87 Hot Air

[bruce]

Originally posted by TheNovaMan
I think the idea is that he sprays a little regular temp fuel into the manifold at all times, which contacts the manifold surface and absorbs heat from it. That's what causes the vaporization (or evaporation--they're the same thing). It's sorta like having a bag of ice on your plenum all the time. Of course, I could be wrong.

You be right!.

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by GS70350
********those numbers are off, trust me.

The MSDS sheets are wrong?.
Do you have something to verify what you're claiming?.

From the sounds of it you crossed the autoignition temps with boiling temps..

As far as you deposits comment, gasolines contain detergents, and when running the better blends they seem to be working in my opinion.

And *******if******* I'm just vaporizing the low end stuff it's still better then what the oem set up does.

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by DCVING 6
Didn't the Buick engineers play with H20 injection? I remember hearing about a slot in the dash for the "water injection" dummy light.

I'm an amature, so be kind in your reply's.

Yes, there were some mule cars run with H2O injection.

Yes, you can drop in cylinder temps with water injection, but that's not the purpose of this thread.

There are any number of other ways of doing things, but this is just what I've been working on and developing.

 

[bruce]

Originally posted by Mr. T
Speaking of 7th injectors... would there be any advantage to running this one in your application, bruce?
http://onlygoodstuff.com/product.asp?intProdID=50
It would seem to offer a better cylinder per cylinder spray pattern, also it would seem to cover a greater area of the manifold floor.

And, like you mentioned there is an advantage to propane, like alky, when looking for heat absorption. But, propane, unlike alky, doesn't (from early testing) seem to have a significant "bog" point...plus, the added fuel (which is what propane is) can lower combustion and exhaust temps... which in turn, will relate back to intake charge temperature, in terms of heat saturation at the source.

No, that system is designed for soing something else. ie just high demand fueling siutations.

So far I'll only somewhat agree with your propane comments, I want to do some testing before I make too many statements based on assumptions.

 

[kenmosher]

Originally posted by GS70350
yea the factory experimented with water/alcohol injection on the hot air cars. My car being a 84, has the power injection light in the dash. they never installed the system on the cars from the factory .....

Actually, the Power Injection light is on all the Regal dashes (up through 87... and the Riviera dashes too, if I remember correctly). Water injection was used on the Indy Pace car Riv in the early 80s.

 

[kenmosher]

Originally posted by DCVING 6
Can you inject water or alcohol through an injector? Use the 7th injector setup with a fuel cell full or alky or water in the trunk.

A regular fuel injector will freeze up in a few seconds ... water isn't kind to them! They can even stick after being in cleaning solution ...

Most alcohol/water injection systems use a mister style nozzle (like a NOS nozzle or a mister bar). They use a separate solenoid (and pump) designed for operation with water/alcohol.

There are injectors made for methanol, since some of the "dual fuel" vehicles were made for emissions testing and fleets. Even a few TRs were converted to pure Methanol by a southern university (and at least one car in California ... I met the guy and talked to him in '89). They usually had HUGE stainless steel tanks, big injectors, heavy duty/high volume pumps, recalibrated ECMs, etc. since alcohol has about the 1/2 the BTU content of gasoline. However, the guy I met told me he was routinely running 20 psi of boost (this was back in the days when 20 psi was RACE ONLY!)

 

[TheNovaMan]

FWIW, I seem to remember Yenko doing a hotair turbo Z28 around 1979 or so. He used a water/alky injection system that ran off the windshield washer fluid reservoir.

Originally posted by GS70350
put gas on your hand, then put rubbing alcohol, what absorbs more heat as it evaporates, or has a higher heat of vaporization? the alcohol, makes your skin cold, the gas doesnt make it so cold...

Well, yes mostly. When you take a bottle of liquid at room temperature and put some of it in your hand, the liquid absorbs heat energy from your hand. This raises the temperature of the liquid. That's all that happens with gasoline in your hand. If you have alcohol in your hand, it does the same thing, but it will also undergo a phase change (liquid to gas), which requires the alcohol to absorb even more heat energy from your hand. So it seems the ideal fuel to use would be one that has a boiling point near the temp that you want the manifold to be (within reason, of course). I think gasoline fits the bill quite nicely.
Bruce, since you don't mind heating the gasoline, what about a liquid-to-air heat exchanger (intercooler) with gasoline as the liquid?

 

[dconnor]

The MSDS sheets are wrong?.
Do you have something to verify what you're claiming?.

