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I read in a magazine, in the 'Help! Something's Wrong With My Car, And Would You Tell Me What It Is?' section, some guy's car would start up normally, then very soon it would start idling at very high RPM's, and when he even touched the gas, it would rev even faster. The problem was diagnosed as 'dieseling',
wherein the carbon deposits on the pistons were hot enough to cause ignition. I talked with my dad, and he said it ain't good fer the car (knocking, detonation, what). I agree to a degree. However, the effect suggested to me that more power was being obtained from the same amount of fuel. This would mean better efficiency.
What I propose is to make some engines with carbon deposits built into the pistons to cause this to happen intentionally. The strokes could be changed some to avoid the knocking which would otherwise be harmful to the engine. Also, the fuel and air mix would have to be dynamically adjustable to keep RPM's at the appropriate levels at any given time. As for the carbon, it should be firmly attached to the pistons, or the monkeys die.
What this would do is make the engine run at the same speed and power on much less fuel, making it (you guessed it) more fuel-efficient, *after* it got warm enough, which shouldn't be too terribly long. It wouldn't require a space station's worth of modification, either.
Jocko Johnson's PowerRing
http://www.cci-29pa...html/powerring.html
Here's somebody who put a potentially ICE-melting concept engine online. [galukalock, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
No conspiracy
http://www.straight...lassics/a3_150.html
10,000 MPG cars don't exist [scarecrow, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
[link]
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I don't understand how he could have gotten a diagnosis for dieseling if his engine was on at the time the symptoms appeared. |
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As far as I know dieseling in a gasoline engine only occurs when the engine is shut-off which is why it is also known as run-on. |
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Sounds more like pre-mature ignition than dieseling but I certainly could be wrong. |
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In retrospect, I think it was my dad who called it dieseling. The idea is to use this effect (the abnormal ignition due to carbon) to advantage. And by the way, the guy writing in definitely said it happened while he was driving it. |
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Well, he may be correct. I suppose the dieseling term could be broadly used to describe all ignition that occurs due to heat rather than a deliberate ignition system-based spark. Maybe it is used that way but I have only heard the term in reference to that awful run-on thing where the engine won't stop even with the key off. |
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That aside, mis-timed ignition doesn't produce more power. Efficiency seems to be highest when the ignition timing is controlled very, very precisely. The spark timing is engineered to coincide with the optimum position of the moving masses inside the engine and so wily-nily ignition timing likely will produce forces which are counter to what is needed to produce smooth power output and result in an attendent decrease in efficiency. At least in a gasoline engine. |
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I don't propose to mis-time it; in fact, just the opposite: to optimize it for this kind of ignition. The guy writing in was describing very high RPM's at idle, so how e'er it was, he had to have been getting more power. But it couldn't have been totally healthy for his engine as it was, so tweaking here and there would be beneficial. |
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Yes, that may be so, but he was also using more fuel, and not efficiently, guaranteed. |
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Running a diesel on gasoline is generally considered a Bad Thing. |
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What you are proposing means totally losing control of your ignition timing. (That is, you are proposing the equivalent of a "glow plug": firing occurs based on reaching a critical pressure/temperature point in the cylinder, rather than the optimal point for efficiency/power.) That in itself means a fairly severe efficiency penalty. Gasoline burned in this manner tends to have a very steep and short lived pressure curve, further reducing efficiency. The flame front also tends to proceed in manner which produces a non-optimal fuel/air mix, increasing emissions. |
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In spite of the fact that you've redesigned the engine to tolerate it, I'll stand well out of the way... I really hate to hear an engine run that way. |
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[bris] Only because the fuel system wasn't compensating by turning down the flow rate. |
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[lurch] If it reduced efficiency, the engine would run slower on the same amount of fuel, not faster, while Mr. Dieseler Driver clearly explained it was going much faster. All ya hafta do is tweak it run more smoothly on this type of ignition, and tell the fuel system to lay off when things get heated up, and it'll be more efficient, not less. |
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Incidentally, I believe this extra speed/power came from the fact that the 'glow plug' was providing a much larger hot area than a spark plug (or two), causing much faster, more complete combustion, which also conveniently reduces emissions. |
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I don't follow your logic but don't worry about it. |
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It's all right. I didn't explain it as clearly as I could have. I was going for brevity. |
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He was using more fuel because the computer wasn't telling the fuel injector to turn down the fuel flow to bring the engine down to normal idle speed, thus the high idle RPM's and even higher revving when he gassed it. |
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??? you say he was using less fuel because he was using more fuel? |
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No, I said he *could've* used less fuel, had his system properly adjusted to the weird conditions. Instead, the system poured in the same amount, resulting in higher RPM's, and the (same amount) X (higher RPM) = more fuel spent *per second* than at normal idling speed. |
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Look ma, no rocket science! |
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i could be missing the point, but it
seems to me that the same
amount of fuel is consumed no
matter how it's ignited. the rpm's
shot up because both the spark
plugs and the carbon deposits
caused ignition. |
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you can't get something for
nothing. there's a fixed amount of
energy available in any system,
and i don't see how igniting it
more often will up the efficency...
though mr. diesel was going
faster, i expect he was consuming
fuel faster as well. |
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I am no mechanic, but I have owned more than my share of beaters. I've even had one or two that did what you are saying you're buddies' car did, and every time it happened, a good hard stomp and then quick release of the gas peddle would kick it down to low idle.
I think MrKlaatu's got it right, you're friends throttle cable is gunked up. |
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The problem was two separate
engine phenomena. The revving
problem was, as you mentioned,
probably related to fuel flow mis-
calibration. That's how you make
engines run faster--increasing the
fuel.
Knocking,
dieseling, detonation, whatever
you call it, is because fuel-air mix
didn't completely burn on the
combustion stroke, and the high
heat in the cylinder head is
enough to ignite a secondary burn
on the exhaust stroke. The car's
engine is four-stroke, as opposed
to two-stroke, so this extra burn
is on the exhaust stroke
detrimental and does not
represent extra power.
A
properly tuned and calibrated
engine is already designed to
maximize the combustion of the
fuel-air mix, and thus the power
generated, so any knocking you
hear indicates
inefficiencies.
