PhantomChamp

If you were to have spark plugs that were powerful enough to separate water on a molecular level into hydrogen and oxygen, both of which are flammable, would the engine run normally?

Once the engine warms up, would the engine heat cause the water to vaporize before it got to the fuel intake? Would the water in the fuel tank boil and explode?

If you you get it to work right, would you even need an air intake? There's oxygen in the water. If you didn't need an air intake, could you drive around under water?

These are the things I think about when I don't have enough money for gas.

Tas

go do a search on "fuel cells" on excite.com or yahoo.

8Mike9

Hmmn, since you have so much free time on your hands and no gas money, why not just convert the air we breath in to HP...eliminate the need to carry all that water around

SHE DVL

Can you say "hydrolock"?

chevymad

You would burn more energy trying to seperate the hygrogen and oxygen in the water than you would get from it. Its a law of physics. And no you wouldnt need any air intake because you allready have 2 hydrogen to 1 oxygen you need for complete combustion.

The law of energy conservation is 1 reason why hydrogen cars, and fuel cells arent as "green" as people think. All they do is move the pollution out to the power plant instead of in the city. You will be using more energy making free hydrogen than if you just burned gasoline. This is also one reason most fuel cells now burn hydrogen released from gasoline-that and gasoline has a readily available distribution network.

Jester

I've seen hydrogen and LOX prototypes. Nifty in theory..but just not very practical. Besides the high energy cost of seperating water via electrolosys (sp?) outside of the car (a spark plug can't do it), you also have the safety concerns of carrying a tank of pure 02 and pure Hydrogen in tanks on a car that might get hit.


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"American made baby. 100% American iron. The muscle among the masses. My hero. Yep, you can take your ergonomically designed, space age, computer controlled, 4 door, cup holding map lighted split double wishbone split fold down retractable cargo covered moon roof piece of transportation and keep it. For I have felt the thunder. And I know the difference!"
JSP Motorsports
ICON Motorsports

slowV8berlinetta

i once heard of an engine made in the 70's that ran on water and i believe that it got great mileage. I think it used the hydrogen and the exhast had a lot of oxygen. i can't remeber what it was called but the guy who invented it put it in a big pig oldsmobile and it outperformed the 455 that came out lots. From what i heard, the gov't let the oil companies buy out the patent. This could just be all rumors, but hey, people have done and tried everything, so who knows?

mcconahay37

iTrader: (3)

Why don't you just come up with cold fusion?

AZ88Maro

At school we built a car that ran on hydrogen gas and still ran a 14.9. Witch the only emmission being water. Just to let you know. Bobby

Jester

Anyone ever see the Outer Limits episode where a college physics student discovers cold fusion? Off topic but it got me thinking about it, that episode was probably the best of any show I've ever seen....

ViciousZ

iTrader: (1)

Ever see Back to the Future II where the Delorean runs on old banana peels and stale beer? That'd be even cooler.

JoelOl75

Maybe you're thinking of water injection. It was (well still is) a trick used to cool the cumbustion process so higher compression ratios (or boost) could be used on low octane gas without detonation.

ede

guy i use to work with had a theroy that if you took a certin volumn of steam and compressed it into a sealed container it would never cool. if you had a large enough container you could heat your house forever. put it in a car and "somehow" power the car. he did admit he didn't have all the details worked out. he wasn't the smartest guy i ever worked with, actually he may of been more towards the bottom of the list.

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ICON Motorsports
1st & 3rd
MM Black Diamond 538 F&AM

watchmesuck

If I remember correctly there is an engine that runs on... hydrogen or some sort of fuel cell, I think. It used gasoline still, but it got a lot of miles to the tank. I think I will go look to see if I can find it now.

EDIT: This is what I was talking about: http://www.msnbc.com/news/586532.asp
Not quite the same as our engines, I know.

[This message has been edited by watchmesuck (edited October 19, 2001).]

PhantomChamp

I don't know if I'd want a quiet muscle car.

