body experiment, I used to have a large Isuzu truck with a 12 litre engine. It had two butterflies on the inlet manifold, one was hooked to the stop cable to shut off the engine and the other was hooked to operate with the exhaust brake.
Another good episode Jimbo, the poor running on the oil/gas mix is most likely down to it being new oil. Old and degraded oil is much thinner and won’t clog the fuel pump and injector. Keep em coming.
I had fun AND learned stuff! I think the knock is from the propane lighting as soon as the diesel injects. Propane should have an octane about 150, but this small engine probably has it’s injection advanced due to it’s relatively low fuel pressure.
In my day job, I wrote the control firmware for a company called Innovative Fuel Systems in Edmonton, Canada that injects CNG into PACCAR and Cummins 13 litre diesel engines on semi trucks. As an amount of diesel was removed, an energy-wise equal amount of CNG was injected. The engine runs slow enough that I could do the fuelling calculation in the time between injection events in real time. The whole system works very well, running very clean, without unburned methane in the exhaust, and the oil stays clean for much longer.
I saw that bucket and immediately sang "Save BIG $, You save BIG $, when you shop Menard's" Another great "what if" scenario at JIMBO MOTORS, looking forward to next time
I know long distance heavy truck operators here in Australia that used LPG boosting on their diesel engines (50hp extra) they had really good results. Overall their fuel costs (paying for LPG and Diesel) were 10% lower. Engines pulled and ran perfectly, they reported better than expected performance. Oil samples at oil changes were very low on soot.
Awesome! I liked that episode. About the propane injection, I seen somewhere that by injecting propane in a diesel engine it could reduce soot to the point that a diesel particulate filter is no longer needed. If you can reduce combustion temp it will reduce NOX emissions and with the soot reduction it would make it more environmentally friendly. About the water vapors, I'd be curious to see if I can boil water with the exhaust heat. Maybe a setup that would make some kind of flash boiler... A double layer exhaust tube where the water would be preheated and a fined tube making like a flash boiler in the exhaust flow. I like those experiments.
Propane is a well-known additive to diesel engines in Poland. conservatively replaces approximately 30% of diesel fuel with propane, providing 15% cost savings. It may not be much, but in the case of heavy equipment, where fuel consumption is measured in tons per day, it is a lot. STAG AC is well-known controller for LPG installations in diesel engines.
the oil/fuel mixture in motion exposed to atmosphere actually causes the fuel to evaporate quite quickly. 1 hour of this is something to consider when factoring in ratios.
I have found in my personal experiments that used motor oil works better than fresh motor oil when used as fuel. Just be sure to let the used motor oil sit for at least a month so that all fine metal particals settle to the bottom of the drum then slowly remove the oil from the top of the drum being careful not to disturb what has settled at the botom of the drum . the oil that you have removed is then passed through a cheap oil filter using a hydraulic pump at 30 PSI then I use a 80/20 blend of the used oil and gasoline. The engine runs smooth. The therory is that used motor oil is slightly refined over the 3,000 miles of use making it a better burning fuel.
A note on gas injection. In Australia there is a ... kiind of common after market modification that people sometimes did, which is run a LNG (about 90% Methane in Australia) injection system on their diesel. It does improve power and efficiency, while making the engine burn a little cleaner. However, some systems caused issues with a lot of engines.
The 'Big Boys' with the 1000hp cummins inline sixes use propane in the same manner gasoline engines use Nitrous Oxide setups, except since a Diesel runs lean, it just adds propane as extra fuel, and since it's a low temperature gas, it has an intercooling effect, resulting in the lower cylinder temps. Instead of using the Arduino to cut fuel when cylinder temps get past a certain point, you could shoot a small amount of propane instead, and cut it off at say, 100*f lower than max, allowing you to have "merge in traffic on the highway" power. It would also allow WOT operation for longer periods of time, by controlling exhaust temps in a way that doesn't cost power.
About your water vapour test. There are 3rd party water injection kits that place a spray nozzle inside the intake manifold. Great for reducing intake air temperatures on boosted vehicles. Because of the high heat and fine spraying nozzle, the water vaporizes almost instantly. Additionally you CAN run a water-ethanol mix and get a real boost in performance. Though I don't know how this would pan out in a diesel application hahaha. Just thought you might find that interesting^^ Thanks for the video
Accidentally made experiment on my 1.7 ctdi 4EE2 diesel when poured 95 e10 into the tank. Instantly went back to gas station and filled with diesel to the top. Eventually had 15:35 gas:diesel mixture. Added 2 stroke oil after diesel to lubricate. 15:35:1 Drained 40 of that solution and poured 20 of clean diesel next day. Car never pulled so well with eventually ~9-10percent. of petrol in there. :D There is a feeling it smokes less at full throttle at >3k rpm when it's mostly diesel in the tank now.
The propane smell is the odorant they add to it. Propane itself is odorless. Also, the shop vac exhaust also has its motor heat in it, so the exhaust gases not changing temp would makes sense. You would need a charge air cooler or a real supercharger/blower.
Yrs ago i was messing around with propane on my 6.2 chevy. First was injecting it in tge top of yhe air cleaner & when i flipped the switch when under load iti ran rough & was knocking. I thought it might not be mixing with the in comming air . It still had the cold air tube on the truck so i injected it infrint of the tube & completly changed. With regulator set the same with the same load on the engine it picked up much power, ran smooth & no knock.
Yes, it is an amazing fuel: Cetane number higher than of premium diesel, and can be easily made from any carbon feedstock - from natural gas to biomass and coal. Also the emissions of DME are very good, with basically no particulate matter in the exhaust. Why it isn't still widespread is honestly a mystery to me.