This
particular driver's two problems
were related because his excess
fuel flow first increased his rpm's,
and then since air flow didn't keep
up, he was getting incomplete
combustion, and the leftover fuel
would detonate on the exhaust
stroke, creating the knocking
sound along with the high revs. |
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[urban] True, except that most engines don't even get the majority of the energy there *is* (ever heard of the gasoline car that got 10,000 miles to the gallon?). The point is, with this, you'd either use the same amount, ignite it better, and get super-high RPM's, *or* use *less*, and have it run the same. |
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[fry fry] I don't think so, and the magazine guy who answered the letter didn't either, apparently (he ain't my friend), because the guy said two things: 1. It only happened after the engine warmed up; 2. It happened as soon as the engine started up if it wasn't allowed to cool off, but went away temporarily if the engine did cool off. |
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[roby] Could be, but it doesn't seem likely. See above for reasons why. In any case, I don't remember that the guy mentioned a knocking *sound*, but I could be wrong. |
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[UnaBubba] It'd seem to me that all that dirt would clog up instead of open up the system. |
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// The point is, with this, you'd
either use the same amount, ignite
it better, and get super-high
RPM's, *or* use *less*, and have it
run the same. // |
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can someone here who is a better
mechanic than i explain to me
what it means to ignite fuel better?
i always figured ignition was sort
of a binary thing: either the fuel
explodes or it doesn't. |
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No mechanic but I'll take a stab at offering up my confusing version. |
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It's not really an explosion, rather it's deflagration, I *think*. The efficiency of the deflagration, or combustion, is the completeness of that burning or how much of the fuel was turned to energy and how much of it didn't participate in producing power (or cooling) and gets sent out the exhaust. |
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The car in question is
electronic fuel injected, so stuck
throttles etc. are not the
case.
[galuka] Check
again. I bet you a croissant my
diagnosis is correct.
Dieseling, knocking,
"carbon deposits hot enough to
cause ignition", premature
detonation, are all different ways
of describing the same thing. And
no matter how hot your "carbon
deposits", pistons, glow plugs or
whatever you call them are, they
only cause a secondary detonation
when the fuel-air mix nears
maximum compression, at the top
of the stroke. The car's ignition
timing is set to fire a spark
through the spark plug at precisely
the right moment of its stroke,
just past peak compression when
the explosive expansion can drive
the pistons down with maximum
efficiency.
So heat-
induced combustion at any other
moment is bad--if it happens
before the piston reaches the peak
of its stroke, for example, the
force of the explosive expansion is
working against the piston's stroke
and can break the piston
rods.
And it's probably
not just premature detonation, at
best it shows up as minor pings,
and at worst will cripple and slow
the engine, not speed it
up.
And as you said, "the
computer wasn't telling the fuel
injector to turn down the fuel
flow", so the revving is caused by
excess fuel, and the resulting
(dieseling/heat-induced secondary
detonations whatever) are from
excess fuel not fully ignited. His
engine wasn't being
completely destroyed in the
process because the exhaust
valves are open on the peak of the
exhaust stroke, giving the
expansion an outlet other than
busting the piston rods, but they
are in now way increasing the
power output of the engine. And
he's also burning out his valve
seats, by the way, which will make
the problem rapidly worse. |
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[bris] That's basically it. That's why race cars (and even some upscale production cars) use two spark plugs per cylinder. The more gasoline you can extract energy from in that blink-of-an-eye --what is it, 2 milliseconds?-- the more energy is actually converted to power from that gasoline. That is the definition of better efficiency. |
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Knock/Detonation is different from dieseling.
As the piston moves towards top dead (TDC) center the spark plug fires (how much before TDC depends on your timing advance). A combustion kernal starts and the flame front begins to move out from the spark plug towards the cylinder walls, piston, and head. The unburnt fuel ahead of the flame front is being further compressed by the expansion of the combustion kernal. If there's a hot carbon deposit on the piston, this combinded with the extra compression of the air and heat from the combustion process moving towards it might be enough to ignite a second combustion kernal. This is knock/detonation.
Dieseling occurs when cylinder conditions are so bad that even before the spark plug fires the air/fuel mix fires.
The difference between the two is that a knocking engine will choke if you pull the ignition, a dieseling engine will keep running. |
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By the way, a engine with a detonation doesn't generate much more power, but releases most of that power in one place in a very short amount of time. A piston sees about 10x the force when detonation occurs. Detonation will put holes in forged pistons and bend connecting rods. Its not something you try to create :) |
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w/r/t to other causes of random
revving, that can also happen if
your clutch is worn down, as
happened to me with my jetta. the
discs slip and the engine revs like
mad. |
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[SublimeGTP]: Thank you for the detailed explanation. It's great and extends my understanding. |
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Mine too. I disagree a little, though. Since, as you say, it's 10x the force, that force could be put to use. It's just a question, as this idea states, of tweaking the system to handle it and extract power from it. |
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[Klaatu and Tom] That song/sound describes the Wankel rotary engine, which only rotates instead of bobbing up and down. More efficient, less noisy than boing boing. RX-7 and RX-8 have them, perhaps some earlier models as well. |
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So, it seems to me that the best way to use this phenomenon to your advantage is to cause it to happen to a car that belongs to an enemy of yours. |
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Not in my opinion. The idea here is to use the *phenomenon* (dieseling, or whatever it is) without the *negative effects* (sputter, ping, scream). This is accomplished by adjusting the junk such that it acts like a regular engine while this phenomenon takes place (and saves gas). Shouldn't be too hard. |
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[TomBomb] True, but then, the summary of the theory of relativity is E=mc^2. This isn't exactly the theory of relativity, but there's more to it than the summary might lead you to believe. |
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[a_passmoore] Nice link. I was aware of some of the advantages to diesels, but I hadn't quite thought to apply them to this idea per se. |
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<aside>It has long been known that cars don't really get all they can from the energy in gasoline. There have been many improvements since that discovery, but there's still room for more.</aside> |
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//It has long been known that cars
don't really get all they can from
the energy in gasoline. There have
been many improvements since
that discovery, but there's still
room for more.// |
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i know, i wasn't trying to imply
otherwise. all i was saying is that i
don't think causing it to explode
more often is the answer... |
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Oh, no. The high revs described herein were merely a symptom of not adequately controlling the fuel flow. This idea proposes to use the same effect (glow plug, or whatever), but control it so that the engine behaves normally (while using much less fuel). What I said was, 'you can use the same amount of fuel as usual and have it redlining all the time, or use less fuel, and have it turn normally'. The latter is clearly preferable. |
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I decided one time, when I was dicking about with engines, that a prolonged discharge spark would give fuller combustion and less HC emissions, then I calculated what sort of power would be needed to run the discharge, and it was excessive. So I thought, can we maintain decent combustion with a lower power ignition system? My thoughts turned to a hot carbon glow plug: flashing current across the carbon will raise the temp of some of it very fast, and ignite the fuel. |