Vaporization range for gasolines vary a bit from brand to brand & grade to grade, but for the most part have an ~85°f IBP to around 400°f FBP (based on ASTM method D-86, distillation of petroleum products) & ~0.5 ml of residue left over per 100 ml of product used for the test. I'm basing these numbers on the hundreds of gasoline samples that I've run this test on & CAN provide examples if y'all really want me to.

In an application like Bruce is running, this small amount of residue (about the same consistency as syrup) will very easily be misted into the vapor stream along with the 99.5% of the "lighter ends" of the gasoline. I really don't see that small percentage gunking things up over what normally occurs in an engine under so called"normal" conditions....

Looks like an interesting experiment, have you tried running it with a xylene/toluene blend in the tank? I am wondering if the narrower vaporization range of these chemicals would help or hinder the cooling effect you are looking for.

Doug C.

 

[GS70350]

Doug C/DConnor, thanks you summed up what i was trying to explain quite nicely : )

I to have done some tests similar, although not so precise, i have found the residue/varnish that is left over is marginal, but i do know that over time it does build up. One example is when you attempt to vaporize the gasoline in attempts to get astronomical gas mileage. the varnish doesnt do much at first but it begins to build up and eventually hinders performance of the system, and must be cleaned. I figure the buildup of varnish in the intake is all dependent on the plenum floors shape and the way the air entering the plenum hits this floor. If the gas is allowed to sit though, and absorb heat thus evaporating the lighter ends, i do think that there will eventually be a buildup of the varnish, but again it depends on the plenum floor shape and air turbulence, and manifold temperature, i guess many variables.

I think that your mention of trying chemicals with a narrower vaporization range is on the right track. Especially if they vaporize at lower temperatures more like those found in his plenum. Also chemicals with more heat absorbtion than standard gasoline would help here.

Or, just increase your pump pressure, heat the fuel to about 300 psi, and spray it through all your injectors, and be amazed at the amount of power your now extracting from the same amount of gas as before. what do you say? next experiment maybe? I like the way your doin things Bruce.

Oh yea, are you heating the fuel going to the 7th? still havent heard. If not, you should try it just for experimentation of course . . .

 

[GS70350]

From the sounds of it you crossed the autoignition temps with boiling temps..

nope.


As far as you deposits comment, gasolines contain detergents, and when running the better blends they seem to be working in my opinion.

Yes better blends yield less deposits but the detergents main work occurs is when the fuel is burned, not evaporated, and the heavy HC's are what form the deposits in this case, since they never reach their vap point. all depends on temperature.

And *******if******* I'm just vaporizing the low end stuff it's still better then what the oem set up does.

Yes its MUCH better than the OEM setup. you should try preheating your fuel to the max *F that you can sustain without vapor lock occuring, and send this fuel to all your injectors. (i think ive written this too many times now, ill stop).

 

[BoostKillsStres]

All this talk about varnish....why would there be any more varnish buildup between this and a carb application???? Or this and a throttlebody injection application which is the exact same thing...just shoot a little o2 safe tb cleaner in there every now and then just as you would with a carb or tb injector.


I think Bruce's tinkering is just whats needed and I can't wait to see what this special code is all about if and when he spills the beans

 

[GS70350]

He mentioned his floor being lower than his runners, which could be like a bowl, where fuel that falls out of suspension in the mix, accumulates, and evaporates in this bowl, thus soaking up heat energy from the plenum. the only reason this could lead to varnish build up is because of its shape and how the fuel stays there if it does at all. on a carb application the pllenum floor is above the runners almost all the time, and fuel never really puddles up and evaporates, it usually flows down the runners. kind of hard for it to do so in this case. varnish is not really a problem here, i was just mentioning it as a side note since it does occur when the light ends of the fuel is evaporated/vaporized. i was trying to use this to show that the 205 degree temp is not fully vaporizing the fuel and that there will be leftovers afterwords.


Yes i enjoy his tinkering as well. This subject is similar to my own tinkering, which i do quite a bit of as well. I just happen to be scared to try stuff out on my car, because i cant afford to fix it if a mistake leads to damage. Id rather mess with a lawnmower i can replace, hehe.

Another side note, what about Hydrogen/browns gas injection? I caught my hair on fire with my own hydrogen filled balloons before, they are alot of fun to ignite, with large fireballs. build yourself up a efficient electrolytic generator, fill it up with distilled water and lye(sodium hydroxide), till it draws about 30 amps hot, more for more gas production. Then, run this line to your up pipe, with a regulator on the line, to regulate generator pressure to around 30 psi or so, with a pop off valve in case it overpressurises. Also incorporate a bubbler system to eradicate any potential corrosive basic compounds from the lye. This will also act as a flame arrestor preventing the generator from exploding in the event of a backfire. May have to retard your timing a little, and your EGTs will rise. You should accompany this with water injection or the 7th injector like bruce is doing to help cool the combustion event, because it will be much higher with the H2. hehe.

