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Harlan 12-24-2011 12:40 PM

Research Experimental 8
 
The Wankel engine in its current form has some inherent flaws. First because of it's design it has a hot side and a cold side. While this allows for better power due to a colder air charge, it also causes a continuous hot spot which can lead to dry channeling in the coolant passages and engine failure. This also limits the heat transferred initially to the fuel which in turn limits the usable amount of fuel because liquid fuel does not burn (only the vapors do).


In an effort to solve these flaws I have created Research Experimental 8. The first thing I changed was using a water free coolant. My choice is close in composition to Evans NPG but widely more available and it has allowed me to use low grade pump gas with no fear, as well as removing the potential for coolant channel dryout and engine boil-over.

The second and more revolutionary change I have made is waste heat recovery and steam injection. By using a copper heat exchanger on the exhaust manifold fed by a water injection system to create steam, and then injection the steam into the intake manifold I have significantly increased my fuel economy while at the same time gaining a wider margin to detonation and the potential to advance timing and lean out the mixture. This may seem like some sort of voodoo, but the concepts are quite clear. Waste heat recovery is simple enough, the exhaust manifold provides more than enough heat to create the steam I need.
http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/779...1223121518.jpg



http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/122...1223121539.jpg

Yes that is copper to brass to stainless. Yes i do understand galvanic corrosion. If I was doing this for a production model I would be placing stainless inside the exhaust pipe, since that isn't an option I'm using copper for it's heat transfer and stainless for its lack of heat transfer. The brass was just what I could find at the plumbing store. It's not perfect, it's not permanent, but it does work for now.

The steam is then injected into the intake. Right now it's going in a pvc port I JB welded into place originally for water injection. This is less than optimal, but works for now. My next modification is to inject to the maintenance ports because they prevent water from hiding behind the closed SSV.

Now for the physics that make this work: The steam enters with the fuel air charge. As there are no moisture separators the steam is very low quality (high water concentration). The steam then interacts with the air and some of it condenses while it heats the fuel air charge to around 170 degrees ( saturation temperature depending on vacuum). Now the engine begins to compress the charge. As the charge is compressed the properties of the water (which again is a large part of the steam) change and the water begins to evaporate into the air. I say evaporate and not boil because it has more to do with the dew-point of the air than the boiling point of the water at this point in the cycle. This causes the compression to be nearly isothermal. This near isothermal compression reduces the heat load on the engines cooling system and more importantly prevents hot spots from forming which could cause detonation. Then the fuel air charge is ignited with the spark plugs. The remaining water which is finely dispersed in the charge is then flashed to steam both adding extra power and lowering peak combustion temperature. The end result is lowering internal engine temperatures while adding power. The effect on EGTs is minor because the water slows the burning of the fuel and causes more burning fuel to make it out the exhaust. This is easily modified with timing, but without a tested and reliably system I'm not going to mess with tuning. The effects on coolant temperature are major. So much so that a higher temperature thermostat may be required to help retain the heat that is so useful for both power and fuel economy. So far however the results are most promising.

Currently the system is set up for vacuum drag only. I plan on getting the pump progressive controller tuned in soon. Also there is no shut off for start up/shutdown. This causes me to have steam out the tailpipe for a couple minutes during start-up as water percolates out of the steam generator.

This will be solved by a solenoid which will connect pre throttle body air with the outlet of my water nozzle to remove vacuum and stop the vacuum drag.

It's currently on order along with a permanent catch can.

I'd love to tell you MPG results, but I just got the system set up and do not have enough road time for solid data. What I can tell you is that the indicated OBD2 MPG is incredible and historically only a couple mpg away from actual. A couple tanks of gas will tell the story. I have no control MPG data at this time because I'm sure there will be some heckler who will claim my gains are due to steam cleaning the carbon deposits out of the engine, so I'll take that data after I have completed a few tanks with water injection.

Oh and there is the distinct possibility that I will blow up my engine by either too much water or a bad tune when I get that far, or even loosing water injection with a good tune so as always DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. Let me risk my engine so you don't have to! I will happily post results as I get them as well as any additional data. I want this test to be completely transparent and repeatable.

dannobre 12-24-2011 12:56 PM

Looks like a cool project :) Good luck and keep us posted as you get more data

nycgps 12-24-2011 01:05 PM

What is the whole point of this whole "project" really?