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So I used spark plugs that would by conventional standards be considered to run too cool, so they stayed coked up. Then I converted the coil system to something lower voltage, and applied it across the carbon coated plugs. |
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The result was dire. I drove the car, but with difficulty. Top speed about 20mph flat out, and it stank of petrol big time. It was throwing most of the petrol out the back unburnt. |
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You know what I eventually learnt, cars have been going over a century now. The development put into them has been phenomenal. If you read industry books on the engines they're in amazing depth. The knowledge is very very large. It even makes King Kong look small. |
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To think you or I could sit here and come up with some half baked idea that hasnt been understood, tested, or even designed, is not realistic. Its just missing the picture. |
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I'm not saying it cant be done, because it is done, regularly. But to do it without a thorough understanding of engines is like trying to build a mass spectrometer when you dont know what one is. |
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Galukalock doesnt understand this at all. The idea isnt baked, or half baked, nor is the dough even mixed. You actually haven't got the recipe yet. You talk vaguely of making it work properly, but have no idea how to, or what that entails. You dont actually have something yet. |
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Now that's OK, we all know jack about loads of things. Just dont kid yourself you know a lot about engines. Your concept is based on a misinterpretation of what you noticed. |
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I have designed 6 stroke, 4 stroke, 2 stroke and 1 stroke engines (the 1 was a challenge I finally cracked), but I wouldn't think they were seriously commericalisable. They might be, but with my only-so-far understanding, there's really no chance of me tweaking them enough to get them where they need to go. My engine designs are purely amateur. I can come up with interesting ideas, but as a professional engine designer, I'm not one, nor do I understand 97% of it. |
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Galukalock, go for it, but understand why the car co.s aren't listening. You got to start with knowing the basics. |
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And thats why I quit trying to design the next engine. I stick to what I know. It was just a hobby for me, now I understand that. |
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If you genuinely want to go somewhere, keep going. Learn the subject, and in 10 years time you might design the next generation of car engine. That _does_ happen, but only after people have learnt the subject, and have other gifts besides. That's what it takes. |
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You show the creative thinking, and that's certainly a good sign. Capitalise on it if you want. |
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I normally don't like cussing on my ideas, but I make an exception here. (still chuckling) |
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[Claws] I think you were correct on this much: you don't understand 97% of it. |
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Now I see I underestimated you. Not only do you not understand the basic concepts of car engines, you also show no desire to learn anything about them. |
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I knew this was a forum for daft idle talk, but I see its not as good as I'd expected. I like a challenge. |
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You show no comprehension of this thread at all. You dont even do good bull. Try your hand at something you can do. Glood Cluck. |
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Okay, I give up. I'll elaborate. The carbon-coated spark plugs didn't work because they didn't have high-enough temperatures to get a good burn. Sure, they heated up enough to burn SOMEthing, but, as you say, 20 mph tops while stinking of unburnt petrol because the glow plugs couldn't come close to the 5000-degree-Fahrenheit heat of a spark plug. The fact that you downgraded to a lower-voltage system only made it worse. What's more, they had a very tiny surface area, making their half-hearted burns too small to be of use. |
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What you did (I'm assuming you were telling the truth) is *very* different from this idea. |
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While your method was to use a glow plug to start the fuel ignition, my approach is to *augment* it (which means to utilize more than one ignition source). The carbon deposits, after being heated up by the ignitions, are vastly better than what you had going, because they have (a) a huge surface area (the whole top of the piston); and (b) a 2600-degree-Celsius spark plug starting the kind of burns that allow you and me, without glow plugs, to cruise down the freeway at 80 mph (and faster for Autobahn patrons). |
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In short, yes, I've thought this through a bit more than you thought, and yes, I do know a thing or two about engines. |
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As for you, you still have a chance to make me a believer. Show me this 1-stroke engine if it really exists. |
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One stroke engine: commonly called "gun" |
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>Okay, I give up. I'll elaborate.
Not giving up then. :) |
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>The carbon-coated spark plugs didn't work because
>they didn't have high-enough temperatures to get a
>good burn. Sure, they heated up enough to burn
>SOMEthing, but, as you say, 20 mph tops while
>stinking of unburnt petrol because the glow plugs
>couldn't come close to the 5000-degree-Fahrenheit
>heat of a spark plug. |
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Perhaps. They did hit white hot. |
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>The fact that you downgraded to a lower-voltage
>system only made it worse. |
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No it matched the load. Driving it off the EHT went nowhere. Basic electronics. |
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>What's more, they had a very tiny surface area,
>making their half-hearted burns too small to be of
>use. |
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I reckon so. It sure was pretty half hearted. That was the idea, but it just didn't do the job anymore. |
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>What you did (I'm assuming you were telling the
>truth) |
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We can be honest here, you say that cos you don't know. There is no practical way to prove it one way or the other. That is a problem sometimes, but its usually possible to separate the bull from its shit. |
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> is *very* different from this idea. |
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It is different to some extent, I was merely trying to explain why your concept doesn't work. But I know you won't trust me on that. Since you haven't actually built it you really don't have much to stand on.
Anyone can talk about what they believe to be so. |
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>While your method was to use a glow plug to start the fuel
>ignition, my approach is to *augment* it (which
>means to utilize more than one ignition source). |
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OK, then it would run, same as a spark plug engine. |
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>The carbon deposits, after being heated up by the
>ignitions, are vastly better than what you had going,
>because they have (a) a huge surface area (the whole
>top of the piston); and (b) a 2600- degree-Celsius
>spark plug starting the kind of burns that allow you
>and me, without glow plugs, to cruise down the
>freeway at 80 mph (and faster for Autobahn patrons). |
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Agreed. But the emissions data from todays engines show there is almost no improvement in burn left to obtain. You wouldnt get even 0.1% out of it. You seem to be overlooking that. |
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And diddly squat from money and complication is a negative deal, not a positive one. |
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>In short, yes, I've thought this through a bit more than you
>thought, and yes, I do know a thing or two about engines. |
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There lies the problem, you wont get real. Your refusal to face that stops you achieving. Its the most common block going. |
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>As for you, you still have a chance to make me a believer.