What about Methanol? It's made from like corn or something and burns very clean, yet has the same flash point as gasoline.

Vader

Actually, the alcohol derivative of corn mash is ethanol, not methanol. Methanol is produced from wood pulp, among other things. but the idea is similar.

The ethanol actually has a lower latent heat than pure hydrocarbons (fewer BTUs per unit of volume), but as anyone who has studied the combustion process will understand, the majority of the energy produced in a gasoline engine is not from the heat of combustion, but the molecular conversion of a given volume of hyrdocarbons and oxygen to produce a larger volume of byproduct gasses (such as CO, CO2, NO, o2 and several other traces of gas and vapor mixes).

This is why water injection can help produce more power - it allows for much higher combustion pressures but keeps the process relatively cool, and helps produce an even greater volume of gasses as a combustion byproduct More effective cylinder pressure than gasoline).

This is the main reason alcohols are desireable as fuel, since they also produce a larger volume of combustion byproduct gasses than pure hydrocarbons (gasoline), but burn at a lower temperature and much more completely.

That's also why I try to find ethanol blends for my engines. I don't want to start tanking up with pure ethanol just yet, but I could probably get by with a 70/30 mix pretty well and still control pinging and keep the rods from bending.

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Later,
Vader
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If you want to beat the World, it might reach up and pull you down...
Adobe Acrobat Reader

johnsjj2

I work at a Caterpillar plant where we build the biggest engines available from Cat. Some of the engineers are trying to make this idea work. Not so much the running on water, but the fuel cell idea. We haven't heard if they have got anywhere yet though.



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Joshua Johnston
1991 Z-28
350, T-5, K&N, Ported Vortec heads, Edelbrock RPM, Holley 750 D.P., HEI, 11.07:1 CR, Comp Cams Roller-.510"/.520"-282*/288* dur., Shorty Headers, Dual 2.5 Exhaust, Dynomax Bullet Mufflers, T&R Motorsports custom air intake, Bald tires

PETE

iTrader: (1)

i forgot what mag it was in but there was an engineer who developed an internal combustion engine where the ve was above 100%.he based his ideas that gasoline that is burnt in modern engines never really makes it completely to a gaseous state.he designed a fuel rod to run through the exhaust crossover around the valve there by using the heat generated from the combustion event to heat the gasoline so it completely turns to a gas thus using every possible drop of that precious liquid to make energy.also the cleanest burning fuel out there is natural gas.....................

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87 trans am,gm crate 350(4 bolt mains 10to1),L98 aluminum heads,LT4 hot cam,slp runners,slp 1 5/8 headers,3in.y-pipe,edelbrock base,hi flo cat,air foil,afpr,as&m ported plenum,gutted airbox,t-5 tranny w/centerforce clutch and a 3.27 9bolt(11.9in. brakes),ed wright's fastchip,relocated iat sensor,160 fan switch&t-stat,tb bypass,accel supercoil,cap& rotor,slp 3in. catbcak,a/c delete.

SHE IS GONE BUT I KNOW THE GUY WILL GIVE HER A GOOD HOME.

best e/t:
3653lbs./full tank+ driver.
14.10@96.53mph 2.01 60'

PhantomChamp

You guys are all very smart! Thank you all for clarifying all the bits of information I've picked up on energy from watching the learning channel and the like.

I think we all look forward to not being so dependant on oil from you know where. I'm just barely old enough to remember the oil embargo of around 1974 when people stood in line to buy gas and sometimes "gasohol", whetver that was.

I think that very soon, we'll be able to pull into a fuel station and have to choose from severaL types of combustable fuel. I've heard of compressed natural gas and liquid propane as well as the others listed here.

Some combustion turbine engines from the 1950's could supposedly run on anything you put in them. I've also heard of electromagnetic turbine engines that burn no fuel at all and work like a big alternator to constantly re-charge the huge modern lithium batteries to run almost perpetually. Supposedly since a magnet generates a magnetic field without expending energy, like the ones stuck to your refridgerator, it's the one thing in physical science that produces more energy than it uses. Of course, I can never remember the exact details of all this, but it's still facinating.