As far as i remember Mazda tried something like what you did decades ago but its totally not practical on a street car.

RIWWP 12-24-2011 01:11 PM

What is the actual benefit of steam injection vs normal water injection? Your description sounds like the same thermal reaction of water injection (assuming it's a fine enough spray).

Is this benefit of steam vs proper fine water mist worth the complication of running water to the exhaust for the steam creation?

(Serious questions)

Harlan 12-24-2011 02:30 PM


Originally Posted by RIWWP (Post 4150677)
What is the actual benefit of steam injection vs normal water injection? Your description sounds like the same thermal reaction of water injection (assuming it's a fine enough spray).

Is this benefit of steam vs proper fine water mist worth the complication of running water to the exhaust for the steam creation?

(Serious questions)

Steam injection preheats the air/fuel allowing beter combustion. This is much the same way a lot of the supercarburators/ fuel line heaters work without the possibility of vapor lock. The nice thing is that since the steam is saturated it is pinned to a temperature and will not change temperature without a lot of heat added or removed. Also the water is dispersed much better than any nozzle with the possible exception of an compressed air supplied mister. For real world results, I tried the exact same injection rate at idle/low load and bogged the engine badly with water, but with steam it is does not bog/ cause missfires. I believe this is because the water is so finely dispersed it does not fling to the rotary housing and drown the spark plugs.

alnielsen 12-24-2011 02:41 PM

While the title sounds ostentatious, the project looks interesting. So, I'm subscribing.

RIWWP 12-24-2011 03:12 PM

Understood. Thanks. I will be following.

Old Rotor 12-24-2011 03:13 PM

What heat range plug are you using? I would love to see them when they come out with miles on them.....

olddragger 12-24-2011 03:21 PM

will not start up be a problem?
what about deceleration--assuming this is working of a vacuum injection?
what about water in the oil?
not being critical--interesting concept of steam over water injection. maybe like the old smokey theory of pre heating the gas?

Harlan 12-24-2011 03:47 PM


Originally Posted by Old Rotor (Post 4150727)
What heat range plug are you using? I would love to see them when they come out with miles on them.....

I'm using stock plugs, with D514A coils and F-150 wires. (yes I'm cheap) The plugs are probably still dirty from the flooding/coil conversion incident. (Always make sure your grounds are good!) I'll post pictures after a couple tanks of gas.


Originally Posted by olddragger (Post 4150734)
will not start up be a problem?
what about deceleration--assuming this is working of a vacuum injection?
what about water in the oil?
not being critical--interesting concept of steam over water injection. maybe like the old smokey theory of pre heating the gas?

Start up is a problem. It acts like it has a blown water jacket until the steam generator coil empties out and starts making good steam. I already plan on fixing this, but am waiting on a solenoid to break vacuum during start-up/shutdown. I'm currently using vacuum injection because it's bulletproof, I have a water injection pump/controller that I plan on implementing, but that will be for higher power levels. I want to stay with vacuum injection at idle/low load because it gives me a .4 gph feed which (for now) seems perfect for cruising/idling.
Deceleration will collect water, but the engine itself will still be hot and most of it should carry on through. I have not seen any stumbling during or after deceleration. Of course with the clutch in or the transmission in neutral this is the same as idling, which is also not problem.
Water in the oil is a consequence of a rotary naturally. The existing oil system should remove water from the oil so long as it gets up to normal operating temperature and has a vacuum on the oil sump. I will monitor this closer though, thanks for the heads up.

I'll post more pictures as I get the rest of it presentable. Right now it's raining outside, so no progress or pictures.

Brettus 12-24-2011 03:54 PM

interesting .

monchie 12-24-2011 04:15 PM

Can't wait to hear more. This is interesting.

Dori Saru 12-24-2011 05:17 PM

Wouldnt pre heating the fuel have a similar effect?

bse50 12-24-2011 05:59 PM

You can get 24mpg out of a stock rx8. Perhaps even more.
What are your goals? How are you going to tune it? How will you deal with the performance loss? What will you do to maintain a good oil film inside the engine?

It's a curious project but I'm skeptic it will be of any sue.

Harlan 12-24-2011 06:18 PM


Originally Posted by Dori Saru (Post 4150782)
Wouldnt pre heating the fuel have a similar effect?