>Show me this 1-stroke engine if it really exists. |
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We both knew before you wrote this that wouldn't happen. Lets get honest, no-one with a potentially good idea stuffs it on a website. |
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So doubt on, thats not a problem. |
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I'll share with you my party piece tho. It has no possible commerical app, and never will. |
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Take a small motor, one with a wound field and wound rotor. Now we know that spinning it with no field excitation will produce almost no electrical output from the rotor, and we know that a small exciting current in the field will produce much bigger rotor electrical output. We also know that the rotor electrical output is approximately proportional to field excitation. |
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In other words, we have an amplifier-generator. Small signal into the field, large output from the rotor. Output polarity follows input polarity. |
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Now, for tonight's Victorian technology stereo amp we use 3 motors, one to mechanically drive the other 2. Each of the 2 driven motors is an amplifier channel. You put low level music signal into the field, and attach speakers to the rotor outputs. |
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What you get is a stereo amplifier with nothing more than 3 motors. No transistors, no valves, no electronics at all. |
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The optional volume control is a variable resistor in series with the drive motor to vary its speed. |
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There is nothing technologically difficult about this, but it is a novel concept, and it is derived from understanding the concepts behind the device operation, and appreciating that an excited generator is in fact an amplifier. |
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//the emissions data from todays engines show there is almost no improvement in burn left to obtain// |
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Um...you're mistaken. Emissions data or no, the Honda Civic HX (lean-burn engine, not hybrid) gets 40 MPG on the same gasoline that a regular Civic goes 30 MPG on, and the Audi A2 gets nearly 90 MPG from the same diesel on which a Mercedes-Benz C320 (not much bigger) gets barely 30. Sounds to me like a little more than 0.1%. I could cite the cases where everything was real expensive, and they got 10,000 MPG, but that's a little off the subject. The point is that there is improvement to be made, and it is large. |
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//Since you haven't actually built it you really don't have much to stand on// |
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True, but I have more than nothing. If you read the idea itself, you'd know that this whole thing came from something I read (it was Popular Mechanics, from a while ago, for what it's worth). Some other guy, by not taking care of his car or whatever, unintentionally built this. Unfortunately, though, his fuel system didn't react optimally, and as a result, instead of using less fuel and going the same speed, his engine used the same amount of fuel and redlined all the time. If his car was tweaked as described, you'd have this idea exactly. |
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As for the 1-stroke, no, I won't believe you until you show proof (of concept, at least). |
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And as for that motor amp thing, you're not quite clear. At the risk of stalling, do you hook those up to an external power source? If not, it's phony, because you can never get out more than you put in. And what's an excitation field? Is it electric or magnetic? |
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>>/the emissions data from todays engines show there is almost no improvement in burn left to obtain// |
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Just go understand what i wrote. You dont seem to have grasped it. |
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>>//Since you haven't actually built it you really don't have
much to stand on// |
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>True, but I have more than nothing. |
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You just have some interest. You have so far shown no effort at all to go and learn. |
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>As for the 1-stroke, no, I won't believe you until you show proof (of concept, at least). |
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Of course, I would say thats fairly obvious. And we both know I haven't the least intention of doing that. |
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> And as for that motor amp thing, you're not quite clear. |
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Lol. It couldnt be you that is so muddled by any chance? |
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>At the risk of stalling, do you hook those up to an external power source? |
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How else are you going to spin them? |
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>If not, it's phony, because you can never get out more than you put in. |
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You illustrate my point well. Have you ever done an IQ test glukalock? I'd be curious to hear the results.
http://www.iqtest.com/ |
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>And what's an excitation field? Is it electric or magnetic? |
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It's been 3 weeks since I said that, and I now know what an excitation field is. |
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//Just go understand what i wrote.// |
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I read it about five times and get the same message every time: you say that according to emissions data, there is almost no burn improvement to be had. |
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If that is so, explain to me why the Opel Eco-Speedster will go 155 miles an hour and get 90 mpg, all on the same fuel that a VW can only manage 100 mph and 50 mpg, on the same fuel that a Volvo can only manage 28 mpg with. Clearly there's mucho improvement to be made in the burn department, and emissions may or may not have anything to do with fuel economy. The point is, burn less fuel more efficiently, and it's the same horsepower for less money. |
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As for the //diddly squat from money and complication// part, this is made of (1) carbon deposits, (2) fuel system adjustment, (3) timing adjustment. Carbon is dirt cheap, and adjustments can be had for small monies. |
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No, I haven't taken any IQ tests lately. The one I did take 1-2 years ago...(brushing cobwebs from brain)...140, I think it was. I can't be sure. If I feel like it, I'll take it. If I'm still in a good mood, I might even gratify you with the results. |
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//You have so far shown no effort at all to go and learn// |
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I came up with this idea 6-7 years ago. I was 13. In the years that followed, I learned a lot of things indeed. I learned about porting, direct injection, valve timing advance, electric valves, the Miller cycle, to name a few things from only one field, out of the many fields I'm interested in. I've always been obsessed with learning. But--and this has worked to my advantage--I've never been interested in only one thing. Not even automotive tech has consumed me. I've been interested in many, many things. You seem to be the same way. |
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Now, just because you built a bad copy of this, and it worked badly, doesn't mean that a good copy won't work. Anyone in 1880 could make a bad copy of a telephone, have it not work, and pooh-pooh telephones forever. Furthermore, not only have I not built a good copy (I don't have the space to build one), but neither have you. Have you ever seen an engine with the same characteristics as the one that inspired this idea? Neither have I. I've only read about it. But the guy in the magazine built one simply by not taking good care of his car, and it worked. If he would have adjusted the fuel system, the engine would have quit redlining and would've started saving gas. The rest was already in place--for free. |
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Therefore, the basic principle works. What's more, this could be retrofitted to existing engines for about the cost of a good tune-up (which some cars need anyway), unlike the complicated, costly methods you rightly decry. |
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I hate to say it claws, but you're full of it. Your little experiment proves nothing, companies CAN drastically improve the efficiency of the ICE(they just don't want to), and that sound amplifier makes no sense whatsoever. How would you deal with the inertia of the rotors? The current they produced would not reflect the input signal at all. It would instead be something that only remotely resembles any sort of waveform except a bad sinewave. |