SpeedCat86

"I think that very soon, we'll be able to pull into a fuel station and have to choose from severaL types of combustable fuel. I've heard of compressed natural gas and liquid propane as well as the others listed here."

Good thought, but consider:
CNG and LPG powered engines use significantly differnt fuel injection / carburation setups than gasoline powered engines. You also need a fuel tank capable of a high degree of pressurization, like the tank on a barbecue grill.
Ethanol, for one, can be burned in engine designed for gasoline, with almost no change to the fuel system (Stanless tank, fuel lines, and a couple lines of code in the FI controller)

I'm doing a paper on this for school, and am collecing research. Look for a survey in the next few days.

cort351w

I hate to tell you, but if somehow it was even possible to perfectly seal the steam so that it never cooled (it's not), it could not heat your house. If the steam never cools, then there is no heat transfer to the house or to anything else. No house would be heated; no car could be powered.

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91 formula WS6 305 tpi, true dual exhaust

PhantomChamp

BTTT and on fire!

Y'all quit fighting!

Anyone know the politics of why alcohol fuels that most any gasoline car ccould run without modification hasn't become the standard yet? Petroleum lobby?

88305tpiT/A

iTrader: (2)

Yes I would like to know why our cars dont run on alcohol or methanol by now. I mean F1 cars run methanol and lots of drag/sprint cars run ethanol (i think) so why not street?

On another suggestion note...

I cant wait until (i think this was an outer limits too but cant remember) they try to establish a global microwave power network in the atmosphere. in this movie they had power stations linking some kind of microwave network through the atmosphere that planes and cars could draw power off of and not refuel. I thought that was cool until they actually turned it on in the movie and changed some fundamental constants of the universe unexpectedly and that was bad.

Vader

Forget the fundamental universal constants. I'd hate to poke a Cessna through one of those microwave "streams".

Ethanol is heavily opposed by the petroleum industry. They don't own the reserves, since it is grown annually. They don't profit by it, since most ethanol production is from smaller, privately held concerns, not "big oil". They can't fix the prices by controlling the supply. And the trilliions of dollars they have invested in refineries would be wasted since they would become useless for pure ethanol fuels.

The price of ethanol is relatively constant, but it seems that when oil companies get their hands on it and blend it into gasoline, the price suddenly "varies". Consider the price of gasoline earlier this year. Ethanol blends had the same kind of price increases as pure petroleum fuels, even though only 90% of the composition of the fuel is petroleum. By my calculations, ethanol blends should have been cheaper, since only 90% of the blend was affected by the "oil shortage".

If we are supposedly dependent upon the "world oil reserves" outside North America for about 15% of our fuel, it seems that fuels with 10% ethanol could solve the majority of that dependence very easily. I'm thinking that as the world's largest energy user, we could put severe market pressure on OPEC by telling them to keep 2/3 of the oil we're buying. Think THAT would get them on board?

Oil companies would hate that, too, since the OPEC countries would have to cut prices to compete, which would force US companies to either buy cheaper OPEC reserves of lower the prices for their own crude.

Do a little research on oil company stocks, like you were planning to invest. You'll discover the "dependence" on foreign oil is mostly a market phenomenon, not a true dependence. We could completely cut off all oil imports and survive nicely, if we really wanted to. How can we not have enough oil one day so that we have to purchase 15% foreign oil, then suddenly be able to pump 85% of our needs the next day? OOPS! Did I just let the cat out of the bag?

I've heard these arguments since 1973, and I'm not buying it. We now have more oil reserves in the world than the oil companies reported in the early '70s. After 30 years of pumping more crude, we still have MORE? WTF?!

