I read somewhere (i forgot where) that some dude improved his fuel economy and power by heating his fuel near boiling point. Supposedly, this prevented the loss of heat energy because of the adiabatic process ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process ).

What do you think? BS? I think you could see a power and/or efficiency gain from heating up the fuel, probably not because of the adiabatic process but from better atomization of the fuel.

But this is a forum, so what do you think??

Smokey Yunick. They had the car on Horsepower TV. They also tested it there and stated that the iron duke was up to 58 mpg and 0-60 was down around 7 seconds. Not bad considering the original duke got around 30 mpg and 0-60 was in the 14's.

As of 05/25/07 Tony Allers owned the car. Not really sure if he still does. He lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee...I hope he doesn't mind me posting this info on the net. Somewhat available on the net if you look in the right places though. Smokey did the Hot Vapor stuff with a few different cars and produced the same kind of results. I heard the plans were sold to Delorean awhile ago, just before John Delorean got caught smuggling drugs and stopped producing cars. Now who knows where the plans are.

Here are a few links I have found on it
http://schou.dk/hvce/
http://www.eng-tips.com/vie...cfm?qid=78116&page=1

first thing that comes to mind is Smokey Yunick's Fiero

In this case an adiabatic process would be one in which no energy from the fuel was wasted out the exhaust as heat. Heating the fuel will help with atomization, but there are a whole host of problems such as vaporlock and evaporative emissions control which make heating the fuel pretty much impractical.

Yes, according to reports, "engineers from around the world" tried to get the car to spike and couldn't. They all claimed that it's impossible for it to run that hot and not spike. Smokey just said that it was a secret as to why it wasn't spiking. Believe it or not. I would love to try getting something like that to work, but IMHO it's a bit dangerous. People have tried it before and blew themselves up.

quote Originally posted by 85fiero_fanat: Yes, according to reports, "engineers from around the world" tried to get the car to spike and couldn't. They all claimed that it's impossible for it to run that hot and not spike. Smokey just said that it was a secret as to why it wasn't spiking. Believe it or not. I would love to try getting something like that to work, but IMHO it's a bit dangerous. People have tried it before and blew themselves up.

He also said that the secret to defeating detonation was really, really obvious.

Yes, that's what it was. I read some of the stuff in the links 85fiero_fanat posted. Looks like smokeys engine is controversial. It is kind of odd that smokey wouldn't tell how he keeps the mixture from predetonation. it's his big secret.

Too bad he's dead.

Yeah, but if I knew and no one else did, I probably wouldn't tell anyone. I'd sell the plans to a car company, or possibly start my own car company :P

I thin ka big reason why everything with it is controversial, is because Smokey Yunick was known for cheating. Like making an exact replica of a race car, just a little smaller to make it lighter and faster. Then when he raced with it, and someone questioned it, he would put it up next to another replica he had in there garage.

Hah... Yeah, he "borrowed" a set of silhouette templates from the scrutineers, reproduced them at ~0.8 scale and then built his car to them. When questioned, he showed the shrunken templates over the shrunken car and said it was fine.

The Hot Vapor Fiero was at the Fiero Factory Swap Meet last year and was test driven by Boomtastic. The article Eric wrote about the experience can be found on the home page of www.gafiero.org Tony tells me he will have the car at the Swap Meet again this year.

No doubt there are some issues with the process, but it works. The Hot Vapor Fiero has been driven on a regular basis on the highways, without major problems. While there are some who have doubts and even some who attribute the quick acceleration and high gas mileage to the special tires Smokey put on the vehicle, I've never known of anyone else who has gotten horsepower out of tires filled with air. Now, if Smokey did that, he's really a genius and was just using the Hot Vapor engine as a diversion from his tire invention.

There are several threads on this forum about the car. Search for Smokey Yunick or Hot Vapor in Tech and General Chat to find them.