When using homemade fuels whether it is a concoction of motor oil & gas or vegetable oil, the key is matching the viscosity of those fuels to atomizer design to enable proper combustion. This is typically done by cutting with gas (diesel) or heating.
that is only half the game.... but technically sorta NOT.... but sorta yes LOL. Viscosity adjustments etc. for alt. fuel folk, are partially a back door way to get two things. One, the alternative fuel to end up to be something with a vapor-ability; via the existing injection system , to be as close as can be, to that of diesel since all the engine's systems, are designed around diesel. Two, creating a an alt. fuel; where its "combustion characteristics" are as close to that of diesel as well, for same reasons. With those two; then an engine designed to run "diesel" will be just as happy to run on the concocted fuel. This is getting more important in conversions these days because the computerized vehicles out there are not very programmable; nor hackable..... you cant' change the sub systems that affect "timing " of when fuel gets put into cylinder easily. That and the vaporizing sub element of the whole injection system, is designed to be highly efficient at vaporizing "diesel" when it get introduced into the cylinder. So your alt. fuel has to be as close to "diesel like" as you can; or the vaporization of the alt fuel... goes to piss. Whole goals is ... however you go about it..... you gotta match the combustion characteristics of the particular fuel being used, to when you introduce it into the cylinder..... AND as you point out....you also got to have that fuel oil go into the cylinder with as fine a vapor as can create. All in all..... You can manipulate timing of when introducing a fuel into cylinder , via changing timing of injection system itself (What Robot Cantina has sorta done with his Arduino stuff) , or by manipulating the alt fuel's make up to fit an existing engine's design ..... or both. Both* is the sweet spot when doing "conversions"... far as I can tell. Would love to see a manufacture re-look at mulit fuel ideas...... create a new engine design with built in in flexibility / adjustablity, so it can modulate itself to to find max combustion for whatever and however a fuel is fed into its chambers. *this is what interest me about the Arduino and motors he is doing to alter timing in this series of experiments with his Kubota.to b
I had a bully dog LP injection on a Cummins engine years ago. It had coolant traveling through the regulator housing to heat the lp, to engine temp. Hope this helps.
Thrilled to see you trying my suggestion of water injection, and that it works bringing the EGT down. What I would have loved to see is the testing of fuel consumption while using it! BTW you can get ultrasonic foggers with up to 12 heads from the jungle site. You could have also filled the carb you attached up with distilled water! another possibility is using a kettle or steam generator to inject steam.
Sichuan Sifa MB168F . The hard part is making a 20 MM to 1 inch shaft with an adapter. The motor oil in the crankcase vanishes faster than a lot of motors. Mount it on a thick plate of aluminum. I don't let mine over 2200 rpms.
In the Gardner engine manual it says to filter the used oil after oil change and just add it to fuel tank! I used to get the missfueled fuel tank contents from my local garage after people put petrol in diesel cars, I would mix it with veg oil when veg oil cost 30p a litre, shops are wise to it now so it costs £1.50!
The knocking sound is likely just diesel knock, but more severe because of the multi-fuel. Diesel doesn't usually burn as a mixture like gasoline, instead you have individual droplets which all ignite to create small combustion events throughout the cylinder, but the droplets themselves burn fairly slowly so the pressure increase is relatively gradual. My guess is the propane IS a nice relatively homogenous mixture with the air, and when the diesel gets injected it creates multiple ignition points for the propane/air mixture, causing it to burn extremely quickly. On a spark ignition engine there should only be a single flame front that originates at the spark plug, and that flame front will take more time to travel across the cylinder versus having multiple flame fronts distributed throughout the combustion chamber working in parallel to travel across the mixture. Years ago I worked on a project to run a standard cummins type diesel engine using mainly natural gas, with just a splash of diesel to set the mixture off.
Ahhhhh… our wait is finally over… Another great episode of “just trying stuff” to see what happens. I was trying to think about how you could measure torque (brake horsepower) of your different fuels. Back in the late 80’s I worked at an automotive parts manufacturer, were we tested our product in the big 3’s + Big Equipment (5) diesel engines. We had a direct attached absorber (either eddy current, ac gen set, or water brake) to generate the load on the engine. The shell/housing of the absorber was designed to free rotate on its bearings. We would place a full bridge load cell (strain gauge) on the connection between the shell of the absorber and frame of the dyno. This would tell us how many pounds of torque the engine was generating, we would then calculate brake hp. We would calibrate the load cell by hanging a known mass of weight off of an arm on the absorber. We would adjust our calculations based on this known weight and the load it was placing on the load cell. Thinking about your setup, you almost have all of the bits needed for this. My initial thought was to replace the turnbuckle with something like a sparkfun SEN-13329 10Kg load cell (no idea if that is near large enough). But thinking about it that load cell would only measure belt tension and indirectly load. You would almost have to direct connect the alternator to the engine through something like a lovejoy coupler. Then you could derive a torque load produced by the different fuel mixtures. The issue here is it looks like you have about a 1:3 speed ratio on your belt system. On a direct drive you wouldn’t have the alternator speed to create the load. Ah engineering problems...
@@robotcantina8957 Yes that would be interesting to see. Here's a thought you can hook it to one of those arduinos to do all of that fancy ciphering, linearization, and presentation of the data. Its a sad fact that probably the arduinos have more horsepower than those z80 based control systems we used back in the “good old days”.
Different fuel Different burn rate. I run my canal boat on 20 litres of used engine oil mixed with a pint of petrol, which is 35 to 1 and it runs fine. So maybe too much petrol at 20% was the problem?. Try spraying straight water in the inlet with a garden pump up adjustable nozzled water spray bottle thingy, whilst the engine runs on diesel and is up to temperature. It'll smooth it out. But not too much or it'll hydraulic lock. All very interesting though professor!!. Keep up the good work Jimbo 😎
I have the same diesel engine, the reason the gas motor oil mix is causing the engine to sputter is because the fuel pump is heated beyond gasolines boiling point since its bolted directly into the engine block, this will cause bubbles of gasoline vapor to form in the fuel pump. I found that out by experimenting with light hydrocarbon fuels (naptha) mixed with 2 stroke oil, it will run fine when the engine is cold, but when the engine gets up to temp it starts sputtering.
