smokey yunick's hot air fiero
I call BS on a near stock duke making the 250-300 hp claimed and living
I really donot care what you run it on
that duke is going to blow up way before it makes that kind of power

yes I know a SD motor will
but smokey claimed it was STOCK

Ray B, What kills the dukes are the RPM's people try to get out of them as they increase HP. If Smoky was able to get the HP with lower RPM's, then it's perfectly possible to do what he claimed.

84: Do some reading on thermodynamics. It should give you everything you need to know before you start. If I have time later, I'll do some calculations for you. A lot of heat is wasted out the exhaust. I'm confident there is a good way to make use of it.

Its great for diesel fuel. Not much for gasoline. Why do you think drag racers run their fuel lines thru a cool can or ice pack at the track. Never seen anyone trying to preheat it.

quote Originally posted by ray b: smokey yunick's hot air fiero I call BS on a near stock duke making the 250-300 hp claimed and living I really donot care what you run it on that duke is going to blow up way before it makes that kind of power yes I know a SD motor will but smokey claimed it was STOCK

Yea I kinda think he had an SD with a stock head.... I just did an overhaul on my Duke and especially on #1 it is very thin. Mostly because of semi sloppy production. They cut a hole in the block for an optional waterpump location to make it more viable for different designs. It winds up making the piston wall about 1/8" max in that spot. Plus it seems to be cast in 3 pours leaving an apparently easy to crack line across the entire engine...2x. But, if smokey got a stock one made without these flaws....I think it could hold up.

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84 2.5L Holley TBI Manual Trans White

[This message has been edited by White 84 SE (edited 07-23-2009).]

smokey claims repeatedly stock or ''near stock''
with out trick parts other then the hot air/fuel stuff
and claims to wind the duke up to 5500 rpm

but we do know old smokey was famous for cheating and or bending rules

Here is what you do-
Get this marine oil cooler and plumb it into the 3/4 inch heater hose- http://www.cpperformance.com/detail.aspx?ID=892
You need to add a fuel pressure bypass regulator BEFORE the oil cooler and and only run one line up to the TBI- plug what used to be the return line at the TBI.
Then, run your fuel line from the filter, to the bypassing regulator (set for factory fuel pressure), then through the marine oil cooler and into the TBI. The only fuel that will get heated is what actually makes it up to the TBI, excess fuel is diverted back to the tank before it gets heated. Your fuel will come out of the oil cooler at whatever temp the engine is operating at- somewhere around 200 degrees. At this temp and 15 PSI of fuel pressure, most of the liquid fuel will vaporize as soon as it is sprayed into the throttle body.
Yes, I have thought about doing this for a while....

quote Originally posted by 86fierofun: Ray B, What kills the dukes are the RPM's people try to get out of them as they increase HP. If Smoky was able to get the HP with lower RPM's, then it's perfectly possible to do what he claimed. 84: Do some reading on thermodynamics. It should give you everything you need to know before you start. If I have time later, I'll do some calculations for you. A lot of heat is wasted out the exhaust. I'm confident there is a good way to make use of it.

They also make them nifty turbocharger doohickies.

I agree with ray b though, in order to make 300hp at 4000rpm you'd have to be putting out nearly 400lb-ft. Not gonna happen on stock duke parts. A big part of Smokey's automotive "brilliance" was that he was very convincing.

[This message has been edited by FastIndyFiero (edited 07-24-2009).]

Gasoline's pretty volatile.

Might be worth it if you want to convert the car to cheap junk viscous fuel oil.

Although the time spent wouldn't be worth any money savings.

quote Originally posted by Cooter: Here is what you do- Get this marine oil cooler and plumb it into the 3/4 inch heater hose- http://www.cpperformance.com/detail.aspx?ID=892 You need to add a fuel pressure bypass regulator BEFORE the oil cooler and and only run one line up to the TBI- plug what used to be the return line at the TBI. Then, run your fuel line from the filter, to the bypassing regulator (set for factory fuel pressure), then through the marine oil cooler and into the TBI. The only fuel that will get heated is what actually makes it up to the TBI, excess fuel is diverted back to the tank before it gets heated. Your fuel will come out of the oil cooler at whatever temp the engine is operating at- somewhere around 200 degrees. At this temp and 15 PSI of fuel pressure, most of the liquid fuel will vaporize as soon as it is sprayed into the throttle body. Yes, I have thought about doing this for a while....

