Smokey Yunick Hot Vapor Cycle Engine

[drooze]

Originally Posted by ShadowWorks

Does anybody know how Smokey got the fuel so hot without pre-ignition?

I have not been able to find any extra information on his Hot Vapor Cycle Engine, the claims he made where fantastic and I tend to believe him based on his reputation and hands on approach.


http://bankspower.com/tech_coolair.cfm

I was fortunate enough to spend several days with Smokey in 93 (maybe 94 ?) cant remeber now...

Smokey was always my hot rod hero, Im 37 and have been reading Smokey since I was 7, I raced bikes, then carts, his engine theory applied to any 4 stroke and I took advantage of EVERYTHING I could learn, when that 1984 Hot Rod came out I was a subscriber and I read it with my 13 year old eyes OVER and OVER, I even used a magnifying glass to look at the pics to try to see exactly what was there.

When I was at the Indy time trials, I had an unrestricted pass, (except firestone tire car garages) I was on Goodyears ticket I was having breakfast and Smokey was behind me with Carol Shelby, I truned around to see where my mom who we were supposed to be meeting there was and saw them , I whipped to my wife and said "I cant belive this do you know who THAT is ?!?!?" Shelby heard me and the next time I turned around asked me if I wanted to sit with them (I still think he thought I was talking about him
Well, Smokey didnt hear soo good, but....when I started asking questions about that engine, he looked up and was quite suprised I had read the patent filings, (my mom was in charge of records and accounting of Goodyear so patent searches were just a call away We talked about it for hours, he told me he had sold the patents to Crane Cams, and they had build prototypes for the Chrysler 2.2 engines for retrofit into chysler Turbo vehicles, he said he had one around the "Shop" somewhere.

I never once asked this question, 440 or so degrees and in the abscence of oxegyn until it hits the "homogenizer" it was not an issue.

The really cool part about the time trials at indy (other than standing in front of Jay leno (I was half crocked) and him asking me if I wanted his autograph and me saying, "No I want you off my trunk so I can get more beer" He was leaned up against my car in the infield as they were shooting the "This is Jay Leno at the Indy 500 time trials...yadada"

The REALLY cool part is for the entire time I was there in Gasoline Alley every time Smokey would see me he would yell "Chris, Chris come here Ive got something important for ya" and people would look over at me, as I would scurry to his side. He told me the first time "Chris I cant hear well, and Im just gonna talk, you nod your head up and down like Im saying something impoertant, and walk with me really fast like we got somewhere to go" He did this so peopl e wouldnt come up to him etc when he had somewhere to go. It was the singular coolest thing a 20 something could have happen to him, He even gave me his home number, He told me to call him and he would see what he could wrestle up on the Crane Version, which I lost, until after he died then I found it with all my other trip pics etc.

Crane Cams MAY have Info , Drawings, hell even a prototype somewhere, I always wondered what happened to the Crane Protoype he was given for testing/tuning....

He had no doubt about it being a "Winner" but he also said it was unfortunatley a bit too many things to operate perfect all the time, I belive this he said was one of the reasons Crane abandoned it.

Anyone know anyone over at Crane R&D ? What I would like most of all, is that MYSTERIOUS cam profile

Cheer Sorry to talk yalls ear off

[dsims6465]

Fellows, I've read some of your comments and questions about hot fuel, Smokey's hot air engines, lean burn. etc. And too many of you lack a basic understanding of the subject you speak on/question. Examples:
1. Inlet fuel temp has little to do with detting. Combustion temp and pressure acting on unburned end gases do.
2. Smokey's high temp engine design did not employ a turbo-charger, but a turbo-mixer. (Boost was really low. This mixer also acted as a much needed anti back pressure check valve.)
3. A carb allowed upstream mixing and gave the super hot inlet air and the fuel (heated to a true gaseous state) time to mix! This is why port injection and/or direct injection can't work quite as well.
4. Smokey wasn't the only one who could run super lean on bump gas. It is a little known fact that, after a certain point, leaner mixture temps start to decrease. They are hard to ignite, but they do increase economy without a loss of power because they allow for higher compression do to the cooler burn. And you can richen the mixture a little for more high end power when needed.
5. Smokey's super hot inlet charge design and so-called Water4Gas are different means to the same end; more complete combustion of the fuel being burned.
6. And both principles can be used to improve many modern engines. Throttle body injection is a snap.....just pretend it's a carb. Port injection requires moving the injectors upstream to, or very near, the plenum! Forget direct injection. No time for adequate missing, which is critical.
7. It's been known for well over half a century mixing trace amounts of acetone works like Water4Gas. The latter releases minute amounts of hydrogen which, like acetone, causes fuel droplets to break down into smaller particles which mix with inlet air more thoroughly and burn more completely.
8. Theoretically, superchargers of all types can benefit from Yunick if you can find a way to introduce enough hot fuel before the 'charger. It then becomes the mixer! Mixture control could be maintained by a modified closed loop FI system.

At age 68, I was around when Smokey was doin it to it. And we loved him.

T.O.B.G.

[severach]

Originally Posted by dsims6465

1. Inlet fuel temp has little to do with detting.

Good stuff except for this. I heated the fuel in my Delta 88 with a 10 plate heat exchanger. Knock was so bad that it was hard to drive in the city. I had to take it off.

[GasSavers_maxc]

http://books.google.com/books?id=bfL...t+engines&cd=1

[dsims6465]

More on 'hot air/fuel.' Severach please reread the post. If you only heated the fuel, you may have raised combustion temp and pressure which could induce detting. You must drastically raise fuel and air temp and give them time/distance to mix thoroughly. Also, did you read what I mentioned about very, very lean combustion temps? Smokey ran around 22:1 mixture ratios. Did you? I love direct injection. Mercedes used it on their straight-eight race cars (300SLR) as early as 1952. But if you just heat fuel it has no time to mix and give you a superior combustible mixture. They tried it! Remember, we're not trying to burn more fuel, but make the fuel burn better. This can give a higher expansion ratio and that's the real key.

I aplaud you for trying something new. I'm sure all the 'Smokeys' that ever lived aplaud you, too.

The Old Black Guy

[dsims6465]

I also would like to point out that a major auto manufacturer once marketed an engine that ran an air/fuel mixture of approx. 24:1! They sold boat loads, actually. Not very fast, but over 50 mpg. I'm talking about every old Honda you ever saw that had CVCC plastered across its' rear. Any early Honda mechanic will tell you they employed a pre-combustion chamber because ignition systems of the day couldn't fire the engine reliably. The burning, tiny, rich mixture was exhausted into the main super lean mixture in each cylinder. The fact that something sounds 'wrong' doesn't mean it is.

The Old Black Guy

[dsims6465]

Finally, for ShadowWorks and a few others, HHO is just water. But over 90yrs ago a guy named Brown discovered if you run an electric current through it, it breaks down into its' two component parts; hydrogen (2) and oxygen (1). The purpose is not to burn the hydrogen as fuel per-se, but to mix minute amounts of it with the gas we burn. It can significantly increase combustibility, giving more efficiency. Higher mileage/more power. The oxygen that's released aids economy, too. Since this enhanced mixture burns more completely, it can burn leaner. This 'Browns' Gas' was used effectively (and secretly) in WWll aircraft. But it is not a 'fuel' in and of itself. It's a combustion enhancer. Even trace amounts of baking soda help fuel burn better. Just like tiny amounts of acetone. And about a dozen other chemicals.

T. O. B. G.