New fuel or gas saving devices for car and trucks

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Permalink Reply by Eric Koch on October 14, 2009 at 11:08am

i installed a heat exchanger that thermally couples the engine coolant and the MPI fuel system(retarded the ignition 3 degrees to make up for the faster flame front)....i also replaced the tires with the skinniest ones i could find with the same diameter (as not to through the speedometer) and over pressure them 5psi...i also replaced the rusty old (200 pound)bed(it's my work truck) with an aluminum flat bed, after executing the frame mod that allowed for a 3" reduction in ground clearance(matched up front with a torsion adjustment)...and fabricated aerodynamic fiberglass cargo pods/fenders weighing in at 14 lbs each.... went from 17mpg hwy. to 31 mpg hwy.!!!

my bicycle still does way better for lighter in town errands (back pack increases cargo capacity)

rulgert

Permalink Reply by Larry M. Aden on October 14, 2009 at 1:09pm

Eric is right. We should first make our present vehicles as fuel economical as possible with present technology.
We can do a lot to make our existing vehicles more efficient.
Taller narrower high-pressure tires is the fastest and most practical way to increase fuel economy by reducing rolling resistance and engine rpm at highway speeds.
Five speed transmissions with a granny low and an overdrive high gear, plus real steep-ratio rearends make a huge difference in achieving better fuel economy. I have a D100 Dodge pickup with a 225 slant six and a 4 speed with a rearend from an automatic trans model that gets 26 Mpg on the highway, but it really needs that 5 speed.
A smooth belly pan is most useful to improve aerodynamic resistance.
On older cars and most trucks, replacing the engine driven cooling fan with an electric fan actually significantly reduces power requirements and saves an incredible amount of fuel.
Updraft and vaporizing carburetors are also even more economical than direct fuel injection.
However, none of that will help us one iota, if George Soros and Obama are successful in destroying the value of the US Dollar, so we cannot even afford to buy a barrel of the foreign oil we run our domestic fleet on!
We need a renewable alternative fuel to get us all back and forth to work, to plant our crops, and to transport them to the final consumer.
So I am working on an under-the-hood fast pyrolysis gasifier to char corn kernels, damaged soybeans, wood pellets, wood chips, chopped corn stalks, ground corn cobs, etc., anything that can be metered thru an auger, so we can run our present economy on producer gas, and still return the carbon back to the land as biochar.
I am building the prototype on a two-wheeled trailer with a genset on it, then, we can tow it around to shows and fairs, and demonstrate that it actually works and produces usable power.
I will let you know when I get it done. If you are interested in becoming a dealer/installer for this, e-mail me at: lmaden@frontiernet.net

Permalink Reply by Nigel Rose on February 22, 2010 at 2:59am

Hi Folks, you really want to improve things? Go have a look at the two posts (URLs following) on this forum, They were done about 18 months apart. The Russain military is the only body that ever took this work seriously. The power plant being discussed in this forum was originally proposed for devvelopment within Chiorny Oriol, the then program for the Next Generation Main Battle Tank for the Russain Army.
This powering concept has been available for something like 25 years, it scared the hell out of all the vehicle and engine manufacturers who ever saw the original interactive animated presentation, calcualtions, etc. Especially in America. In twenty five years, nobody has ever said the predicted 66% reduction in fuel burn was unachievable or the mechanism hard to manufacture. Twenty five years ago you could have been driving cars and trucks, even Class 8 vehicles, that achieved this level of economy. And guess what, you could have had hydrogen as the fuel for these same systems as the alternative, back then too.
The only people who ever took the time to do a proper evaluation was the Russian military complex, so they are the only people who know it works.
http://www.pennwellblogs.com/mae/2008/01/new-russian-battle-tank-it...
http://www.pennwellblogs.com/mae/2009/09/russian-t-95-main-battle-t...