Lots of things you can try guys, lawnmowers/go carts work well if your car is not replaceable.

 

[TType84]

with all the talk of heat transfer..

why not send your intake off to a place that can do some thermal coating to the inside.... its gonna lower the amount of heat transferred to the air significantly.

in fact.. the more coatings you do to keep the heat in the cc the better off you are.. less heat leaves the cylinders. lower coolant temps and higher egts.. by lessening the amoutn of heat lost to the heads, the pistons, and the cylinder walls, more of that energy is used to push that piston down, right?

 

[JDEstill]

Say Bruce, you've mentioned how your cars MAT seems to track the coolant temperature less ~40F. You appear to believe that the intercooler is adding heat to the charge air, and this is the root cause for the higher than what might be expected MATs. Looking at the pics of your setup, don't you think that having the air filter right behind the radiator might be a big player in this as well? I wonder if your MATs would lose their coolant temperature dependancy if you moved the air filter to the more typical location with some kind of cold air pickup. Don't get me wrong, I think having the air filter right there on the turbo inlet is a good move, there should be some good benefits to having the least restriction possible at the turbo inlet, just wondering if thats the real root cause of your MAT/CTS relationship. That and having the proper baffling to ensure you're not getting radiator outlet air being fed to the inlet of a stock location IC...

John

 

[GS70350]

Originally posted by TType84
in fact.. the more coatings you do to keep the heat in the cc the better off you are.. less heat leaves the cylinders. lower coolant temps and higher egts.. by lessening the amoutn of heat lost to the heads, the pistons, and the cylinder walls, more of that energy is used to push that piston down, right? [/B]

Yep, thats right. thats why i wanted to coat everything in my combustion chamber with those bake on coatings you can buy.


OR, not neccessarily more pushes the piston down, but more heat is expelled out the exhaust than before since less is absorbed by the piston, cylinder head, walls, etc. Now if you increase the amount of fuel burned on the power stroke, by vaporizing a larger percentage, more of the energy will be used to push the piston down. Of course, higher combustion chamber temperatures help lead to better vaporization of the fuel which the coatings could help do. But, since the fuel is practically injected and burned in an instant, it doesnt enough time to vaporize in the combustion chamber. This is why only a small % of it is used to push the piston down, because thats what vaporized in time. Gas can only burn in a vapor state, not liquid. therefore it is a good idea to preheat it or vaporize it before it enters the combustion chamber.


Lets see, say 10 percent of the fuel is combusted at the top of the power stroke forcing the piston down. 90 percent is left, continues to burn, but not forcing the piston down, it burns and creates heat, which is absorbed by the piston, cyl walls and head. Then it continues to burn as it exits the chamber through the exhaust, and what does not completely burn is expelled as HC emmissions. Vaporize more of the fuel, and burn 20 percent when the plug fires, forcing the piston down with twice the energy as before. Now only 80 percent continues to burn from now through the exhaust stroke and as it leaves the exhaust.

This is what we should concentrate on for more power in my opinion. Utilizing more of the available energy that the Gasoline has to offer us. Direct injection in the audi's and stuff, is getting more vaporized than before, but still far from what is possible. Im glad Bruce is experimenting with this, because i know he will make the most of it.

 

[monte_383]

from chemistry class...

... you can boil gasoline at room temperature (and not worry about the nasty goo) by lowering the pressure of the container the fuel is in. Chem teacher had a neat little vacuum "chamber" of sorts, stuck in a beaker half full of water, turned on the pump, and the water boiled. Dunno how you would accomplish this in an automotive application, but you could get gasoline vapor this way. -Chuck

 

[GS70350]

Re: from chemistry class...

Originally posted by monte_383
... you can boil gasoline at room temperature (and not worry about the nasty goo) by lowering the pressure of the container the fuel is in....Dunno how you would accomplish this in an automotive application, but you could get gasoline vapor this way. -Chuck

Yep, lower the pressure(vacuum) lowers boiling point, and the oposite is also true. problem i see would be as soon as it comes out of the vacuum it will stop boiling maybe? when you heat it and pressurize it you increase the vaporization temperature, but as soon as it is sprayed from the injector, it returns to normal atmospheric pressure(unless under boost) where the gas can now change from liquid in the high pressure line, to vapor in the neutral plenum, since the boiling point is now lower than at the higher pressure.