Originally Posted by Harlan (Post 4150698)
Steam injection preheats the air/fuel allowing beter combustion. This is much the same way a lot of the supercarburators/ fuel line heaters work without the possibility of vapor lock.

So, yes.


Originally Posted by bse50 (Post 4150790)
You can get 24mpg out of a stock rx8. Perhaps even more.
What are your goals? How are you going to tune it? How will you deal with the performance loss? What will you do to maintain a good oil film inside the engine?

It's a curious project but I'm skeptic it will be of any sue.

I would be happy with 24 mpg stock. In the end it will probably be a water/mpg trade off. Sure I'd like 30mpg but carrying as much water as fuel is not a reasonable setup.

I have an accessport, and racetuner, but I don't know how I'm going to tune it yet. I need the system to be completely bulletproof before I tune around it, and then I will still need a margin for error. So that is more a long term goal.

So far I have noticed no performance loss. I have actually seen a performance gain because the engine/coolant system does not heat soak, so it's fresh and ready to go all drive long.

Oil film is a really tricky matter. Folks running water injection seem to have no problem, perhaps it's due to the relatively small amounts of water being added. I premix, but conventional oils do not perform well as steam oils. I may end up going for a sohn adaptor with a steam oil. Again this is long term if the gains I'm seeing pan out after a couple of fill ups it will be time to think about the long term.

longpath 12-24-2011 07:42 PM

Just so I understand your baseline setup, are you using the OEM tune? It seems to be what you are saying but I don't want to assume.

I had been considering a fuel preheat system based on the experiments of the late Smokey Yunick but hadn't worked out how to incorporate the needed heat exchangers without melting the upper manifold.

Harlan 12-24-2011 08:00 PM

The tune is a slightly modified Cobb stage 1. The only things I changed were the CAT CEL and lowered the fan temps.
A simple plate heat exchanger should give you some preheat I had pondered the idea myself. You could tie into the coolant bottle return. Sure it wouldn't vaporize all the fuel (actually it shouldn't vaporize any in the lines) but it would allow more of it to flash boil as it is injected. Since the components of gas boil at 90-450F the objective shouldn't be to vaporize all the fuel, but instead to get enough to vaporize to spread the rest into a fine mist which can fully vaporize late in combustion instead of in the catalytic. That in itself should increase fuel economy, but would lead to hotter combustion temps (as you have less fuel to boil and remove heat during combustion) less margin to detonation and burn your side seals/springs to slag. If you heat the fuel you must also remove the heat the fuel would have removed. This is why running lean mixtures produces so much heat! All the fuel is burning, none of it is simply boiling without burning.

Twisties 12-24-2011 11:36 PM

Im in as well, would like to see how this pans out. Keep us updated

longpath 12-25-2011 09:39 AM

For what it's worth, I do know that some stationary gas turbines used in power generation use steam injection in order to inhibit production of oxides of nitrogen.

Are you using the OEM cat? You mentioned that your tune changed the CAT CEL, presumably disabling it. Was your catalytic convertor having trouble before your experiment?

olddragger 12-25-2011 10:19 AM

most w/m injection companies have an electronic solenoid valve that could be used in conjunction with a coolant temp gauge that you can set to signal the injection set up.
So start up would not be a problem.
couple things:
1- How do you insure equal distribution to the rotors? (Its harder than you may think)
2- W/m guys usually do not run with the w/m injecting all the time--that may be a difference when thinking about the oil film? If its steam going in then it may not really be a problem though? I really dont know.
3-It would be better to have a system that would be rpm activated ( can roughly do this with maF signal) and not injecting during deceleration.
4- you will loose power--about 10hp at least.

Interesting idea, but I am thinking you are going to find that heating the water before hand will be of limited benefit over conventional water injection? Water injection into the combustion chamber turns to steam almost instantly.
I get 25 mpg now--with my sc set up. Just lower the rpms and you are there.

Harlan 12-25-2011 04:46 PM

2 Attachment(s)

Originally Posted by longpath (Post 4150960)
Are you using the OEM cat? You mentioned that your tune changed the CAT CEL, presumably disabling it. Was your catalytic convertor having trouble before your experiment?

My CAT pissed me off and is now an empty shell. It wasn't related to my experiment.


