Fuel vaporization could boost gas mileage, cut emissions by 1/3

[Texas]

"PORTLAND, Ore. — Piggyback electronics and an add-on "vapor chamber" could be used to increase the mileage of existing automobile and truck engines by almost one-third while lowering emissions.

Vapor Fuel Technologies (Beavercreek, Ore.) claims it accomplishes this by vaporizing fuel and mixing it with super-hot air, enabling modified electronic control circuitry to coax the same horsepower out of engines while burning less fuel and cutting emissions. The company plans to offer retrofit kits for American vehicles within a year, and hopes to close deals to include its technology on new models from U.S., European and Asian auto makers by 2010.

"What we have is a fuel-conditioning system," said Raymond Bushnell, founder of Bushnell Engineering Inc., also of Beavercreek, the contract engineering company developing the fuel vaporization system for Vapor Fuel Technologies. "We are working with Unichip of North America, which is creating the necessary electronic control circuitry to integrate our vaporization system into a retrofit. So we can take this technology and put it on existing vehicles, typically the gas hogs."
"


http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/s...leID=212902652

[FrayAdjacent]

Sounds like (watching the video) a 'warm air intake' type system. Heat the air, and you have less of it, thus requiring less fuel.

Back when I had an Insight, I heard of people doing a 'warm air intake' system that was able to very slightly increase fuel economy.

I'm not sure an average ICE would be able to achieve 33% better economy. The claim of making the same power, sounds fishy to me. The trick to getting power is more air in the cylinder. If you go the other way, you lose power.

Possibly under certain conditions such as highway cruising, using a warm air intake type arrangement could probably get a bit better effciency.

Retrofitting something like this would scare me a little, since the system would likely be placed after the MAF/MAP sensor, requiring the ECU to be hacked. I bet a lot of warranties would be voided due to burned pistons if it's not controlled correctly.

Anyway, I'd want to see third party data before I consider this as a viable fuel saving scheme.

[Texas]

Originally Posted by FrayAdjacent

Sounds like (watching the video) a 'warm air intake' type system. Heat the air, and you have less of it, thus requiring less fuel.

Back when I had an Insight, I heard of people doing a 'warm air intake' system that was able to very slightly increase fuel economy.

I'm not sure an average ICE would be able to achieve 33% better economy. The claim of making the same power, sounds fishy to me. The trick to getting power is more air in the cylinder. If you go the other way, you lose power.

Possibly under certain conditions such as highway cruising, using a warm air intake type arrangement could probably get a bit better effciency.

Retrofitting something like this would scare me a little, since the system would likely be placed after the MAF/MAP sensor, requiring the ECU to be hacked. I bet a lot of warranties would be voided due to burned pistons if it's not controlled correctly.

Anyway, I'd want to see third party data before I consider this as a viable fuel saving scheme.

Yes, I also want to see the data. Apparently there is a new electronic control system that allows the required control to pull this off. We want perfectly vaporized fuel with the perfect amount of oxygen so maybe the control system gets closer to ideal conditions.

GM and others are also working on direct injection systems that also require far better control electronics. I'm sure they will continue to get better combustion. I think that using an electric drivetrain and these advanced electronic control systems will work even better. The engine can be run longer in it's sweet spots and the electronics have more time to find and stabilize optimal performance. The hybrid detachment is definitely a good thing. I also also allows micro turbines to be practically used. Automotive design is going to be very interesting over the next 10 years, unless the global economy continues to tank.

[omnimoeish]

lol, you know what this sounds like? The rumored "Fish Carb" the Carburetor made by a guy named Fish back in the 50's or something. It was allegedly able to give a Mustang 50 mpg with no other mods. I heard the oil companies bought the patent and filed it in some basement never to be seen again. It sounds like there might have been some truth to the Fish Carb claims.

http://www.rexresearch.com/fishcarb/fish.htm

I think Altazi lives up in Portland, we should have him go check this out for us and report back.

lol, I would laugh so hard if this were real. After all these years, we've been wasting 30% of our fuel just because of some conspiracy back in the 50's and our auto makers didn't even bother to check into it because everyone figured it was a myth or something. And then some dude in his garage reinvents it and makes millions.