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People, claws is probably some 12 year old kid making up stuff as he goes. |
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That said, there is no way to obtain more useable energy through detonation than through controlled combustion. Lean burn technology offers promise, but it's not detonation. I personally like the idea of lean burn engines. I have my own turbine/piston style of design that I think could be the best engine ever, but I keep it under wraps. ;) |
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>It's been 3 weeks since I said that, and I now know what
>an excitation field is. |
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Good. Bet you feel better for it too. |
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>>//Just go understand what i wrote.// |
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>I read it about five times and get the same message every
>time: you say that according to emissions data, there is almost no burn
>improvement to be had. |
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Correct, but you dont follow the logic of it, you dont understand it yet. |
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>If that is so, explain to me why the Opel Eco-Speedster
>will go 155 miles an hour and get 90 mpg, all on the same fuel that a VW
>can only manage 100 mph and 50 mpg, on the same fuel that a Volvo can only
>manage 28 mpg with. |
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If you're going to design engines _you_ need to go learn this stuff. No-one's lining up to do it for you. Not unless you pay for it. |
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>Clearly there's mucho improvement to be made in the burn department, |
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Clearly the mpg has to do with other factors. |
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>and emissions may or may not have anything to do with fuel economy. The
>point is, burn less fuel more efficiently, and it's the same horsepower
>for less money. |
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The real point is you need to go read up, and understand these issues. Then maybe you will be knowledgeable enough to come up with something that really DOES fly, IF you're bright enough and put in the time it takes. |
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That's how I did it. I started by writing out ideas, as you are now. But I was no expert in the subjects, and wasn't upto date in the field. Anyway, at some point I got interested enough to go learn, my ego got a bruising, but the quality of ideas got to the point where something could really fly. |
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They tell you in school you can achieve anything, but they dont tell you how, cos they dont know, and nor do they tell you that 99% of people will fail the attempt. Nor do they show you how to work out if you're in that 1%, or how to get in it. |
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Its quite doable for an intelligent person to invent, but it only happens if you know your subject. The world has gone way past the days of the Wright brothers, when any clown could discover something new. |
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ICEs are a very tough field indeed. That and nuclear power are the toughest. Anything you come up with without knowing the technology well is going to be a good century out of date. Cars have come a long old way since the days of glowplugs. Find out why. Find out what the real obstacles are, look in the right places for solutions. Crack something for real. |
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>No, I haven't taken any IQ tests lately. The one I did take
>1-2 years ago...(brushing cobwebs from brain)...140, I think it was. I
>can't be sure. If I feel like it, I'll take it. If I'm still in a good
>mood, I might even gratify you with the results. |
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Its your life, but its something I think you should do now for your own benefit. It wont affect me any, but it will tell you a lot. |
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Maybe you're just too afraid. Cluck cluck cluck. |
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>I came up with this idea 6-7 years ago. I was 13. In the
>years that followed, I learned a lot of things indeed. I learned about
>porting, direct injection, valve timing advance, electric valves, the
>Miller cycle, to name a few things from only one field, out of the many
>fields I'm interested in. I've always been obsessed with learning. But--and
>this has worked to my advantage--I've never been interested in only one
>thing. Not even automotive tech has consumed me. |
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Whats your real ambition? Suppose you could achieve anything, but just one thing, what would it be? Now once you know, figure out whats in the way and remove those obstacles, piece by piece by piece, and keep going. Then it'll be there for you. |
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If its designing new car engines, you do need to go find out, read up, and go to newsgroups and argue about stuff. This dive is no substitute for a newsgroup. The more you open your gob and put your foot in it, the more you learn :) and the more expert you become. |
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What you want in life _can_ be yours, but ONLY if you
a) figure out what you want
b) put time into it
c) figure out the blocks to your goals and shift them, piece by piece.
d) keep doing it. |
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A journey of 1000 miles starts with just one step. |
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>I've been interested in many, many things. You seem to be the same way. |
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Yep. But I know what I'm expert at and what I'm not. At engines I'm definintely not, but I do know the basics, and I see you don't yet. You can become expert just by reading and discussing on the net and building stuff. If you want it and are capable of it. If you are, a test will encourage you. If OTOH you score 90, you'll know something then too. Either way I think it'll help clarify your future. |
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There are sites that show you how to build a complete IC engine in a day. I'll see if I can find it. No :( IIRC he used lego to do it, with a square piston in a square cylinder, and with the block on hinges so there was no tricky cracnkshaft stuff going on. Cant for the life of me remember how he lined the cylinder tho, or kept it cool enough for the plastic block to survive. |
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These are good too:
http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/dave/philos/index.html
http://www.terravista.pt/nazare/1476/bright1.html |
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>Now, just because you built a bad copy of this, and it
>worked badly, doesn't mean that a good copy won't work. |
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I think we established that what I built was something different. |
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>If he would have adjusted the fuel system, the engine would have quit
>redlining and would've started saving gas. The rest was already in
>place- -for free. |
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Try it. Theory and practice are 2 different things. 'Theory and practice are the same in theory, but different in practice.' |
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Nothings free in life. If you put almost nothing into life you get almost nothing out. If you want to catch a damn enormous fish youre going to have to learn how to build an enormous boat, figure out how to make the money, put in the work to do it, and then build one. Then you really CAN catch your fish. Its one of the biggest lessons I have learnt about life. |
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Without that... nothing happens. |
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>companies CAN drastically improve the
>efficiency of the ICE(they just don't want to), |
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Correct, but improving the burn has nothing to do with it. |
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>and that sound amplifier makes no sense whatsoever. |
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It works. So I guess you just didnt manage to make sense of it. |
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> How would you deal with the inertia of the rotors? |
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Sounds like you completely missed how it works, since the inertia is not an issue. |
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For a more exact answer... Since rotational speed determines gain, and variation in power output causes variation in mechanical loading, the speed and thus gain is prone to vary unwantedly. The inertia serves to stabilise the motor speed, i.e. is a good thing. It is something that does not need dealing with. The only thing that does affect frequency response is inductance. |