Of course, the main loss of energy is as heat in the exhaust gas (takes energy to heat air) and as heat rejected from the cooling system. Those two sources of loss account for more than half the potential energy in fuel. Ultimately, what energy does get converted into motion ends up being wasted as brake rotor heat. Designing an engine that didn't have a cooling system would go a long way to increasing fuel efficiency; experiments along that path were done two decades ago with all ceramic piston engines that ran at 1,200°F but long-term reliability was a problem, especially with the bearings. Hybrids help by taking energy that would otherwise be used to heat brake rotors and converts it into electricity to be stored in the onboard battery.

One thought that just occurred to me is that it may be possible to recapture energy from exhaust heat using a Peltier junction device in reverse to charge a battery in a hybrid configuration. Hmmm...

JazzMan

This is all a bunch of BS. If this thing was going to revolutionize the auto engine 20 years ago, why hasn't it? Because nobody at any of the major automotive companies can figure out how it works? Not likely. People always want to believe that there is a 200 MPG carburetor, it's just being kept a secret, or bought by the oil companies. Maybe it's being stored in area 51 and guarded by the aliens.

85fiero_fanat

Thank you for the links. The forum you listed was excellent. I have been talking with a science class (H.S. Kids) about the ideas listed in the article.Before anybody goes and blows themselves up, the High Schoolers (Honors Students) wanted to pass you all a message.
"I think there is a reason we don't see these engines in cars today." the cited the engineering page:
http://www.eng-tips.com/vie...cfm?qid=78116&page=1
We will be looking at the link again on Monday, and for homework, they are reading the entire page and writing a repost (due Wednesday).
This is pretty interesting stuff. Thank you for the link. (I will not try this by the way. Let me know if you do!!!)

------------------
Myke

PAST: 88 L4 5spd, 84 L4 auto, 88 L4 5spd, 87 L4 auto

Present: 84 L4 4spd, 88 L4 5spd

Future: Tomorrow will tell...

I see two reasons as to why you don't see it in engines today. One...very dangerous if not to exact specifications. If one thing were off, it could mean disaster. Two...Carboration (sp) was used on Smokeys cars, because he would use a homogenizer before the engine which would turn the gas into a fume while heating it up. With fuel injection, you spray a mist into the engine, plus I don't know how much heat those injectors could take. There are 3 kinks to the engine that would need to be figured out. First, how do you keep the fuel from detonating when it's heated up so much. Second, how do you keep the engine from breaking down due to heat. Third, How do you keep the fiero body panels from melting due to heat. The second 2 would be the easiest to fix. Better material in the engine, and possibly gold plating on the inside of the fiero body panels to repel heat.

I would love to see the Fiero. When and where is the swap meet that it's supposed to be at?

http://www.thefierofactory.com/

JazzMan

quote Originally posted by couldahadaV8: This is all a bunch of BS. If this thing was going to revolutionize the auto engine 20 years ago, why hasn't it? Because nobody at any of the major automotive companies can figure out how it works? Not likely. People always want to believe that there is a 200 MPG carburetor, it's just being kept a secret, or bought by the oil companies. Maybe it's being stored in area 51 and guarded by the aliens.

I would say its not in active use today is because auto manufacturers arent interested in an engine design that cant make it past 100k miles, nor one whos metal is heated beyond the autoignition point of many common organic parts.

I have wondered about using a middle of the road solution that heats the fuel to a tightly controlled temperature such that when it is sprayed out of the injector and it's pressure drops from 45 psig to ambient it vaporizes...

Has anyone considered water injection? That's a major "old school" method of beating detonation while cranking the timing up. Also steam expands faster than just an air/fuel explosion, and it's cooler.
Friggin' Smokey was a genius with cars, that's for sure.
Ever see what he did with a n/a 231?

The hot vapor Fiero used ceramic pistons and Carello (sp?) rods. Detonation was avoided by firing late into the cycle, chasing the pistons, far past TDC. The engine doesn't have a cooling system, per se. The radiator and cooling tubes have been removed or disconnected. The heat from the engine goes back into the fuel vaporization process.

quote Originally posted by Taijiguy: Has anyone considered water injection? That's a major "old school" method of beating detonation while cranking the timing up. Also steam expands faster than just an air/fuel explosion, and it's cooler. Friggin' Smokey was a genius with cars, that's for sure. Ever see what he did with a n/a 231?