You don't want to know how much really nasty chemicals get disposed in a similair fashion by mixing it in the bunker oil for large container ships and such. As the saying goes: ain't no emission testing on international waters.
I was so excited that the length of your video was longer than usual. Next thing I know, its over. Entertainment value is high when I lose track of time. You are a mad scientist, and I love it
@@robotcantina8957 I've currently got a 1986 Chevy s10 with monster rear tires on it. 38.5x14.50R15s. It's got a built 200hp 2.8L v6 under the hood. It's a unique little truck. I love it. I can't wait to see what you do with yours. Keep up the good work.
I think the knocking despite what you read, might be igniting prior to the start of the injection event, if there's enough heat from compression before reaching the timing of injection. The "smell" might be the additive that gives propane it's smell not burning.
Thank goodness. I only had a 14mm wrench and was concerned about how homogeneous I could mix my fuel. Appreciate the clarity 😂!
Using a 14mm? Are you MAD! Won't you think of the children! Eeek! 😂
10mm is more-or-less considered the Standard in Fuel-Homogenizing Wrenches… 12 will suffice in a pinch. But I’ve had bad luck with a 13.
@@calvarycustoms6681 YEAH 13 IS a bad luck # 😮😢😭😨😨😆😆
Homogenicity
14mm is equivalent to going full retard on your timing
I drove a Ford F250 6.9 diesel to college for 3 years on WMO. I put about 30K miles on it with used oil. I did try the 80/20 with UR gas. I ended up using a blend of 20 percent diesel with motor oil. In the hotter months and when I was broke I would run straight WMO. It had dual tanks and I kept one tank with pure diesel for start up and shut down. It was an hour drive each way to campus, so plenty of time to get the engine warm before switch to straight motor oil. Love the experiments!
I put 3.6L VM turbodiesel engine into my 1985 CJ7 and then converted it to run on WVO.
When I worked as an auto shop machinist (back in the 70’s), we would modify the head(s) to run on propane. A local conversion shop would send us the heads and we would mill out all the valve seats and replace them with Stellite seats along with Stellite valves. We would bore the valve guides and insert brass sleeves and then cut down the boss and press on Teflon valve seals. Without these mods, the oil moving down the valve stems would mix with the propane and become a serious grinding compound that would wallow out the valve guides and valve seats. If run to long it would destroy the head(s) and you would need a new head(s) and the modifications.
Propane burns much hotter than gasoline, overheating the valve seats.
It's the same thing happening in a head that was made for running leaded fuel when you run unleaded.
I had this happening to my daily last year because I'm running it on a LPG blend that's pure propane.
In warmer countrys than where I live they run a propane/butane blend that burns much colder than pure propane, and because of the lower EGT they don't have as much a problem with valve seats.
Same deal as when you ordered a Super Duty or Silverado HD with a CNG/LPG prep package, all that stuff is upgraded.
You have to note that many, many of these elections has exploded when they overfilled the oil, lubricating oil in the engine. It splashes it up and then it gets sucked in soldiers. And you get a runaway diesel motor which will tack up and explode. So having that choke on there would be a safety factor if you did have a runaway. These are what they do.They throw a rag in the intake to cut out the currency.If you had a joke there, that would be a good safety device.If the r p m's got over a certain point due to overfilling the oil and I had it happen on a three cylinder diesel going down to florida
I have some bonus information about propane conversions, that was my first gig as a wrench-bender, doing propane conversions.
Back in that era, the incoming fuel charge was acting as a thermal sink for the valves. Semi-atomized fuel vapour getting sucked in the intake cools the faces of the valves and the valve seats. Especially leaded fuel.
Propane is thoroughly vaporized before it gets to the intake, adn just doesn't have the thermal mass that equivalent droplets of gasoline did, so the combustion surface of the head would run hotter than it ever would on gasoline.
Especially when guys would do sloppy conversions, and set the system "dry" or lean, trying to get mileage out of the vehicle, the heads/valves/seats/guides take a wicked beating.
Same sloppy guys would then set the system "wet" with propane, which would then promptly wash out the rings, and in not too long they were burning oil, and Their oil was turning a weird brownish colour. :)
But yeah, especially 70's Gm's would barely make 50,000miles on stock heads running propane, before an overhaul. Although one they were done properly once, with the stellite seats, etc, they were good to go for way longer.
Does the valves have to be solid stelite or can you get away with valves with a stelite hard face welded to seat?? Also I have heard of conversions using stainless steel valves ???.
I used to have a 2003 diesel jetta . The 1.9 alh engine was bulletproof. I upgraded the fuel nozzles, put in a 2 micron fuel filter kit, and got a tune that was just shy of doubling the stock horsepower. It ran on anything. It ran really well on vegetable oil, new motor oil, used motor oil, transmition fuel, and once i got 55 gallons of used machine oil that i ran through a filter and it loved that too. 47mpg anywhere I went . I sold the car at 320k miles and it still ran well when I sold it. I really miss thag car.
You could use the carb to feed water/methanol into the cylinder.
Yep. Plumb the shop vac exhaust to the inlet side and "tune" the carb jets to the desired amount of vapor
I have a customer who owns a pre emmisions 7.3 f350. He has 973,000miles on the truck.
He has always ran it on used oil and gas because he owns a chemical recycling plant.
He has some modifications to help the fuel burn. He had a fuel pre heater and lots of fuel filters. At least 3 in-line not to mention the filter when it fills the truck, and the filter in the pickup tube.
That is really cool that he got almost a million miles on that setup. Would have thought he would have gone through a dozen sets of injectors
@@giggiddyI'm curious biw many injection pumps. I went through 2 pumps in 47k miles on mine. We were filtering to 2 micron.
@@giggiddy I’ve only done one set of injectors in the truck, and it was because a turbo upgrade.
One lifter pump because of poor oem manufacturing.
Fuel pump was upgraded with a a pair of 500Lph inline pumps when he went with a a sequential turbo setup. I talked him into keeping the turbos a bit smaller than most builds. I used a precision 6766 and a 7675 just so he can still use the truck, but just has a better power band.