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>The current they produced would not reflect the input signal at all. It
>would instead be something that only remotely resembles any sort of
>waveform except a bad sinewave. |
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Go comprehend it. Find out what a multipole dc generator actually does put out. It aint nothing like a sinewave. |
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> People, claws is probably some 12 year old kid making up stuff as he goes. |
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You didn't just make that up as you went along did you, by any chance? |
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>I have my own turbine/piston style of design that I think could
>be the best engine ever, but I keep it under wraps. ;) |
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If you think it could be then obviuosly you haven't built it and thus don't know. |
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Over 99% of paper plans _dont_ turn into good results, the fail rate is steep. |
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//you need to go read up, and understand these issues// |
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I did, and I do. That's why I posted this. |
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//Cars have come a long old way since the days of glowplugs// |
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That's why this idea doesn't use them. |
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//I know what I'm expert at and what I'm not. At engines I'm definintely not// |
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Is that why you'd rather argue about my IQ, and continue to claim that there's no burn improvement possible? Incidentally, the VW I mentioned and the Eco-Speedster are almost identical in displacement, weight, drag coefficient, and horsepower. Any 'other factors' that might be the difference between their fuel economies? Yup. The Opel just burns it more efficiently. |
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//I think we established that what I built was something different// |
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Then why do you keep comparing my idea to glow plugs? Mine uses regular spark plugs, *plus* a huge hunk of glowing carbon, with *lots* of surface area, *way* different than a 'glowbug', to jump-start combustion. |
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//Theory and practice are 2 different things// |
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That's why I have some, heh heh, *remote* idea what this will do. If you had read the whole idea, you'd know that I got this idea from someone who *did* it (that's practice for you). The thing was, it was a problem for him because his system wouldn't compensate. It was such a thing that even though I don't remember much about the magazine or the place, I remember the article very well. And the effects of the carbon deposits were such that all he'd have to do would be to adjust his fuel system, and bam! this idea would have been his. |
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One last word on burn improvement: it is estimated that there is enough energy in one pint of ordinary water to supply the entire city of New York's power demands for a day. Do we have any reason to believe there is less energy in gasoline? True, we are talking about different kinds of energy, but the principle is the same: the more efficiently you burn *anything*, the more energy you get out. That's why the 4000-pound gas-hogs of the 70's got 9 mpg, but our 5000-pound 1993 Suburban gets 15. And it gets that even though it has 140,000 miles on it. Nothing to do with displacement, as it has a 350 small-block, just like the Chevy's of aforementioned yesteryear. Nothing to do with weight, as it's a half-ton heavier. Likewise aerodynamics. You know what a Suburban looks like, right? |
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And you said "the emissions data from todays engines show there is almost no improvement in burn left to obtain". Well, ours stinks of unburnt petrol and *still* gets better mileage than the 350's of a generation ago. If they improved burn that much in a mere 20 years, without today's direct injection, alternative fuels, tech, tech, and more tech, then there's still huge improvement available in the burn department, and huge improvement available in fuel economy. Just burn less fuel in those few milliseconds, and burn it more efficiently. This pseudo-baked idea does exactly that. The magazine guy did the carbon part, and I'm doing the fuel-system adjustment. Blam. Better burn, better mileage. |
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Ooh, no. Not an electrode. It's heated by the combustion. Just plain carbon deposits on the top of the piston. A LOT simpler and cheaper than an electrode. |
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As for coming loose, good point. My thinking is to form the deposits the same way as they naturally form when you don't take care of your engine. I've never heard of those coming loose. Actually, I've heard they're extremely difficult to remove. |
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good luck kid, and dont give up your day job. |
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Bristolz is right. The energy that may be liberated from a given quantity of fuel of a specific [octane] grade is known and modern ICE design is very close to this figure. Engine dynamics are such that intake systems need to cater for a HUGE variation in power requirements. Phenomena seen at idle almost certainly won't be apparent at other engine speeds, and more importantly loads. Large power gains have been achieved with high energy and dual-plug ignition systems (Alfa, Porsche), and variable valve timing (Alfa, Honda, Toyota)> Similarly, increasing oxygen content (generally induced in the form of Nitrous Oxide) will liberate potentially large amounts of power from the same amount of fuel, as energy calculations are done in free air at a known specific air density and pressure. In terms of the ICE, timing is EVERYTHING, and this involves ignition as well as cam- and crankshaft timing, piston strokes etc and it's all a compromise, particularly at mid to high RPM. You won't liberate much more power at this stage of ICE development, there just isn't much more to be had. I'm afraid that in this case it is just a symptom of poorly set-up intake/ignition - a run-on (dieselling) will ALWAYS use more fuel. No exceptions. |
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Oh and it's not mindless chatter, cliff_dude. Anything that gets your brain (or other peoples) going is good. Nobody knows everything and we can all learn a bit off each other. Nice to see people with the guts to put their thoughts and ideas in a forum for others to critique, whether good or bad. |
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Still going...Claws the amp based on three motors is unfortunately not doing what you think it's doing. Torque required to rotate the armatures would increase propoprtionally to the current that you are attempting to extract from the field coils, to the tune of about 87%. Thus you have built an effective attenuator that will have a really nasty distorted output, ie horrendously harmonic-rich. Like your thinking though! |
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[Toffee] I'm still not convinced. If, as you say, large power gains can be experienced by using two tiny ignition points instead of one, why wouldn't a huge red-hot surface produce even more power? And again, this isn't *only* about getting more power out of the same amount of fuel, it's about getting the *same* amount of power from *less* fuel. |
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//modern ICE design is very close to this figure// |
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You actually contradict yourself when you say that modern engines extract nearly all the energy that can be had from fuel, and then turn around and say, truthfully, that you get a lot more power by using an extra ignition source. Now, I don't know whether the car of the guy in the magazine was actually igniting the fuel from the carbon deposits or just preheating the mixture, but one thing is for sure: it did work. |
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It is for that exact reason that I propose to set up the same conditions in regular engines, but *optimize the timing* and fuel system to make it run more smoothly, and make it use less fuel (to keep it from redlining all the time). |
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Oh, and incidentally, using less fuel also means increasing the oxygen/fuel ratio...increasing efficiency and energy extraction per fuel unit, just like you said. |
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First off the diagnosis of (some guy's car would start up normally, then very soon it would start idling at very high RPM's, and when he even touched the gas, it would rev even faster) is wrong as being dieseling.