Originally Posted by olddragger (Post 4150972)
couple things:
1- How do you insure equal distribution to the rotors? (Its harder than you may think)
2- W/m guys usually do not run with the w/m injecting all the time--that may be a difference when thinking about the oil film? If its steam going in then it may not really be a problem though? I really dont know.
3-It would be better to have a system that would be rpm activated ( can roughly do this with maF signal) and not injecting during deceleration.
4- you will loose power--about 10hp at least.

1. No clue, not there yet. I'm just happy if some is going into each rotor.
2.Steam can really be a problem. Do a google search on "steam oil" and you will see why. I'm just expecting that in small amounts it will be ok.
3. Working on it. See below.
4. Have not felt any decrease in hp at low water injection rates.


Today I used my new low profile jack (my wife loves me!) and made some changes to my system. My injection is now going into the maintenance ports. There is now a metered air vacuum break line to prevent vacuum drag. I powered up my proportional controller (linked to MAF) and pump to supply since I had eliminated vacuum drag and this would allow me to turn on and off injection as well as control rates.

The results were bad. With the previous setup although I could not start or stop injection it was limited by intake vacuum. My little 1gph nozzle was putting out about .4gph max. This had little effect on vacuum (however it did increase) and a dramatic indicated improvement in fuel economy. I was indicating 31-35mpg, which I thought was way too high to be real, and was probably due to skewing the MAF (see below) as it was hooked up in a weird configuration to give me the option of starting the pump. Today I was using a pump to supply pressure, and with no recirculation as soon as the controler started the pump at lowest power I'm pretty sure it went right to the cutoff switch. That put greater than 1gph at 150 psi. I drove 50 miles back and forth on a 10 mile stretch of flat road with no stops. Water injection was on for the majority of the time, although I did have it off for about 10 miles as I tried to find differences in engine behavior.

Indicate MPG was around 28. Actual MPG is 18. This is around my normal MPG. Much of this difference can be attributed to the MAF value being skewed by the water injection controller. I noticed this because every time I stopped water injection I pulled power to the controller and it changed my MAF reading. Devils Own claims their design minimizes this. I guess what they mean is that it doesn't cause a CEL. Another possibility is that the controller was skewing MAF voltage while it was without power. Perhaps more investigation is worthwhile.

There was no difference major difference in engine power or AVG MPG indicated with water injection on or off. There was however a noticeable change in vacuum. With water injection on I was reading 16-17" Vac while driving at 65mph. Normally I get about 18", my previous steam injection test was giving me 18-19". This was even more apparent when I pulled into the service station and was only getting about 19" vac idle and the engine was putting and steaming out the tailpipe. After a couple minutes it went back to 24" and the engine was dried out. This is not a situation I intend to repeat, as the drop in vacuum was probably due to inadequate lubrication.

This shows that 1gph is way too much. The limiting factor is probably the amount of contact between the copper tubing and the exhaust manifold as well as the short length of the copper tubing. However since it was a big pain in the butt to make the steam generator and I don't want to drag around 15 gal of water in my trunk I'm going to leave that part of the design as is.

Next step is to try it again with a lower water flow-rate. Since vacuum drag worked so well initially I'm going to revert back to that and break vacuum manually until I have a solenoid.

longpath 12-25-2011 08:32 PM

Did your original vacuum powered steam injection prototype impact idle speed or vacuum at idle?

olddragger 12-25-2011 08:40 PM

1 gallon per hour may be too much. At wide open throttle on the race track with just a 60 cc nozzle i will use about 1/2 gallon in 30 minutes.
that is at a much higher average rpm rate than you are probably doing.
I dont understand the way you have your lines hooked up. Where is the water being injected.

Harlan 12-25-2011 09:00 PM


Originally Posted by longpath (Post 4151115)
Did your original vacuum powered steam injection prototype impact idle speed or vacuum at idle?

It raised vacuum slightly, but that is most attributed to the lowered coolant temperatures with steam injection. There was no noticeable change in idle speed or smoothness.


Originally Posted by olddragger (Post 4151118)
I dont understand the way you have your lines hooked up. Where is the water being injected.