Normally water injection just improves mileage, while it lowers performance...plus in cold weather areas like here in MI, I don't feel safe putting water in my motor. One day it could be 70, and then the next night 30

quote Originally posted by 85fiero_fanat: Normally water injection just improves mileage, while it lowers performance...plus in cold weather areas like here in MI, I don't feel safe putting water in my motor. One day it could be 70, and then the next night 30

Water injection doesn't do a lot for mileage, but it does improve performance, contrary to what you might think. It allows you to advance your timing beyond what might normally cause detonation. And as I said before, the steam expands faster and is more dense than a standard combustion stroke. Plus, it tends to keep your internals cleaner. In fact, one of the downsides of water injection is that if you have worn rings, it will very likely clean out the crap between the rings and cause the engine to smoke. I ran water injection for a lot of years, and still have in my box of parts a control module for an Edelbrock water injection system.
I'm only speculating, but water injection certainly could have been used in the Yunick engine. I don't know about this particular motor, but I know that he did use it in other motors.

I was always told that you want to cool the fuel for performance applications.

quote Originally posted by Taijiguy: I'm only speculating, but water injection certainly could have been used in the Yunick engine. I don't know about this particular motor, but I know that he did use it in other motors.

In this particular motor, the only water used is contained solely within the engine. There is no water injection. The engine heat absorbed by the coolant is used in part to preheat the fuel. At least, that's the descriptions I've read. I've seen the car and looked at it closely. There is no radiator in the car, nor are there any reservoirs, other than the windshield washer.

quote Originally posted by AutoTech: I was always told that you want to cool the fuel for performance applications.

Think of it this way. What makes a bigger explosion fumes, or liquid? A gas tank on a car won't explode unless it's near empty. It will catch on fire and burn, but fumes are much more explosive. Part of Smokey's heating process involves vaporizing the gas. Also, heat is energy. The fact that a normal engine loses a lot of heat (via exhaust, cooling, etc), means that it's waisting energy.

quote Originally posted by fierofool: The radiator and cooling tubes have been removed or disconnected. The heat from the engine goes back into the fuel vaporization process.

Are there pics of this somewhere? I'm not buyin that.

I don't knw if there are pics or not, but Eric Schneck, aka Boomtastic, a PFF forum member had written about it in one of his articles. I just checked the Georgia Fiero Club website to see if it was mentioned in the article he wrote for us, but it's not there. I do know it's in one of the threads on PFF. A search for Smokey Yunick and Hot Vapor and some reading should reveal it.

The car will be at the Fiero Factory Swap meet in a couple of weeks. I'm sure it will get closer scrutiny this time than it did before.

I'm pretty sure most of Smokey's detonation prevention gimmick on this car is just a really late intake valve closing, which greatly lowers the effective dynamic compression ratio. It also increases the efficiency of the engine. This phenomenon comes as a result of having an expansion ratio which is different than the compression ratio, providing an increase in thermodynamic efficiency.

Lest you think this is crazy talk, realize that Ford has already been doing it with the hybrid Escape. When its done without the aid of a compressor upstream its called the Atkinson cycle.

When its done WITH the aid of a compressor upstream of the engine (as is done on the Mazda Millenia and probably the Smokey Fiero), its known as the Miller Cycle.
IMO, Smokey's only potential bit of genius here (this type of efficiency-improving cycle was invented in the 1800s afterall) was coupling the cycle with a turbocharger as opposed to the positive displacement supercharger found in the Mazdas.

A good link to start from.
http://schou.dk/hvce/


You can also search patents online for further information.

I see Tony had the car at this year's swap meet, as promised. Did anyone take the opportunity to talk with him about the car, drive the car, or photograph the missing radiator?