This is when I found that one of the oem injectors had a squished Oring from someone else working on the truck.
Truck makes 650 whp and 1130wtq. Redline is 3700. Not going into my tuning because like every hood professional I keep my secrets to myself.
Yes it had a propane “nos” system. I find propane is better for diesels because it doesn’t combust until the diesel does. Making the boost in power a little more predictable.
@@randomlife718 custom upgraded billet injector pump after the first one shit the bed. Remove and refresh the pump every 250,00miles replacing any components that show even the slightest wear.
Oem pump is muleshit, I’ve never seen such bad manufacturing for a heavy duty engineZ
@@giggiddy I think there is a guy on TH-cam with Cummins similar set up, not built to be fancy. But his I think has twice the miles
Another thing you can monitor is oil temperature, we have an old Deutz air cooled 6 cylinder diesel on an irrigation pump and that's how we monitor engine temperature without coolant
Another good old-fashioned FAFO With Small Engines episode. It's like a glass of cold orange juice after a long morning of bucking firewood.
Also: FIRST GEN S-10! One of the coolest little beaters you can build! Part of my personal favorite Holy Trinity of hatchbacks, station wagons, and compact trucks!
he really did fuck around and he did indeed find out
On the "detonation" you observed I think there is validity to it. Propane has an octane rating of around 110 which makes it much more difficult to ignite without a spark than diesel fuel. In a diesel engine typically only the leading edge of the fuel/ air mixture cloud radiating out from the injector ignites because it has the proper conditions. Because of this the burn is relatively smooth because the combustion process is draw out without any, (hopefully), high combustion pressure spikes. However, when you add propane when the diesel ignites then the entire volume propane ignites in a short time causing a spike in combustion chamber pressure creating the "knock: you are hearing. This can also occurs with a cold diesel engine when self ignition of the fuel is relatively delayed and more of the fuel / air mixture ignites at once causing knock.
Yeah Ive read that adding propane has a similar effect to putting in timing on a diesel. Adding too much propane causes the same problems and damage that too much timing does. Your explanation makes sense for why that would be.
Modern diesels will advance and retard injection timing to help control burn time. I'm wondering if you retard the injection timing if it will run better on the propane mix.
@@SpencerHHO
Considering LPG/LNG injection is not a new idea, there is definitely literature around to answer these questions and a lot more.
Especially large cogeneration units, LNG tankers, some semi trucks and some nutty-savvy car people use LPG/LNG injection. In the first two cases usually not as additional but basically as sole fuel though, with pilot injection of a tiny spritz of diesel acting solely as ignition source.
Those cases might be less interesting because there's quite substantial differences in the timing of and the combustion process itself between smaller diesel engines (ie. High speed diesels, max. >1000rpm) and large diesels like used in cargo ships (ie slow speed diesels,
Would this not enter RCCI mode is the mixtures where just right?
@@RNA0ROGER
RCCI is usually used for single fuel engines that operate with a lean (low reactivity) homogeneous charge and a seperate injection to create a richer pocket (higher reactivity) that is able to ignite under the given conditions, which the leads either to combustion from that ignition source or to a HCCI like combustion with the charge igniting at multiple spots/everywhere simultaneously due to the raised pressure and temperature from the rich pocket being combusted.
This is usually called Bi-fuel.
All those terms are often a bit overlapping in certain aspects and sometimes not very well defined. Much of the principles and knowledge coming from slow and medium speed diesel engines doesn't help either, as they operate quite a bit different in certain regards.
How this channel doesn’t have 3M subs is a mystery
@@flyonbyya factual
It takes a few years to become an overnight sensation
No it isn't. Why would you think that many people are interested in this level of deep diving? It seems that most people want everything dumbed down these days. If he blew stuff up and yelled a lot, he could get 3m subs.
You’re indeed correct… Perhaps cat videos
Because thinking and learning are inevitable.
It's like kryptonite to a mouth breather.
Great Video, Jimbo. Years ago, 80’s farmers used to have propane injection systems for their diesel tractors, when they needed more power. I remember almost buying a late model 4020 diesel that had propane injection. If used correctly it gave horsepower without killing the engine. If I remember correctly it was a forklift style tank, electric solenoid and some piping to the intake of the engine. I don’t remember the manufacturer. Thanks.
Hey Jimbo, regarding the propane testing, what you saw was exactly what should have happened. I work at a University and we do alot of dual fuel testing with diesel engines that have port injection of high octane fuels like propane, gasoline, ethanol, methanol, etc. What you saw is exactly what normally happens. The combustion will get alot faster and louder, as it is knocking; which you heard and saw with the lower EGTs. Also when you port inject fuel, some of it will not burn, which is common and which is why you can smell propane in the exhaust. The main reason to run dual fuel engines is that they can have alot less soot and NOx, but they will have more unburned fuel and CO emissions. The brake thermal efficiency is also a bit better due to the faster and louder combustion.
Also regarding the carburetor, I think it would be interesting to use it in future for your own dual fuel testing to inject fuels like gasoline, E85, methanol, etc and see how it effects the engine performance.
"can you use the exhaust from a vacuum cleaner to create boost?"... The question I didn't know I wanted the answer to, love your videos :)
Leef blowers have been used before. They made about a 1/2#, but not practical
Most times you can reduce vacuum but making actual positive pressure is near impossible just due to the design of the "pump" itself.
@@Guns_N_Gears Yep, I'm thinking Roadkill...
@@samteks125 correct!!!!
@@goosenotmaverick1156 Is that because a leaf blower is just a glorified fan, and a compressor needs to be "fully enclosed" (dont know the fancy word for it) i.e. in a roots blower (no way for the air to travel "backwards")?
"So, things are not looking good; lets make things worse." -Jimbo
That is the same thing my brain says whenever I'm faced with major life decisions.
@@curtisroberts9137 so, my credit card balance is not looking good; let's make things worse.