The rubber hose and brass fitting on the end is the water injector. It's a 1gph misting nozzle acting as an orifice only. It then goes through a rubber hose which connects to a brass Tee. The Tee ties in with pre throttle intake air then goes into a stainless line which goes to the copper steam generator under the car. After the steam generator it goes into another rubber hose which Tees into the lower intake maintenance ports. The abortion on my accordion tube is simply where I routed in this system plus the Oil sump breather which was originally to the maintenance ports. Waiting on a catch can to make this look slightly better.

olddragger 12-26-2011 12:48 PM

Oh ok--so the jet air tubes are now the steam pipes?
That may be part of the difficulty you are seeing. If you are using engine vacuum to pull the steam in---then it is not metered by the maf. I dont understand it any other way? If it is vacuum after the maf then there is a delay between it being read and it entering the CC?
What are your a/f's? Are they steady?

Harlan 12-26-2011 05:21 PM

There is no unmetered air. I'm taking pre throttle intake air (after the MAF) and routing it to the lower intake manifold maintenance ports.

longpath 12-27-2011 10:06 AM


Originally Posted by Harlan (Post 4151123)
It raised vacuum slightly, but that is most attributed to the lowered coolant temperatures with steam injection. There was no noticeable change in idle speed or smoothness.

That seems consistent with observations visible in a Youtube video where moist steam was being used on a SAAB:

If I correctly understand the relevant factors, they seem to be:
  1. Steam is used as a fluidic heat exchanger to improve vaporization of fuel, explaining the mild increase in vacuum at idle
  2. The steam needs to be moist, not dry, so that the additional heat does not result in preignition at higher throttle levels
  3. The steam helps to improve the atomization of the intermixed liquid water, producing an effect analogous to a pneumatic water injection system

Is that about right? What ambient temperatures are you seeing in your area as you do your testing? What is the steam temperature, either as it exits the heat exchanger or as it enters the manifold?

HiFlite999 12-27-2011 11:35 AM


Originally Posted by Harlan (Post 4150820)
Since the components of gas boil at 90-450F the objective shouldn't be to vaporize all the fuel, but instead to get enough to vaporize to spread the rest into a fine mist which can fully vaporize late in combustion instead of in the catalytic. That in itself should increase fuel economy, but would lead to hotter combustion temps (as you have less fuel to boil and remove heat during combustion) less margin to detonation and burn your side seals/springs to slag. If you heat the fuel you must also remove the heat the fuel would have removed. This is why running lean mixtures produces so much heat! All the fuel is burning, none of it is simply boiling without burning.

While experimentation can be fun, I'm not at all following the logic used.

1) Vaporizing in the cat? Raw fuel there = burned up cat.

2) What is the evidence any raw fuel at all boils without burning in a modern engine, (at least in steady-state cruise)? NOx limits may require lowered combustion temps which in turn require running a bit rich which then requires the cat to work harder removing unburned hydrocarbons. Increasing combustion temps will indeed increase efficiency, but produce too much NO2. You'll get the same effect by leaning the a/f.

3) Leaner is not always hotter. There is a peak in the power output as the mixture is varied from rich to lean. There is a peak in the EGT as well. The EGT peak occurs on the lean side of the power peak. Leaning further from the EGT peak will cause temps to drop; they don't go up forever.

HiFlite999 12-27-2011 11:52 AM


Originally Posted by longpath (Post 4150960)
For what it's worth, I do know that some stationary gas turbines used in power generation use steam injection in order to inhibit production of oxides of nitrogen.

Yes, it's done for emissions, but at the expense of efficiency in that application. One can also inject liquid water into the intake, which cools that charge by evaporation, and does increase the thermodynamic efficiency slightly. (Steam injections does not).

The problem?

To quote from:

http://www.control.com/thread/1258022399

"Injecting water (or steam) is not cheap, in fact, it's downright expensive.

First, there must be a source of water, and usually that water must be purchased. The water must be treated to be boiler-quality water, and that is expensive. (In my experience, the water treatment plant of a combustion turbine equipped with wet low NOx is one of the weakest links in the plant, because it's usually built on the cheap and doesn't work very well without a lot of maintenance.)

Once injected to the combustor, that treated water (either in the form of steam or water) is exhausted to atmosphere, so it's not recuperable. That means, that a constant supply of boiler-quality water must be available for injection.

Lastly, injecting diluent (water or steam) into a combustor increases the dynamic pressure oscillations in the combustor, which increases the wear on the hot gas path parts (liners; seals; transition pieces; nozzles; etc.). So, no one would choose to inject water or steam unless it were not required in order to be able to build and operate the plant.

