I wanted to bounce this off you guys because I am a fan of the late great Smokey Yunick.
Smokey built about a dozen motors using what he called Hot-vapor which the Air Fuel mixture was heated to 400 plus degrees, homogenized through a turbo charger and fed to the engine. The result...doubled the fuel mileage and horsepower!
Here's a good article from the 80's when Smokey built a Pontiac Fiero with the "old Iron Duke" 4 banger that was kinda look down upon...he turned it into a super car!
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/e...ine/index.html
Here's the set up:
Here's another one, a Buick V6 hot vapor engine. Notice: Smokey removed three pistons which made the motor a 3 cylinder. Horsepower claims on this one was close to 300! from half a V6!!! When first fired up and took it to 2500 rpm's horsepower was at 135 which was the factory numbers on the stock V6.
Car engines by and large are very inefficient which you all already know. What Smokey did is took the wasted heat energy from the radiator and the exhaust and heated the fuel to specified temps, atomizing it beyond what it regularly does and burns it. That's where it parallels with running HHO, it burns fast so there is less exposure of heat and more exposure to mechanical energy.
I'm really considering messing around with my vehicle, using it as a Guinea pig. It's a 99' Suburban with a 350 vortec. First I 'm putting on a smaller version of the 10" x 10" trucker cell. Then I'm converting it to a carb...yes I know, fuel injection is better but I want no computer interruptions and I'll need to mess with timing so the computer will be unplugged while a carb and HEI distributor will be installed. Originally I was converting to a diesel but I think I can get the mileage up with gas and won't sacrifice performance.
When the engine is converted to carb and the generator installed I'm gonna try for similar go by retarding timing and inducing more HHO snd see if there is a point of diminishing returns when I go from 3 liters a minute to 6 and maybe to 9 LPM on a 350. With each higher input of HHO the timing will be retarded further to keep pace with the faster flame speed.
Then if I'm crazy enough I want to build a hot-vapor motor(really nothing special. Must use a carb and "up draft" turbo because the turbo is a check valve. When the Air/Fuel mixture is heated up it expands greatly and the turbo or "homogenizer" (what Smokey called it) prevents back flow and of course, afterwords the A/F mixture is heated to the 450+ degree temp from the exhaust and goes into the engine. The turbo ran a psi of only 4 lbs wasn't much.
With a set up like this detonation will be an issue. Smokey stated there is a threshold to pass in order for detonation won't be a problem. I will try on a motor that I'm willing to sacrifice if you know what I mean
There's a junk yard a couple of miles away that you pull your own part type of a place and motors are $200 regardless what they are. So a replacement motor for testing isn't too expensive to replace.
The air fuel ratio of this was around 22 to 1 so it's very lean. Smokey had this patented but left out a few details and took them to the grave with him. One of them was the cam profile, running some boost, the engine doesn't want valve overlap so I might need a custom cam. The rest I might have to find out if I pursue this.
So to recap,
1.)Converting my 99 Suburban 350 Vortec to Carburetor and hydraulic controlled transmission.
1.a) Add HHO from 3 LPM to 9 LPM while leaning out the motor and adjusting timing later monitoring EGT's.
Maybe 2.) build a Hot vapor induction system but we'll see. how 1.) works
Now for the constructive criticism you may have, because were here to learn from each other...here that NOOBs? LOL!
Chase