It's a shame TH-cam won't allow commenters to add images or links.......... I could have turned that quote into a nice motivational poster to put here. :D
I was hoping you would test water in the carburetor. I think it would get a lot more water vapor in the engine than the sonic vaporizers, and without the need for a power supply.
Yes this is a great idea. Use a carburetor to add water mist injection into the intake.
Id love to see that tested
Now that's an idea
The propane ignites after the diesel, increasing the peak pressure drastically. This is known as diesel knock. Diesel knock happens when you burn low cetan fuel, which ignites to slow. The fire in the cylinder starts slow and increases in speed drastically, once the temperature in the combustion starts rising with partiale burnt fuel. This usually happens with vegetable oil on direct injected high speed diesels.
Thanks!
@@robotcantina8957 if you could retard the injection timing, you could try to make the engine run more stable with some propane. Try looking into HCCI engines
Would retarding the injector timing help with that?
@@bdkw1 it would
@@bdkw1 yep and that is where many alt fuel users fail.... they do not adjust timing of the injection to match the combustion characteristics of the alternative light oil concoction they are using. as a fuel. (Diesel is a light oil essentially )
Gnome prevention fund.
This was the best Molotow Cocktail mixing tutorial, that I have ever seen 😂
As for propane, some larger back up generators,use a mix of propane / nat gas and diesel as a way to stretch diesel supplies. Generac is one of them.
On the water vapor experiment
You should have run a test with full setup of bucket hose etc but no mist as baseline ?
Always a great way to start the day... Thanks Jimbo.
Exactly the kind of nerdy experiments i come here for 😎
No coffee today, redbull! I have things to do, but they can wait til im done here checking up on what the Cantina has gotten up to, hope you had a good week, Jimbo!
Hope you enjoy!
Maybe try fogging with blue windshield washer fluid. Budget water/methanol injector style.
Oh, I'm looking forward to whatever you do to that s-10!
As long as he doesn't torture it. They're absolutely great little trucks.
DON'T HURT IT, JIMBO!!
Really silly Idea, but Marine Diesel Engines are having "Green" Methanol systems (Pure Methanol made from hydrogen as an additional fuel source, not water/meth injection) fitted as a way to reduce emissions. It would be neat to see how your engine runs with an alcohol based fuel being supplied by the carburetor.
It would also be neat to see if a carb could act as a traditional water/meth system.
That's a cool experiment. Adding propane to a diesel is like nitro in a gasoline engine. Everything you done with the little engine was pretty cool.
It's always fun playing with different fuels in engines, though, I'm seeing something in my head now, a 196cc diesel-powered chevy S10......... :P
Keyfarm has a 212cc pickup 😉
You need to put the vaporizers in the shop vac to force the water vapors in, clearly. Also I deeply appreciate the safety stick.
For homemade diesel, years ago on Trucks with Stacey David, he made some with old fry oil, lye which is used as a catalyst and racing methanol. not sure of ratios but im sure the episode probably listed it.
That would have been Biodiesel and is a much more refined fuel. You mix a certain amount of KOH or NaOH with ~20 methanol and mix it with veg oil at 125F. That reacts together and glycerine will settle out and leave thinner fuel on the top. If you use it right away, all you have to do is filter it to finish. If you plan on stock piling it, you'll need to wash the soap ions out of the fuel or it will settle out over time and clog filters. I've put about 70k gallons of it in the farm tractors, trucks, and even use it as a home heating oil replacement with a tuned oil burner.
I ran a pretty thorough experiment many years ago. Used motor oil, preferably very used motor oil will burn better than unused oil, but never quite as good as diesel.
Bet it’s because it’s full of gasoline.
I Also used an old diesel tractor for my fuel experments. But I used 80% - used motor oil filtered thru 10 micron fuel filters to ensure no debris stopped up the injectors. added 20% standard diesel fuel. Old tractor ran great. Then went to my 1999 Ford F250 Power stroke. Also ran great in the summertime. For the winter ratio went to 70% oil and 30% diesel, for starting purposes. Later found that used Filtered Transmission fluid mixed the same ratio as the diesel blend Ran even better, but fuel mileage increased nearly 20 %. Still Have the Power stroke with no issues at 431,000 miles. Enjoy all the projects.. Also an Danny Diode guy.
Another brilliant use of a half hour on Sunday afternoon
Great work Jimbo, and another fine edit.
Don’t you just love it when you ask several good questions, it almost always means you are now better placed to ask some even more specific questions again!!!
Thanks, I can hardly wait to see the Propane/Vapor generator for the Insight Kubota engine. Don’t blow yourself up x
I LOVE the theme music! Does anyone else get up and dance like nobody's watching when it comes on? Since I ALWAYS listen to the end ... I spotted that poor, innocent pickup truck. I have a feeling something weird and wonderful is going to happen to it. A wood-burning turbo gasifier perhaps?
Last few Sundays been off cus on no theme music. I thought I was the only weird one watching. IDK if I can watch without the music, even if its at the end.
Another vote for wood gasifier! The tires in the back can also be turned into a sort of fuel!
This is fun info for those of us who aren't super familiar with Diesel motors.
Diesels are not everyone's thing and its fun to show folks the differences and what can be done with a diesel. Glad you enjoyed it.
Excellent! Next time try Hydrogen. You only need 12volts or less at 2amps DC. In a bucket of water put two wires from the power source. The water will break into hydrogen and oxygen. Run the possitive lead into the bucket through a tube vented outside of the bucket. That will keep the hydrogen from being catalyzed (explosive) by it in the bucket after its split. The bubbles that come off the negative wire in the bucket will be pure hydrogen. You can make it with the bucket you used for the water vapor experiment. The amount of hydrogen bubbles can be controlled with a rheostat so that you aren't making more than the engine can "burn". You don't want to flood the garage with hydrogen.
or just take all of it.... HHO .... slang brown gas and get that all in the cylinder. Your putting Oxygen in combustion chamber anyway.
