Running an engine on nothing but vapor (video)

[91CavGT]

After a bit of playing around, I now have my lawn mower running on straight gasoline vapors!! I'm still tweeking everything to get combustion temps down but if it works good then the next step would be to try it on a car.

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a11...nt=Dave009.flv

[pgfpro]

Cool deal!!!

Have you done a fuel consumption test... carburetor verses your system?

[VetteOwner]

niiice

yea i wonder how much different this can same fuel consumption.

one thing: it may run on fumes BUT can it still cut grass? when an engine like that goes under a load it richens the mix to give more torque

[pgfpro]

It would be also interesting to see a wide-band O2 sensor (like a Innovate hand held unit with a car battery for power to the unit through a cigarette lighter plug in) on it to see what the A/F is?

[spotaneagle]

great ive been wanting to build one of these for quite some time, my only issue is vapor volatility in your bubbler, maybe a shut off valve?

on a car this would connect right to the air intake, what happens with the injectors then?, and how do you control fuel air ratio? will it burn lean? and if it does, will lean burning vapor produce extra heat like a lean burning engine?(am i right about that last part?)

[91CavGT]

I have taken it across some grass real quick and it had no problem cutting and it didn't show any signs of bogging down. I am concerned about the possibility of the combustion temps being too high so I'm currently working on an EGR system for it. Once I have it on and working I'll be mowing my whole yard (about 5,000 square foot). Once I have it running good I'm going to do some fuel usage tests to see how much more or less fuel it is burning.


I'm in the process of trying to track down a portable emmissions tester so I can see what it's emmissions are compared to stock(I can return it back to stock in about 10 minutes). That's a good idea about the wideband. I'll see about putting a wideband bung in the exhaust to see what the air/fuel ratio is.

[spotaneagle]

well as far as i know vapor gasoline is 10X as powerful, but you use alot less of it, this process might rewrite the rules of running lean ect, such a state may not even exist with vapor fuel, although i might be wrong, there is just little out there about it, so I'd say this is still guesswork

[JanGeo]

I will be interested in how the fuel continues to burn as the tank gets lower. I hear that the "new" gas does not completely evaporate and you may end up with the tank half full of non-evaporating heavy fuel. Very impressive setup however and it is amazing that it runs that well with no carburator.

[VetteOwner]

lol when u first started it it sounded like one of our old pushmowers that the carb would stick and cause extremely high revs haha i always swore it was gonna throw the rod outa the block...

[91CavGT]

Originally Posted by VetteOwner

lol when u first started it it sounded like one of our old pushmowers that the carb would stick and cause extremely high revs haha i always swore it was gonna throw the rod outa the block...

I started it with the fuel valve wide open, then promptly turned it down a bit.



I think I've got parts gathered up to install an EGR system on it. If it works ok then I'll try mowing with it this afternoon since grass is growing quick now.