Wow! I will post a pic of one of those I already made out of copper tubing! Hmm.. now a fuel pressure regulator before the heater (cooler). Great solution!!! I foresee potential problems plugging the return. I think fuel may accumulate there anyway. Perhaps fill the cavities completely.

Now I have to give the higher fuel pressure pump and better fuel atomizing injecter idea a plus. I just dropped the tank and installed a new fuel pump that gets 14 psi. After installing a pressure guage I found I was getting only 6 psi. Anyway now the Duke really hauls a**! Before the fuel just more or less poured into the TBI. I thought that was normal but no..it isnt at all. So a well maintained fuel delivery system IS pretty darn good but I think this heater idea is one better.

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84 2.5L Holley TBI Manual Trans White

On the 2.5, the A/F mixture is heated after the throttle body by a coolant fed chamber in the intake manifold.

The 02 sensor doesn't care if the gas is vaporized before it enters the combustion chamber. All it measures is the temperature of the exhaust gas. If the temperature is too hot or cold, the ECM makes a corresponding adjustment to the injector pulse width.

quote Originally posted by 30+mpg: On the 2.5, the A/F mixture is heated after the throttle body by a coolant fed chamber in the intake manifold. The 02 sensor doesn't care if the gas is vaporized before it enters the combustion chamber. All it measures is the temperature of the exhaust gas. If the temperature is too hot or cold, the ECM makes a corresponding adjustment to the injector pulse width.

I thought the o2 sensor measured o2. You say it is just another sort of temp sensor? hmph who knew, are you sure? Yep on the heated manifold. Smokeys set up seems to have been to use an exhaust heated manifold and thus superheated. But he had a supercharger to pressurize the intake so keeping the detonation temp higher so it could last until it got into the chamber. The whole engine would have to be pretty hot and pressurized.

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84 2.5L Holley TBI Manual Trans White

quote White 84 SE:I thought the o2 sensor measured o2.

Indirectly, A/F ratio affects the exhaust temp.

quote You say it is just another sort of temp sensor? ..., are you sure? ...

Yes

working within the confines of the existing fuel injection system of either the v6 or the 2,5, you are out of your mind. period.
they are not designed to handle fuel vapor injection, which in the real world of non snake oil salesmen is called a gas injector.
while your theory has merit, you need to redesign an build a whole new fuel delivery system. If that is your plan then you have some merit in working this idea. if you think you are going to do it with a tbi injector and the stock ecm you are no where near someone I would want living next door to me. read: BOOM
Hope sarcasm doesn;t bruise your ego, but what you are proposing is an explosion waiting to happen. DONOT block off your fuel return. heated or not, you will over pressurize the fuel system.
all those hot fuel systems mentioned are carbed, open ended systems.
Your better apporach would be to look at propane powered cars, and examine the fuel delivery system for a gas. then you could work back and figure out how to vaporize gasoline, and properly pressurize the gasoline vapor and inject that into motor with the approprate air volume.
Then test it on a lawnmower engine first, then scale up.
or just get good fire insurance and a good life insurance policy for you family. I've seen fuel vapor explosions, and I have a very very healyth respect fo the power of vaporized gasoline.
I threw a few thoughts in there, but hope I scared you into thinking on small scale and working up, don;t do this on a car. well least not a fiero, get some common dime a dozen car. someone could likely use the parts of your car to better theirs before you torch it.

[This message has been edited by tjm4fun (edited 07-26-2009).]

If vapor fuel had a significant advantage we'd all be running natural gas or propane - heating gasoline to vaporize it is much ado about nothing.

Just because I have thought a lot about this does not mean that I will actually go out and do it. I've got lots of things to do and dieing in a horrible explosion of vaporized gasoline is not real high on my "to do" list for this week. Now, next week is a different story....