After binging automotive yt for the past hour, this was really refreshing. Best channel ever
Could the carburetor be used as a ready-made water or water-meth injection setup? That's pretty cool that it will bolt right up like that.
Jimbo! You are great!! I have ran wmo in my Mercedes’ om606 as well as my tractors. I have ran the wmo straight and found lack of power with excessive smoke. 50/50 runs great! I have also ran kerosene. In the 80’s Mercedes Bens recommended running 50/50 diesel kerosene mix during the winter months. Keep up the good work!
The propane thing brought back an old memory. A million years ago while in the army we tried an experiment on one of our trucks and I couldn't believe it but we added white kerosene to the diesel fuel and it started better, ran cleaner (and quieter), plus made more power. Not sure I would do that with anything modern but it sure was fun.
In cold climates, spiking #2 with Kero (or now ULSD #1 almost same thing) is quite common....and 5% Gasoline in cold weather is also common...We get a week or two of -40 weather here and we deal with it like that.
Gotta compliment u Jimbo, that was a very interesting vid.
Luv cn experimental ideas like this, they really lock in my curiosity.
Another great vid. 👍👍👍
Carburetor is a great demonstration of the CAC throttle and mixer unit on a modern diesel used to raise exhaust temperature for the start of regen in the dpf
Ok, welp, this channel needs more subscribers! In the 1970s the "Torque Topper" was marketed to increase power of your farm tractor. I suspect the system died off as tractor engines also died from over application of propane.
i learned a lot more from this than you'd think. i'm planning on getting a larger version of this engine as a backup generator paired with batteries, solar, and inverters.
I'm curious, jimbo, what did you do to get rid of the gnomes? Haven't seen them show up with their antics in a long time.
Appreciate the videos.
They are still around.....
This was a damn fine group of experiments. I am really looking forward to see how you adapt this to the Insight. Top notch stuff.
Just finished mowing and doing my yard work. Now it's time for front porch coffee and robot cantina
WOW, a video longer than 18 minutes! Thank you!!😊😊😊
Propane or lpg systems can be added to a diesel engine and it inproves diesel consumption, adds power and reduces pollution, they are getting more attention in my country (poland) mostly in semi trucks, heavy equipment and farming equipment. I would love seeing you explore this further.
Great to see a new video on this Diesel. I'm sure you got a Ton of suggestions to test out.
Love this type of experimentation! A nice change once in a while!
I always loved these tinkering videos that get sprinkled into each season. Its nice to have a break from the grind of building and troubleshooting and just experiment in the shop with something thats a little less expensive (and dangerous) should something go wrong. Plus it usually results in some new inspiration for the big project.
10:00 well yeah halloween parties, but also the same stuff is used in humidifiers, like actually the same exact thing
Greeat Show, Jimbo. Going to this presentation of your experimentation is/was fun. Keep up the good work!!😁
I have messed around with that exact engine and you can adjust the pop off pressure in the injector very easily. I also noticed removing two of the three gaskets between the injector pump and side case increases fuel pressure. it would be interesting to see the power difference with added fuel, and thank you for making a patreon, I subbed immediately!
Hey Jimbo, was out of the house yesterday, so I finally have the chance to catch up!
Thanks 👍💪✌
It would be interesting to see how water injection would affect fuel economy. Reinstall the carburetor, keep it wired wide open, and hook it up to water instead of fuel. It should do a very nice job of both atomizing the water and metering it so that you don't ingest too much and damage the engine. Best to use distilled water, minerals in the water will turn into particles when the water evaporates in the combustion chamber. I suspect you will see the water injection result in a small savings in diesel, although I'm not really sure how easy it would be to implement this on the car.
I've enjoyed this entire series since you started adapting the Kubota engine to the old car. Keep up the good work!
Sundays are F1 and new Cantina videos! Love what you do.
As for the carburettor/ throttle body experiment, I used to have a large Isuzu truck with a 12 litre engine. It had two butterflies on the inlet manifold, one was hooked to the stop cable to shut off the engine and the other was hooked to operate with the exhaust brake.
Another good episode Jimbo, the poor running on the oil/gas mix is most likely down to it being new oil. Old and degraded oil is much thinner and won’t clog the fuel pump and injector. Keep em coming.
I had fun AND learned stuff!
I think the knock is from the propane lighting as soon as the diesel injects. Propane should have an octane about 150, but this small engine probably has it’s injection advanced due to it’s relatively low fuel pressure.
Nice S10 teaser, but I miss the gnomes.
That was a lot of fun and quite interesting! Thanks for doing this!
In my day job, I wrote the control firmware for a company called Innovative Fuel Systems in Edmonton, Canada that injects CNG into PACCAR and Cummins 13 litre diesel engines on semi trucks.
As an amount of diesel was removed, an energy-wise equal amount of CNG was injected. The engine runs slow enough that I could do the fuelling calculation in the time between injection events in real time.
The whole system works very well, running very clean, without unburned methane in the exhaust, and the oil stays clean for much longer.
That truck looks way nicer than anything we have up north. Dang salt. 😂
Experiments like this is why I am subcribed
I saw that bucket and immediately sang "Save BIG $, You save BIG $, when you shop Menard's"
Another great "what if" scenario at JIMBO MOTORS, looking forward to next time
I know long distance heavy truck operators here in Australia that used LPG boosting on their diesel engines (50hp extra) they had really good results. Overall their fuel costs (paying for LPG and Diesel) were 10% lower. Engines pulled and ran perfectly, they reported better than expected performance. Oil samples at oil changes were very low on soot.
"Propane into the engine"
Hank Hill wholeheartedly approves.
I am here for the mini diesel experiments!
Awesome! I liked that episode.
About the propane injection, I seen somewhere that by injecting propane in a diesel engine it could reduce soot to the point that a diesel particulate filter is no longer needed. If you can reduce combustion temp it will reduce NOX emissions and with the soot reduction it would make it more environmentally friendly.