Kind of like your moms pressure cooker for her beef stew, the water didnt boil until a higher temp cause the cooker had it all under pressure.

 

[bruce]

Re: Re: from chemistry class...

Originally posted by GS70350
Yep, lower the pressure(vacuum) lowers boiling point, and the oposite is also true. problem i see would be as soon as it comes out of the vacuum it will stop boiling maybe?

If your not in vacuum, then your in boost. Or REALLY close to it.
When in boost as the turbo starts to compress the air it gets warm. And if your running some serious boost you can get to really heating up the air.

 

[Ormand]

Questions...Comments

First...The intercooler will become an interheater... IF, and ONLY IF, the air around the IC is hotter than that inside the IC. Since the air after the compressor is somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 or 300 degrees, I don't see that happening very often. The IC will function as a cooler under most conditions, it just won't cool as well under the hood as it might if it were outside the engine compartment. So getting rid of the IC would seem to give a hotter charge, not a cooler one, under almost all conditions.
Second...The amount of gas injected stays constant, right? It is injected partly through an "extra" injector. So how does this "add" cooling. You get the same cooling effect you had before, you just moved some of it from the inlet ports to the up-pipe, or wherever the extra injector is mounted. The fuel injected into the ports will normally vaporize, and cool the charge in the heads and combustion chamber. What is gained by using some of this same cooling a little farther upstream in the flow?
Third... Gasoline is not a very good cooler. The heat of vaporization is only about 117, compared to 1000 for water, and about 400 for methanol. So, for charge cooling, water and/or alcohol would clearly give much better cooling. Why not try them?
Fourth... Varnish may appear. Gasoline is NOT a pure substance, it is a mixture/solution of a lot of different hydrocarbons, and other stuff. Some of that stuff will not evaporate at temperatures below 300 degrees, maybe higher. If you pour some in a glass, and let it evaporate, you will almost always get a gooey coating in the bottom of the glass.

This "experiment" would seem to just recreate the way the Buick engine was before 1986.. when it made less power.

 

[GS70350]

Re: Questions...Comments

Originally posted by Ormand
........The fuel injected into the ports will normally vaporize, and cool the charge in the heads and combustion chamber. What is gained by using some of this same cooling a little farther upstream in the flow?........

No, the fuel injected into the ports does NOT normally vaporize, only a very small portion does, and only this portion burns to force the piston down on the power stroke. you may be thinking of atomization, which is hardly the same as vaporization. atomization is still liquid, just drops, instead of a stream so to speak.

Originally posted by Ormand
........Third... Gasoline is not a very good cooler. The heat of vaporization is only about 117, compared to 1000 for water, and about 400 for methanol. So, for charge cooling, water and/or alcohol would clearly give much better cooling.

True. They do try them, they do work better. alcohol injection, or running it on pure alcohol, water injection, is all available and work better, but one of the things he is trying to do here, is to NOT run 2 seperate fuels. Makes it much more practical to only have to fill 1 tank, and cheaper too.

Originally posted by Ormand
........Fourth... Varnish may appear. Gasoline is NOT a pure substance, it is a mixture/solution of a lot of different hydrocarbons, and other stuff. Some of that stuff will not evaporate at temperatures below 300 degrees, maybe higher. If you pour some in a glass, and let it evaporate, you will almost always get a gooey coating in the bottom of the glass.

Yes, i mentioned this earlier in several of my posts, with the same experiment. But lets forget the varnish for now, aparently its not relevant to the topic.

[/B][/QUOTE] This "experiment" would seem to just recreate the way the Buick engine was before 1986.. when it made less power. [/B][/QUOTE]

it was also carbureted with a distributor, and poor turbocharger design, poor intake design, etc. That was just the beginning(78-83) of what they became. Alot of what actually makes these(84-87) have more power is better intakes, heads, exhaust, turbos, fuel injection, computer controls, DIS ignition, etc. they are worlds ahead of the old ones, that is just one aspect, and its not neccessarily the reason that they performed less. cant be compared.

A engine that has a properly designed and executed fuel vaporization system incorporated, and the controls to optimize it will make gobs more power, and be extremely fuel efficient at the same time with next to no emmissions.

Interesting fact, is that some people say that a engine that burns fully vaporized gasoline, will have a cold or only slightly warm exhaust, which would not neccessarily be good for a turbo application. This occurs because all of the vapor that is injected would be burned immediately and none would be left to burn as it exited the engine as exhaust. So, basically only a low portion of the energy would be changed to heat energy if the system is properly designed and executed. something to think about maybe.