THAT, boys and girls, is one of the major reasons I have used ethanol fuels since they were available here in 1976. I'd rather have at least a portion of my cash go to American and Canadian corn farmers and their co-ops than the Big Oil "phattys". Besides, the extra power and cleaner engine are nice .

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Later,
Vader
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If you want to beat the World, it might reach up and pull you down...
Adobe Acrobat Reader

[This message has been edited by Vader (edited October 21, 2001).]

88305tpiT/A

iTrader: (2)

AMEN.

RB83L69

Running on water is not possible, since the amount of energy you get by burning it is exactly equal to the amount it takes to take it apart, plus any losses anywhere in the process. So it's like the government taking your money in taxes and "giving it back" to you: somehow, nobody ever seems to get back as much as they put in. Some of it always stays behind somewhere.

There's another significant thing to remember about alcohol as a fuel. By volume, it takes about twice as much of it as it takes of gasolilne to release the same energy. I.e., you get 20 miles to the gallon of gas, you'll get around 10 miles to the gallon of ethanol or methanol; or, your car now produces 225 HP on 150 lbs of gasoline per hour, it will take about 300 lbs per hour of alcohol to produce the same power; or put yet another way, you go 250 miles on a tank now, you'll go 125 miles between fill-ups of alcohol.

I have to agree with Vader about the political implications of the fuel debate though. In the public policy arena we can't seem to even get close to discussing the relative technical merits of one vs. the other, because the dollars are so huge, and some powerful lobby's ox is always going to get gored. The reason we're "dependent" on foreign oil is because it's cheaper to produce it in some of those places (closer to the surface, under land not sea, etc.) than it is here, not that we don't have it. Also, last time I seriously checked, the US was a net exporter of oil, not an importer; we actually sell more than we buy.

The whole situation is a big smokescreen, like the supposed California "electricity crisis": we have the same power plants her that were here before "deregulation", they produce the same amount of power, at about the same cost; so who are these people that are getting all these billions of dollars that these newly invented entities that bought all the plants are charging the utilities? Gov. Davis' friends, I assume, getting immensely rich off of the ratepayers?

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

AlexJH

They must be, since none of the money was coming back up to B.C. to pay for the power we've been sending down to you guys.

Vader

That may be true, but the blend of ethanol and oil hydrocarbons is reported to create more combustion pressure than hydrocarbons alone. The oxidation of the process by the alcohol apparently creates a more complete combustion (albeit slower) of the oil hydrocarbons, and the added byproduct gasses of the blend reportedly increases the total volume of gasses in the cylinder. The falloff begins somewhere under a 50% mix, way under as I recall. More that 30% ethanol begins to be detrimental, for sure.

On the other hand, 90% ethanol and 10% nitromethane would make a nice street fuel for an 8:1 dished-piston SBC, wouldn't you think? Detonation control might be difficult, but Exxon-Mobil would be shakin' in their shoes, since they would have no stake in the blend at all. I can hear the congressional phones ringing of the hook now...

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Later,
Vader
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If you want to beat the World, it might reach up and pull you down...
Adobe Acrobat Reader

u r sofa king we tah did

theoretically, to make our cars run on ethanol or methanol, all we would have to do is actually fill up with the stuff, and change the air/fuel ratio constant in the prom i think. i dont remeber right off hand what the correct air fuel ratios are for methanol or ethanol, but changing the 14.7 gasoline/air mixture to the correct one is all you would have to do *i think*

Tas

The power companies were the ones getting rich. They were selling the power they made to the highest bidder. When it came time for CA to get their share of the power, the companies had sold it. If CA wanted power they would have to beat the highest bigger which we refused. So we were looking for power at our old prices which were few and far bewteen so that's why there was a shortage.

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-Tas
'89 Formula WS.6

Got Beach?

F-BIRD'88

There has been some research on running
an engine on a water gasoline mix. We're talking about quite a bit of water too.
Way more than a water injection system.
The water allows super high compression ratios, advanced timing Lean mixtures with out overheating. low NOX. Pressures ,Temperatures, Air/water/fuel ratios need to be carefully controlled. The water converts to steam and contributes to the power stroke just like a steam engine.
Sort of like combining the Internal and External (steam) combustion engines.

manuel

Ok.enough is enough. I am starting to wish I was a moderator.