dieseling in a gasoline engine occurs for one of a few reasons. high compression engines using low grade fuel ie 10.5:1 or better exsessive carbon deposits in combustion chambers causing exsessive compression, exsessvive heat in the cylinder head. (most likly the exhaust valve)
(some guy's car would start up normally, then very soon it would start idling at very high RPM's, and when he even touched the gas, it would rev even faster) |
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from this guys problem it sounds more like a vacuum leak than dieseling |
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dieseling is exactly what is sounds like it is when the ignition is not igniting the fuel air mixture but it is being ignited through compression igniton. like a diesel. there is not extra power to gained from this and it imparts huge stresses on the engine.
comprssion igniton engines (diesels) are timed by when the fuel is introduced to the cylinder. compressioon igniton engines have to be several times more heavily built due to the greater stresses developed by compression igniton. Diesles operate at any where from 16:1 to 22:1 compresssion ratio.
diesel fuel burns under high compression. where as gasoline explodes. a compression igniton built for gasoline would have to be twice as heavy as a diesel of the same displacement. |
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Preigniton is where the fuel air mixture is ignited befor the spark plugs get a chance too. the is is extremely hard on a motor and can lead to burned pistons bent rods and broken rings. it would be exactly the same as advancing the timming exsessively. |
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there is nothing to be gained in this ideal. |
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Like I said earlier, I'm not sure dieseling is the right word for the effect described. |
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As for the rest of it, well, if the guy was getting that much power out of it, there must be some way to put it to use. |
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He wasn't getting more power, he was burning more fuel! What is central to your idea is that you wish to make use of unburnt hydrocarbons which at idle is about 1-2ppm on a european car, more for a NA car. The effect witnessed by the guy's car was not pre-ignition, dieselling or detonation. Dieselling is where an engine continues to run with the ignition shut off. It can occur in lean-burn engines as a norm, and an idling soleniod is incorporated to stop this.
Your idea requires a faster, more complete ignition similar to a plasma discharge, to fully ignite the fuel charge at a point close to TDC calculated according to engine speed and load. We spend millions in my company on research to improve this but the laws of physics mean that it is always a compromise.
I don't contradict myself at all, modern high performance engines use twin-spark technology.
One last point, changing the stochiometric ratio of the fuel/air mix is disastrous environmentally (@14.7:1) - Nox emissions increase either way and the answer isn't always to ram a cat up the tailpipe. |
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I'll say it again--dieseling may *or may not* be the right term for the phenomenon I mentioned. |
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//He wasn't getting more power, he was burning more fuel// |
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Again--*only* because his fuel system wasn't compensating for the more-powerful combustion. Bring it leaner, and it would come down to the realm of reasonable RPM's. |
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//changing the stochiometric ratio of the fuel/air mix is disastrous environmentally// |
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Then why is a regular Honda Civic classified as a LEV while the lean-burn Civic HX is an ULEV*? |
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//there is a difference of opinion as to what constitutes efficient combustion when the power output of that combustion is the endfactor?// |
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Ah yes; Claws seems to think that emissions is the only measure of burn efficiency. At least, that's the impression I get. However, efficiency is, by definition, the product of fuel input * energy output. So, anything which improves the ratio of energy/fuel is Good, not Evil (oil executives' opinions notwithstanding). |
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* -- Depending on model year, some regular Civics are also ULEV-classified. My mistake. So the lean-burning HX puts out *maybe* as many pollutants as a regular one. Doesn't sound environmentally disastrous to me. |
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no, bring it leaner and it will not run. |
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you seem to think that the motor is consuming the same amount of air and fuel when it idles at 2500rpm as it does at 800rpm. it don't. detonation or preignition will not sustain itself in a "running-engine"-like manner. |
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you misuse SublimeGTP's description of "10x the force" on the piston- the force happens due to piston compression, not fuel combustion. think about it- you fire the A/F mix while the piston is moving UPWARDS. it counters the motion of the piston (and crank, and the other pistons) causing a pressure spike (which can and will break pistons and rods). |
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remember, even if you pre-ignited every combustion event, to spike the pressure, you're lessening the rod angle and thus the leverage on the crank. you're also shifting the event backwards, so the first part of the 'explosion' will actually counter crank motion, and the later part (which actually pushes on the crank) will be shortened. |
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remember- the car is NOT detonating- it is getting more air from somewhere. if you lean it out further, it WILL start to detonate, and you will be a very sorry boy. |
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I have worked on diesel injection
and electronic fuel injection for
many years.Maybe I have been
brainwashed but your discussions
seem very silly to me. Sorry! |
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I don't even know where to begin. I guess the first thing I should say is either produce evidence of this 10,000 mpg car or shut up about it. Of course you can't because it doesn't exist, and it won't EVER exist.
