2012 - Volume #36, Issue #2, Page #05
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He's Burning Gas In Diesel Engines
“We can get 100 mpg or more in a diesel-powered farm pickup by burning gasoline instead of diesel fuel,” says innovative mechanic Gary Brown, Byron, Georgia, who first made a splash in FARM SHOW two years ago with a story about how he repowers farm pickups with diesel tractor engines, regularly getting up to 50 mpg in the converted trucks (Vol. 33, No. 1). Gary’s a great guy to know even if you’re not interested in his diesel-power projects. For 32 years, he and his brother have been buying, reconditioning and selling Ford tractors. They tear used tractors down to the frame and totally rebuild to near-new condition. They also sell tractors in “as is” condition to people who want a project of their own. From what I’ve heard from readers, they offer fair prices and fantastic service to customers who come from across the country.
Gary’s latest new idea is vaporizing gasoline to burn in diesel engines. He mounts a metal canister on the engine manifold. Once the engine warms up on diesel and the canister becomes hot, he drips gasoline into it. “Each drop instantly turns into a cloud of gas. That gas is sucked into the air intake and down into the cylinders. It’s tremendously efficient – we’ve been able to get more than 100 mpg – because nearly 100 percent of the fuel is burned so there’s almost no detectable exhaust. In a regular gas engine, only about a third of the fuel is turned into energy while the rest comes out the exhaust,” says Brown. “The biggest problem we have is figuring out how to control the flow of gas into the air intake. We’ve tried different throttles and gas regulators but there’s a lot of heat involved. If anyone out there has any ideas about how to regulate the flow of hot gas, we’d like to hear from them (ph 478-954-1283; tractors@windstream.net; www.shadetreeconversions.com).”
Brown says he’s done enough experimenting to know this might be one of the most exciting new “alternative energy” ideas he’s ever come across. “We’re just a bunch of shade tree mechanics. What could the big car companies do if they ever put their engineers on a project like this?” he says.
That made me wonder if anyone else is working on the idea so I went to Google and did some searching. I didn’t see anything like Gary’s vaporizing idea but I found a story about an engineer at Argonne National Laboratories who started experimenting with the idea of burning gasoline in diesels several years ago and took his design to General Motors, which is now testing the idea in its research labs. Stay tuned.
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