[FrayAdjacent]

Originally Posted by Texas

Yes, I also want to see the data. Apparently there is a new electronic control system that allows the required control to pull this off. We want perfectly vaporized fuel with the perfect amount of oxygen so maybe the control system gets closer to ideal conditions.

GM and others are also working on direct injection systems that also require far better control electronics. I'm sure they will continue to get better combustion. I think that using an electric drivetrain and these advanced electronic control systems will work even better. The engine can be run longer in it's sweet spots and the electronics have more time to find and stabilize optimal performance. The hybrid detachment is definitely a good thing. I also also allows micro turbines to be practically used. Automotive design is going to be very interesting over the next 10 years, unless the global economy continues to tank.

I would think that direct injection would 'bypass' a system like this topic's. Although warmer air could be induced into the cylinder, reducing the amount of fuel. However, this would not 'vaporize' the fuel.

I'd love to see microturbines used in serial hybrid or EREV vehicles because they can run in those sweet spots and put out a great amount of power for a small size.

I'd also think that since a generator would likely run at one discreet speed/output (or very few discreet speeds) they wouldn't need or be able to take advantage of many of the advancements in ICE design of late. The key to a generator will be getting the maximum amount of power out of the fuel put into it. I think that could be achieve simply with a tuned cam and a turbocharger, aided possibly by direct injection.

Eventually, heat recuperation could be added to get even more out of the fuel.


As an aside, I had thought of this for parallel hybrids - a smaller turbocharged engine (diesel even?) with a generator mounted on a common shaft with the turbocharger. When there is low load on the engine, the intake bypasses the compressor, but the wastegate stays closed, thus the turbine primarily provides power to the generator. There would still be energy available this way under engine braking or DFCO.

Anyway, I haven't thought out a lot of the details, but that's just an idea that I had the other night.

[RobertSullivan]

Boy, the jokes that could be made about "Vaporware" with this company's name.

[Altazi]

I am familiar with Unichip, and was a bit surprised to see their name show up in a post here.

Unichip makes a product that plugs in between the ECU and the vehicle. The Unichip unit modifies the vehicle's sensor information that is reported to the ECU, thereby altering the ECU's control of the engine. The idea here is to enhance the vehicle's performance. Using a computer interface, a user can "tune" his engine performance.

I am unfamiliar with the other company.

[Texas]

You just know there’s a room somewhere that holds not only the lost ark but that carburetor, a cold fusion reactor and a workable battery! One of these days...


What other things would be in that room, besides Jimmy Hoffa's corpse?

[MikeKO]

You guys are really piece of work. If you would bother thinking before trying to impress the world with snarky sound bites this would be a much better forum. There is a company out there making (and hopefully) selling these type systems right now. You wnat the name, go search on Autoblog Green. The contraption in the original post is hokey (prob won't work), but the tech is fine. Has anyone ever seen a Coleman gas stove work maybe? Real high tech complications involved there aren't there? All you are doing is converting the liquid gasoline into a vapor before introducing into the cylinder. Gives you the same basic performance as natural gas, but at much better MPG because you have liquid fuel. IIRC the numbers are in the 80 - 100 mpg range. Really good system for a constant speed engine. Not worth warm spit on a current type of ICE.

[Texas]

Originally Posted by MikeKO

You guys are really piece of work. If you would bother thinking before trying to impress the world with snarky sound bites this would be a much better forum. There is a company out there making (and hopefully) selling these type systems right now. You wnat the name, go search on Autoblog Green. The contraption in the original post is hokey (prob won't work), but the tech is fine. Has anyone ever seen a Coleman gas stove work maybe? Real high tech complications involved there aren't there? All you are doing is converting the liquid gasoline into a vapor before introducing into the cylinder. Gives you the same basic performance as natural gas, but at much better MPG because you have liquid fuel. IIRC the numbers are in the 80 - 100 mpg range. Really good system for a constant speed engine. Not worth warm spit on a current type of ICE.

Hey! We just found the inventor of that long lost carburetor! I would have never guessed that MikeKO was "The One".