Look. We are Americans and we can do any damn thing we want. I am not a person with higher knowledge than anyone here. But a thought came up... If there is an alternative fuel that we can grow on our own home...why not just do it ourselfs? I sure wouldn't want to pay alot for for something I could build for less. Greddy companies!!! Yeah, sure thats business...but I wouldn't do business with them! Would you?

Just my $0.02 Thanks for reading! Have a nice day. =)

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1989 Pontiac Firebird
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Mustangs and Camaros can run, but birds can Fly_-^

Smeg

I know the term "Moonshine racer" so I guess there aint no problem in "growing your own".
What I want to know is: How much moonshine can I put in the gastank of my 350 TPI GTA, before I have to mod the prom?

BTW. Anyone remember the episode of Dukes of Hazzard where Jesse transports his moonshine in the gastank, and when he got chased he just let the shine run dry, so when he was caught there was no evidence left???

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Smeg
89 GTA 5.7 TPI

johnsjj2

Smeg, is that when he ran out, and was pulled over. The Roscoe took the jugs from the trunk, and it was all water! Damn that was good.



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Joshua Johnston
1991 Z-28
350, T-5, K&N, Ported Vortec heads, Edelbrock RPM, Holley 750 D.P., HEI, 11.07:1 CR, Comp Cams Roller-.510"/.520"-282*/288* dur., Shorty Headers, Dual 2.5 Exhaust, Dynomax Bullet Mufflers, T&R Motorsports custom air intake, Bald tires

fordcrusher

Efficiency? One word. Flinstone.

Mista

PETE
Homogenous Cycle Engine by the late Smokey Yunick.
All it really was is a "light turboed" car. Sorst like the new VW BUg and Saab motors.

Smokey used the heat from the exhaust after the turbo to heat the incoming air/fuel mixture to help atomize the fuel droplets.

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86 T/A 5.0 A4 & 2.77 gear
15.62 @ 86 mph
93 Civic 1.6L
13.5 @ 100 mph

Jester

I saw an article on an engine prototype called VFI that promised much greater efficiency on the theory of heating the fuel. They had 2 working engines.a 4.3L on a stand and a 454 in a truck.

It had no carb, no fuel injectors. no throttle body of any type. Not even a need for an intake manifold. The fuel ran through drilled passages through the head. It ran into the head, just under the exaust valve seat 360 degrees, and then around the intake valve. There were numerous small holes drilled through the valve seat itself so that when the valve was closed, the holes were blocked. When the valve opened..the super heated fuel fogged into the chamber.

What it had instead of a throttle body was a sort of variable ratio rocker arm setup...they had a sliding fulcrum to change lift. At idle, the valve barely left the seat. At WOT it would extend to full.


Was a very cool design.

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"American made baby. 100% American iron. The muscle among the masses. My hero. Yep, you can take your ergonomically designed, space age, computer controlled, 4 door, cup holding map lighted split double wishbone split fold down retractable cargo covered moon roof piece of transportation and keep it. For I have felt the thunder. And I know the difference!"
JSP Motorsports
ICON Motorsports

ATOMonkey

I'm really interested in this idea for grad work. Did you use a spark or compression ignition engine? How did you inject the H2? What kind of compression ratio were you running? Did you use liquid or gas H2? Did you know A/F ratio? What engine did you start with? I think that the idea is really cool. Replenishible energy source with almost no emissions.

JoelOl75

I'm still impressed with lots of HC emmisions

No, I'm kidding, I like the new technology in spherical valves. Just getting rid of the valvetrain on a 300hp motor could net you around 400hp due to less friction. Add in the technologies of variable valve timing and you could have a tame streetable 500+hp car that gets good mileage.