Edit to add- if you really want a fuel warmer, there are several companies that actually market a ready to install device. Here is one of the 'cheaper' ones-
http://www.mileagepros.com/...tgreen/maxwarmer.php
Not really something that I would trust, but they have a website so they must be legit.

[This message has been edited by Cooter (edited 07-27-2009).]

quote Originally posted by tjm4fun: Hope sarcasm doesn;t bruise your ego, but what you are proposing is an explosion waiting to happen. DONOT block off your fuel return. heated or not, you will over pressurize the fuel system.

You realize, of course, the setup I described above with the bypassing regulator and one line going to the engine and no return has been used by all the major automakers for the past several years, right?
And your attempted sarcasm did not hurt my ego, it is still just as big as ever

I only wanyted to put the fear of BOOOM into people. I love tinkering, but never want to see anyone get hurt.

returnless systems are common now, and use a regulated usually electronically controlled fuel pump to maintain pressure. older carb systems relied on the low pressure of the pump and the design that spressure on the output side would eventually not allow the in input side to open thus limiting pressure.
Plugging the regulator will just cause the pump to run to the max pressure it can attain and then stall the pump (it is a rotary pump) or find a way to leak out, like in the hose in the tank if not the proper one. if you repeated stall the stock style pumps they will die, so you need to keep them flowing fuel to cool it and keep things happy.

as I said, look at a gas powered propane setup, very common now in forklifts, buses, etc, and see if you can work off that fuel delivery system on the engine side and then develope the feed for vaporized gasoline to feed that system.
Good luck!

O.K. so safety seems to be a major concern. How about setting up an experiment? Maybe I can get one of those little 1 cylinder model engines or maybe my currently unused lawn mower to set up a mock version. But....how to test?

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84 2.5L Holley TBI Manual Trans White

ok, here is a sorta plan. put a measured amount of fuel into your test mule. set up some sort of rpm monitor on the load, ie the blade of the lawn mower. run the fuel out, time it carefully.do thatr about 10 times to get a valid baseline.
Devise your vapor fuel system and get it running on that. do your tuning etc, and when you feel it is at optimum, then repeat the test above. match the rpm, and the startup fuel. if it runs longer, you are getting more out of the fuel, and you are on to something. be sure the ambient temp and humidity is about the same. this is a rough setup, and if you find only small increases, it is likely that you are not going to get anymore. this type of setup will only likely be a very few percent at best, so you must be very careful with your measurements. of course, you may have to repeat this many times and adjust your fuel delivery system.

remember if it was easy everyone would do it. just PLEASE PLEASE be careful with the pressurized gas vapor, you can kill yourself with the explosive force if it ignites in the canister.

quote Originally posted by sanderson: If vapor fuel had a significant advantage we'd all be running natural gas or propane - heating gasoline to vaporize it is much ado about nothing.

Using this sort of logic is well the lame way to live life.... It's like if everyone is jumping off a cliff than it must be a good thing to do. Or if it isnt being done by someone else than I guess I shouldnt do it either. There must be some sort of hidden reason why... so I should just have a hamburger instead....You know? Sanderson please come up with something with clear logic. The whole if it hasnt been done by many than it cant be done thing is tired. Same to you TJ!


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84 2.5L Holley TBI Manual Trans White

[This message has been edited by White 84 SE (edited 07-27-2009).]

Ummm, I've known people who tried similar mods before. a couple of them hurt themselves.
I pointed you to some areas to look for gas fueled systems. (they are Very common now,just look around)
Gave you a very basic way to try and measure it;s merits/drawbacks without expensive equipment.
Maybe you don;t get the other point of how dangerous it is to work with any type of pressurized flammable gas, and that is the only thing you seem to skate over.
Do you have the ability to manufacture a pressure containment system? do you have the money to get the proper injectors and valving to set this up? do you have your own machine shop to manufacture the parts you may have to fabricate? if you can;t make it yourself and you can;t afford to pay to buy the proper parts, it is just another pipe dream.
I suggested starting small as you will have an easier time and lower pressure system. this equates to lower costs and less vapor involved which will minimize the danger if there is a catastophic failure.
Just do some research, learn about what is in use.
find the correct air/fuel mix for vaporized gas to completely burn, and you will also find the amount of power you can expect to get from vapor vs atomized gas in normal atmospheric suspension.
fwiw, the idea has merit, I already said that, just be careful and keep good records of what you do.