About the water vapors, I'd be curious to see if I can boil water with the exhaust heat. Maybe a setup that would make some kind of flash boiler... A double layer exhaust tube where the water would be preheated and a fined tube making like a flash boiler in the exhaust flow. I like those experiments.
Say, that's a mighty nice drift truck project you've got there Jimbo... 😉😉
Propane is a well-known additive to diesel engines in Poland. conservatively replaces approximately 30% of diesel fuel with propane, providing 15% cost savings. It may not be much, but in the case of heavy equipment, where fuel consumption is measured in tons per day, it is a lot. STAG AC is well-known controller for LPG installations in diesel engines.
I always find experiments like this fascinating. Thanks for sharing. Phil
the oil/fuel mixture in motion exposed to atmosphere actually causes the fuel to evaporate quite quickly. 1 hour of this is something to consider when factoring in ratios.
I have found in my personal experiments that used motor oil works better than fresh motor oil when used as fuel. Just be sure to let the used motor oil sit for at least a month so that all fine metal particals settle to the bottom of the drum then slowly remove the oil from the top of the drum being careful not to disturb what has settled at the botom of the drum . the oil that you have removed is then passed through a cheap oil filter using a hydraulic pump at 30 PSI then I use a 80/20 blend of the used oil and gasoline. The engine runs smooth. The therory is that used motor oil is slightly refined over the 3,000 miles of use making it a better burning fuel.
Oh boy, I go out for the day to a car show and miss an episode!
A note on gas injection.
In Australia there is a ... kiind of common after market modification that people sometimes did, which is run a LNG (about 90% Methane in Australia) injection system on their diesel. It does improve power and efficiency, while making the engine burn a little cleaner. However, some systems caused issues with a lot of engines.
Always interesting but this is one of your best. Thanks Jimbo 👍
The 'Big Boys' with the 1000hp cummins inline sixes use propane in the same manner gasoline engines use Nitrous Oxide setups, except since a Diesel runs lean, it just adds propane as extra fuel, and since it's a low temperature gas, it has an intercooling effect, resulting in the lower cylinder temps.
Instead of using the Arduino to cut fuel when cylinder temps get past a certain point, you could shoot a small amount of propane instead, and cut it off at say, 100*f lower than max, allowing you to have "merge in traffic on the highway" power. It would also allow WOT operation for longer periods of time, by controlling exhaust temps in a way that doesn't cost power.
About your water vapour test. There are 3rd party water injection kits that place a spray nozzle inside the intake manifold. Great for reducing intake air temperatures on boosted vehicles. Because of the high heat and fine spraying nozzle, the water vaporizes almost instantly.
Additionally you CAN run a water-ethanol mix and get a real boost in performance. Though I don't know how this would pan out in a diesel application hahaha.
Just thought you might find that interesting^^ Thanks for the video
Accidentally made experiment on my 1.7 ctdi 4EE2 diesel when poured 95 e10 into the tank. Instantly went back to gas station and filled with diesel to the top. Eventually had 15:35 gas:diesel mixture. Added 2 stroke oil after diesel to lubricate. 15:35:1
Drained 40 of that solution and poured 20 of clean diesel next day. Car never pulled so well with eventually ~9-10percent. of petrol in there. :D
There is a feeling it smokes less at full throttle at >3k rpm when it's mostly diesel in the tank now.
The propane smell is the odorant they add to it. Propane itself is odorless. Also, the shop vac exhaust also has its motor heat in it, so the exhaust gases not changing temp would makes sense. You would need a charge air cooler or a real supercharger/blower.
Yrs ago i was messing around with propane on my 6.2 chevy. First was injecting it in tge top of yhe air cleaner & when i flipped the switch when under load iti ran rough & was knocking. I thought it might not be mixing with the in comming air . It still had the cold air tube on the truck so i injected it infrint of the tube & completly changed. With regulator set the same with the same load on the engine it picked up much power, ran smooth & no knock.
Somewhere i read that Dimethyl ether is an alternative fuel for Diesel engines.
Yes, it is an amazing fuel: Cetane number higher than of premium diesel, and can be easily made from any carbon feedstock - from natural gas to biomass and coal. Also the emissions of DME are very good, with basically no particulate matter in the exhaust. Why it isn't still widespread is honestly a mystery to me.
@@ПётрСемеричtwo reasons. its vapors very easily form explosive concentrations, and are very easy to ignite. and second, its a narcotic.
Dang, never heard of it! Off to Google…
When using homemade fuels whether it is a concoction of motor oil & gas or vegetable oil, the key is matching the viscosity of those fuels to atomizer design to enable proper combustion. This is typically done by cutting with gas (diesel) or heating.
that is only half the game.... but technically sorta NOT.... but sorta yes LOL.
Viscosity adjustments etc. for alt. fuel folk, are partially a back door way to get two things. One, the alternative fuel to end up to be something with a vapor-ability; via the existing injection system , to be as close as can be, to that of diesel since all the engine's systems, are designed around diesel. Two, creating a an alt. fuel; where its "combustion characteristics" are as close to that of diesel as well, for same reasons. With those two; then an engine designed to run "diesel" will be just as happy to run on the concocted fuel.
This is getting more important in conversions these days because the computerized vehicles out there are not very programmable; nor hackable..... you cant' change the sub systems that affect "timing " of when fuel gets put into cylinder easily. That and the vaporizing sub element of the whole injection system, is designed to be highly efficient at vaporizing "diesel" when it get introduced into the cylinder. So your alt. fuel has to be as close to "diesel like" as you can; or the vaporization of the alt fuel... goes to piss.
Whole goals is ... however you go about it..... you gotta match the combustion characteristics of the particular fuel being used, to when you introduce it into the cylinder..... AND as you point out....you also got to have that fuel oil go into the cylinder with as fine a vapor as can create.
All in all..... You can manipulate timing of when introducing a fuel into cylinder , via changing timing of injection system itself (What Robot Cantina has sorta done with his Arduino stuff) , or by manipulating the alt fuel's make up to fit an existing engine's design ..... or both. Both* is the sweet spot when doing "conversions"... far as I can tell.