Internal combustion engines at ABSOLUTE best will achieve 40% thermal efficiency (and even that is probably too high a number) . You need to go take a class on thermodynamics and stop wasting our time with this crap. Or buy a physics book and find the equation that predicts the max theoretical efficiency for a heat engine operating between a heat source and a heat sink. The math is irrefutable. I'm not going to give it to you because you are obviously too lazy to put any effort into doing real world research into your idea. The fact is, there is very little left to be done to increase the burn completeness in a modern internal combustion engine. It is already around 97%. If you don't believe me, contact the mechanical engineering department at MIT. John Heywood has mounds of research data to back up this claim. My link refers to his name in an article. If you believe in this idea so much, then take the head(s)
off your car engine, coat the combustion chambers and pistons with enough carbon to cause preignition, put them back together and then get out a stopwatch and let me know how long your engine lasts. Nobody should be applauding you for stimulating any conversations about this. You have pissed so many people off by this ridiculous idea that they can't resist commenting on it, myself included. I could write a book on why your idea won't work but it's just not worth my time. I wouldn't be attacking if you didn't insist on defending this. It's not a crime to have a bad idea, but you are refusing to listen to people that obviously know much more about combustion than you do. Your crime is in defending this absurdity. |
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Another note: Two spark plugs per cylinder isn't always going to be better than one. That is oversimpifying the complexity and wide variation in engine and combustion chamber design. If it was that simple then every formula one engine out there would have two instead of one. Your lawnmower isn't going to run any better with two spark plugs, but a top fuel dragster running nitromethane/alcohol and 60 psi of boost might. Get the idea? Airplanes have two spark plugs per cylinder due to FAA regulations that require two independent ignition systems. This is so that the plane doesn't fall out of the sky due to an ignition problem, not simply because two is better than one. Anyway, I am sad that I can only vote against this once. |
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Your idea is based on a common but misguided idea that the engine is running more efficiently because the accelerator pedal is not being compressed . In the real world the car is still burning at least the same amount of fuel or (as is likely) much more. but what is happening is the fuel is burning hotter producing a lot of polution in the process (this is the cause of the carbon build up in the first place) if you wish to see your idea in practice read up on something called a "stroker" engine it produces the extra heat by increasing compression. Really that is what the carbon is doing, not as you were led to believe getting hot enough to ignite the fuel as it enters the combustion chamber, if that were to happen you would have a backfire condition. |
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Wow, what a string. I dont really know where to begin either. 25 years of repairing vehicles leads me to a very different conclusion than the original article. I agree with MATTEWQQB in a vaccum leak of some sort. Not knowing anything about the make/model/engine, I must first say that fuel injected engine of today and the last 15+ years rely on an idle air control valve to increase idle when cold, eliminating a choke/fast idle of carb fame. The oxygen sensor sees a lean mixture and increases fuel. The temp sensor sends a signal to the ecm. As the engine temp increases, the emc controls the iac. A problem in this circuit could be the cause. Any vaccum circuit that has a leak can also be suspect including a sticking egr valve.
Dieseling is caused by heated carbon deposits igniting fuel in the cylinder after the engine is shut off. This happens in conjuction with a continuing fuel supply, i.e. high idle, fuel perculating over, or flooding carb.
Spark knock occurs from pre ignition.The air fuel mixture is ignited by compression, carbon or sparkplug while the piston is still coming up on its compression stroke. As said previously, these are opposed forces, a bad thing.
Fuel octane plays a big part in the timing of firing the mixture. Engine with higher compression ratios need higher octane fuel. Running these engines on lower octane will produce spark knock by igniting the mixture early by compression rather than firing of the spark plug.
A glow plug ina diesel merely heats up the initial air in a cylinder before cranking and injection. Once a diesel starts the heat of combustion (warming of parts) warms the air.
This carbon idea is somewhat simular to the hot tube ignitions of the turn of the centry. It is another way to ignite fuel.
The 3% of fuel not used is due to incomplete mixing of the air and fuel not because of the lack of ignition.
On the subject of fuel economy, I do not believe we are any where near what it could be with several reasons.
While I can believe that we can burn as much as 97% of the gasoline during combustion, we are still pitifully inefficient. 40% would be an extreme best. Ibelieve somewhere in the 20 would be closer with many vehicles well below that. Engines with great power hauling around heavy vehicles is not efficient.
Our society loves comfort and we like to travel and fuel has been cheap. These are the biggest deterents to better economy.
At this point I am not sure what to elaborate on, but will wait to see where it heads. |
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OK, Im not an expert, but im gonna try to explain how i see it. |
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As for the original idea, to make an internal combustion engine run without spark plugs, but instead on the heat of compression/combustion harnessed in some way, right? they have those. they're called diesels. They run a very high octane fuel (diesel) in a very high compression (upwards of 100:1 as compared to a max of 12:1 or 14:1 for gasoline engines), engineered to detonate just before the piston reaches top dead center. it then injects the neccesary amount of fuel to get the desired power output, as compared to a gas engine, which injects the fuel into the air and then ignites it after it is compressed in the cylinder. Because gas burns much quicker than diesel, all the gas that is going to burn is burned within 15-20 deg of crank rotation. Diesels can inject more fuel to allow the burn to last up to 90 deg or so of rotaion, allowing the force to be applied much more effectively for rotation, resulting in very high torque for the horsepower levels. With the modifications you have suggested, after fine tuning, trouble shooting, and everything else involved, you would have a working, potentially efficient engine, and it would be very similar to a modern diesel. |
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As for burning more of the fuel in a regular engine, producing more power, they have that as well. it is called a multiple spark distribution system. The most popular manufacturer is called MSD, and they have near-universal systems starting at about $200 american.They put out up to 6 sparks per ignition cycle. the dual spark plug systems you have seen are not as much to increase efficientcy, but are used as a back-up. many times, the second set is not even turned on unless the primary system fails.
Increasing is definitely possible, otherwise, there would be very few high performance parts available to anyone. Headers, spark plugs, plug wires, HEI ignition systems, MSD ignition systems, air filters, cold air intakes, free flowing exhaust components, heads, intakes and 90% of everything else sold to hot rodders are used to increase combustion efficiency. |
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10,000 MPG car? No such animal. Something close though, was Smokey Yunick's engine design, which created as much heat as possible and used this heat to compress the air, effectively creating a supercharging system without a mechanical supercharger (although he did use a turbocharger, but only as a sort of check valve to prevent the pressurized air from venting to atmosphere). Because of the amount of heat involved, the fuel almost completely vaporized, allowing much better air/fuel mixture. Because of the much better mixture, leaner ratios were better (22:1 as compared to 13.7:1, considered optimal for regular engines). I believe the resulting engine was a two cyl, 4-stroke displacing somewhere around 500 CC, making 120 HP and getting around 100 MPG in a small car. Efficient? yes. Complicated and hard to work on? Also yes. The result? Major companies didnt buy it. But it would work. Ask the Yunick family for the patent rights, Im sure they wont mind handing them over. |
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And with just more fuel, an engine will usually drop RPM's. it will rev up only if air and fuel increase. Its called running rich, and is a known way to reduce efficientcy, power, and foul up a bunch of stuff, choking catalytic converters and causing all sorts of problems. |
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Detonation may cause 10x more force, but its all at one time, and at the wrong time. As said before, it ignites the fuel before the piston is at the top of its stroke, opposing motion and leaving less fuel to burn on the power stroke. in short, bad, unless you use a special fuel, build a bullet-proof bottom end to handle the forces, put some sort of "glow plug" to ignite the mixture before the engine warms up, increase compression, and inject fuel into the cylinder on the power stroke, so as not to let it all get burt up before it is completely useful. When you finish, you would have a diesel. |
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