i would try this on a smaller engine first...like say a lawn mower. no you wont be able to tell a power difference, but you'll be able to test the system. If you use an electric starter with the wires extended, and say hot water in an old radiator using the auto trans cooler lines to plumb the fuel through, and be at a safe distance for safety. something to think about, you could use a decent camera (zoom wise) on the carb to see what the fuel is doing.


i may be shooting blanks but it's an idea and could save your fiero if your really set on trying this, that's what i'd use as a test pig.

[This message has been edited by greasemonke50613 (edited 07-27-2009).]

just for general info:
the injectors on MPFI & SFI setups are aimed to shoot the fuel at the back of the CLOSED intake valve - which is VERY hot - to aid in vaporization. This is also why SFI is better than MPFI - because it can actually properly time it to actually hit while the valve is closed. unlike MPFI, which is batch fired, 3 at a time, and only some cyls get the timing just right.

next - if I was to do something with this, my approach would be to use a heat transfer fluid to heat the fuel. no direct application of heat - like exhaust or electrical coil.

has anyone looked into just using the airflow to vaporize? the whole idea behind this is to get a even dispersal of the fuel in the air. and, a vapor disperses easier. also why higher pressure in the fuel system helps - more pressure makes for better atomization at the injector.

quote Originally posted by rotten21: Cold fuel is more dense, you can get more fuel in a given area of volume. If what you propose was true, all racing teams from Nascar, NHRA, IRL, Formula One, World of Outlaws etc to go carts would use a fuel heater,and none of them do.

Unless you're heating the fuel enough to leave it's liquid state and become a vapor, or super-cooling it to almost freezing, the achievable differences in gasoline density are very negligible... We're talking 0.694 g/cm³ at 80^oF and 0.622 g/cm³ at 260^oF
The energy required to change the temp (to cool it, rather) an appreciable amount totally and completely obliterates any gain you might see in the combustion chamber.
IMHO, fuel coolers are more of a placebo effect and a 'feel good upgrade' than anything... But hey, somebody's making money off of 'em, right?

On the other hand, using the exhaust & wasted heat from the engine to achieve vaporisation is exactly what Smokey did. Once you get the fuel to around 400^o it starts vaporizing, and that, my friend, is much purer than any atomizer can ever get close to, thus making emissions almost non-existant (Smokey's ran cleaner than a Propane/NatGas car). It also can drastically reduce carbon deposits, because the impurities in the fuel are mostly too heavy to be carried by the vapor as they are by the liquid. Getting the vapor into the engine can be a challenge at WOT, so that's where his 'Homogenizer' (aka modified turbo) came into play...
Join the AlfVaporizor yahoo group.... excellent bunch of people building & perfecting vapor-riders as we type.

-Paul

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Journal of a concept: http://southeastfieros.com >>> Build Thread >>> Parts thread (for project funding)

I thought gasoline vaporized at 450f ?
I was curious and I just read a patent application for something like this. they used vacuum toremove the vapor, but needed a heavier tank, and heating due to freezing the tank up. but lowering the pressure does cause liquids to vaporize sooner.
maybe a safre way than alot of heat.

Density. colder is more dense. air + fuel both. the reason I fill up early in the morning.

It doesnt seem so very hard to go ahead and make that setup Smokey had. Well, the one in the Hot Rod magazine looks simple as heck...