Would love to see a manufacture re-look at mulit fuel ideas...... create a new engine design with built in in flexibility / adjustablity, so it can modulate itself to to find max combustion for whatever and however a fuel is fed into its chambers.
*this is what interest me about the Arduino and motors he is doing to alter timing in this series of experiments with his Kubota.to b
I had a bully dog LP injection on a Cummins engine years ago. It had coolant traveling through the regulator housing to heat the lp, to engine temp. Hope this helps.
Thrilled to see you trying my suggestion of water injection, and that it works bringing the EGT down. What I would have loved to see is the testing of fuel consumption while using it! BTW you can get ultrasonic foggers with up to 12 heads from the jungle site. You could have also filled the carb you attached up with distilled water! another possibility is using a kettle or steam generator to inject steam.
Sichuan Sifa MB168F . The hard part is making a 20 MM to 1 inch shaft with an adapter. The motor oil in the crankcase vanishes faster than a lot of motors. Mount it on a thick plate of aluminum. I don't let mine over 2200 rpms.
In the Gardner engine manual it says to filter the used oil after oil change and just add it to fuel tank!
I used to get the missfueled fuel tank contents from my local garage after people put petrol in diesel cars, I would mix it with veg oil when veg oil cost 30p a litre, shops are wise to it now so it costs £1.50!
I like these longer videos. keep it up.
The knocking sound is likely just diesel knock, but more severe because of the multi-fuel. Diesel doesn't usually burn as a mixture like gasoline, instead you have individual droplets which all ignite to create small combustion events throughout the cylinder, but the droplets themselves burn fairly slowly so the pressure increase is relatively gradual.
My guess is the propane IS a nice relatively homogenous mixture with the air, and when the diesel gets injected it creates multiple ignition points for the propane/air mixture, causing it to burn extremely quickly.
On a spark ignition engine there should only be a single flame front that originates at the spark plug, and that flame front will take more time to travel across the cylinder versus having multiple flame fronts distributed throughout the combustion chamber working in parallel to travel across the mixture.
Years ago I worked on a project to run a standard cummins type diesel engine using mainly natural gas, with just a splash of diesel to set the mixture off.
The propane experiment had great results I wasn't expecting that
Ahhhhh… our wait is finally over… Another great episode of “just trying stuff” to see what happens.
I was trying to think about how you could measure torque (brake horsepower) of your different fuels. Back in the late 80’s I worked at an automotive parts manufacturer, were we tested our product in the big 3’s + Big Equipment (5) diesel engines. We had a direct attached absorber (either eddy current, ac gen set, or water brake) to generate the load on the engine. The shell/housing of the absorber was designed to free rotate on its bearings. We would place a full bridge load cell (strain gauge) on the connection between the shell of the absorber and frame of the dyno. This would tell us how many pounds of torque the engine was generating, we would then calculate brake hp. We would calibrate the load cell by hanging a known mass of weight off of an arm on the absorber. We would adjust our calculations based on this known weight and the load it was placing on the load cell. Thinking about your setup, you almost have all of the bits needed for this. My initial thought was to replace the turnbuckle with something like a sparkfun SEN-13329 10Kg load cell (no idea if that is near large enough). But thinking about it that load cell would only measure belt tension and indirectly load. You would almost have to direct connect the alternator to the engine through something like a lovejoy coupler. Then you could derive a torque load produced by the different fuel mixtures. The issue here is it looks like you have about a 1:3 speed ratio on your belt system. On a direct drive you wouldn’t have the alternator speed to create the load. Ah engineering problems...
I have built a few dynos and I think I need another one. Perhaps that will be a future project.
@@robotcantina8957 Yes that would be interesting to see. Here's a thought you can hook it to one of those arduinos to do all of that fancy ciphering, linearization, and presentation of the data. Its a sad fact that probably the arduinos have more horsepower than those z80 based control systems we used back in the “good old days”.
Different fuel Different burn rate. I run my canal boat on 20 litres of used engine oil mixed with a pint of petrol, which is 35 to 1 and it runs fine. So maybe too much petrol at 20% was the problem?.
Try spraying straight water in the inlet with a garden pump up adjustable nozzled water spray bottle thingy, whilst the engine runs on diesel and is up to temperature. It'll smooth it out. But not too much or it'll hydraulic lock.
All very interesting though professor!!.
Keep up the good work Jimbo 😎
I have the same diesel engine, the reason the gas motor oil mix is causing the engine to sputter is because the fuel pump is heated beyond gasolines boiling point since its bolted directly into the engine block, this will cause bubbles of gasoline vapor to form in the fuel pump.
I found that out by experimenting with light hydrocarbon fuels (naptha) mixed with 2 stroke oil, it will run fine when the engine is cold, but when the engine gets up to temp it starts sputtering.
That would make a clean little shop truck.
A lot of trucking companies used to dispose of waste motor oil by pouring it into the fuel tanks, 11 gallons of waste oil to a 300 gallon fuel tank.
You don't want to know how much really nasty chemicals get disposed in a similair fashion by mixing it in the bunker oil for large container ships and such. As the saying goes: ain't no emission testing on international waters.
I was so excited that the length of your video was longer than usual. Next thing I know, its over. Entertainment value is high when I lose track of time. You are a mad scientist, and I love it
My first truck was a 1983 GMC S15
I just joined the S10 club! this one is an 89 from the desert and has zero rust.
@@robotcantina8957 I've currently got a 1986 Chevy s10 with monster rear tires on it. 38.5x14.50R15s. It's got a built 200hp 2.8L v6 under the hood. It's a unique little truck. I love it. I can't wait to see what you do with yours. Keep up the good work.
@@robotcantina8957 #OneOfUsOneofUs 😆
I think the knocking despite what you read, might be igniting prior to the start of the injection event, if there's enough heat from compression before reaching the timing of injection. The "smell" might be the additive that gives propane it's smell not burning.