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84 2.5L Holley TBI Manual Trans White

quote Originally posted by tjm4fun: I thought gasoline vaporized at 450f ? I was curious and I just read a patent application for something like this. they used vacuum toremove the vapor, but needed a heavier tank, and heating due to freezing the tank up. but lowering the pressure does cause liquids to vaporize sooner. maybe a safre way than alot of heat.

gasoline is not one thing with one boiling/vapor point
some of the lighter bits in gasoline boil/vapor at 100 deg F
others go up to 400F

vacume may work BUT
when you remix that vapor with air needed to burn
the gasoline will recondence

that was the nit of the patent. there is what the applicant called a filter. it kept the vapor in suspension. and yes gasoline has many components, but for total vaporization I believe you need 450f at sea level. higher altitudes will change that number, always lower.

the schematics for the poque unit is on the net, it is not much different than the yunick motor system. problem is, if they are so easy and work so well, why aren;t there a few million of these out there? I know a least a dozen gear heads who could do any of those mods, and stuff like that spreads like wildfire thu the word of mouth world of street racers and such. that is why I am skeptical of any of these claims. go look up the tom ogle system. 100+ mpg on a big block motor. patent is on file. but no what I would call clinical tests. go figure.
As for Yunicks car, it is in posession of someone, and I don;t see any modern dyno runs and contolled tests to show it has any validity.with the current politcal trend to reducing imports, you would think these systems would be all over the net and the media.
the only thing I ever see anywhere is the snake oil things, not proven and documented devices.

The basic Fiero design looks alot like an attempt to steal Smokey's idea. Check out the long fuel tank flanked by heater pipes....coincidence? How about the fuel vapor collecter used to store tank vapor. Hmmmm... The turbo looking inlet gizmo where the side vent is odd....nicely located for a turbo with that wacked out bend in the exhaust which almost touches it. Hmmm what do you think? The air heater and EGR used to heat up incoming air. There are unused coolant ports in the front under the TBI and an unused mounting bolt to the left. Strange?, coincidence? These oddities were new back in 84.

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84 Duke, Holley TBI, Manual Trans 4.10, CompuCam White

Well here's the heater I came up with.
Any suggestions how to safely try it out?

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84 Duke, Holley TBI, Manual Trans 4.10, CompuCam, White

Just a wag but I'm thinking if you make no other changes it won't heat too much. All your fuel will be heated and the unused portion will be returned to the tank via the return line from the throttle body. Probably not much more heat than is passed to the fuel as it normally passes through the throttle body.

To get the most effect you would have to put a T in the fuel line before the filter. Then off the T have a fuel pressure regulator (12psi for the duke) and then the return line to the tank. You would also need to block off the return line from the TBI so that ALL fuel passing the filter goes to the engine.

Here is Darth Fiero's setup that I copied for a V6. Just place the filter after the T:

Cool....
If it isnt hot enough I would recirculate the TBI return directly back into the heater though. The filter seems like a pretty long dwell though. I would rather the tank not get at all warmed up.

Besides, the purpose of the thing is to warm the fuel to improve the viscosity and not as others have assumed to vaporize the gasoline Smokey Yunick style.

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84 Duke, Holley TBI, Manual Trans 4.10, CompuCam, White

[This message has been edited by White 84 SE (edited 09-23-2009).]

What I'm suggesting would have only heated fuel reach the the TBI. There would not be any hot fuel returned to the tank as the T fitting is before the heater/filter thingy. The fuel would most likely reach coolant temp as the flow past the T would only be what flowed into the engine though the fuel injector. As this is a relatively low amount, it would have maximum time to the heat.

quote Originally posted by Hudini: What I'm suggesting would have only heated fuel reach the the TBI. There would not be any hot fuel returned to the tank as the T fitting is before the heater/filter thingy. The fuel would most likely reach coolant temp as the flow past the T would only be what flowed into the engine though the fuel injector. As this is a relatively low amount, it would have maximum time to the heat.

Sounds great but how would the fuel be diverted at the T from traveling up the wrong side of the injector? And with the injector rejected fuel where is the pressure to propell it through the T valve. This introduction of fuel to the Fuel pump pressurized mass will lower pressure for a second or so. Or would it?

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84 Duke, Holley TBI, Manual Trans 4.10, CompuCam, White

Do you still plan on using the fuel heater once you're supercharged?