Yes, wet low NOx injection does have a slightly positive effect on the heat rate, but that still comes at a cost; there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Whether it's the treated water, the raw water, or the hot gas path parts, the performance increase is not free."

Anyone wish to predict what RWI (Random Water Injection) will do to a rotary's already-weird combustion dynamics?

:scratchhe

nycgps 12-27-2011 12:18 PM

I know what you are trying to do, but really this is something totally not practical for 99.999% of the owners, and 100% not practical for OEM ...

bse50 12-27-2011 12:27 PM


Originally Posted by nycgps (Post 4151832)
I know what you are trying to do, but really this is something totally not practical for 99.999% of the owners, and 100% not practical for OEM ...

...and 100% not practical even for the sake of wasting less gas. It's actually detrimental.

TeamRX8 12-27-2011 02:49 PM

1 Attachment(s)

Originally Posted by Harlan (Post 4151065)
My CAT pissed me off and is now an empty shell. It wasn't related to my experiment.

it's obvious where this thread is going :eyetwitch

shadycrew31 12-27-2011 02:58 PM

Ha I think this is a cool little project.

Update us in a few months and let us know how shes running.

WTBRotary! 12-27-2011 04:09 PM

agreed... Even though it may not be practical Im still following...

shadycrew31 12-27-2011 04:24 PM

The rotary isn't practical, yet we all own one hahaha.

longpath 12-27-2011 05:21 PM

I'm curious how this compares to pneumatic water injection systems, particularly in conjunction with forced induction. If it improves idle conditions too, that would be a lovely side-efect.

longpath 12-27-2011 05:34 PM


Originally Posted by shadycrew31 (Post 4151991)
The rotary isn't practical, yet we all own one hahaha.

Brilliant point!

WTBRotary! 12-27-2011 06:43 PM


Originally Posted by shadycrew31 (Post 4151991)
The rotary isn't practical, yet we all own one hahaha.

I disagree... In its current form the rotary isnt practical (burns oil, shit mpg) but its more simplistic and produces a ton of hp for its size and weight than say a conventional piston engine. Mazda just hasnt done a complete perfect job on the reliability part, and in this currently world, if your car isnt completely user friendly and maintanence free (Basically a Toyota Camry) it gets deemed a poor car. If the rotary were electric or hell even gas, was spinning at a constant speed would be much more practical and reliable than an conventional piston engine.

shadycrew31 12-27-2011 06:48 PM

Yes communism on paper makes sense too, China has been working on that for a minute...

WTBRotary! 12-27-2011 06:49 PM

Because Capitalism has no flaws either right?

longpath 12-27-2011 08:42 PM


Originally Posted by shadycrew31 (Post 4152068)
Yes communism on paper makes sense too, China has been working on that for a minute...


Originally Posted by WTBRotary! (Post 4152070)
Because Capitalism has no flaws either right?

If you two would like to debate political systems, I'm sure there's a thread for that.

That being said, I am curious about this as I note that even Gale Banks, who makes no secret of his view that cool air makes power:
http://www.bankspower.com/techarticl...r-Equals-Power
and who noted:
Now comes the really interesting part of this article that raises all the questions. Twenty years ago, the late, great racing mechanic and inventor Henry "Smokey" Yunick left the automotive engineers shaking their heads when he invented and patented his hot vapor engine. Based on the familiar four-cycle piston engine concept, instead of cooling the intake air to improve efficiency, he used coolant heat and exhaust waste heat to significantly warm the intake air. The purpose was to fully vaporize the fuel and to make the intake air expand in the intake system to generate positive pressure, like a supercharger. A small turbocharger was used as a "mixer" and as a check valve to prevent the expanding intake air from backflowing out of the intake system. With the heated, pressurized, homogenous mixture, the engine ran at air/fuel ratios considered impossibly lean, such as 22:1, on pump gasoline. The hot vapor engine made incredible power and was highly efficient, responsive, surprisingly emissions clean, and delivered fuel economy of 45-50 MPG in a compact car, and it did it all without computers, smog pumps or catalytic converters. Although initially denounced by the automotive world as a hoax, several prominent SAE engineers later published papers validating Smokey's theories and design. It was no hoax to Smokey. He considered it his greatest achievement. However, the automotive giants had their own designs for increasing fuel economy and controlling emissions, and Smokey's simple and cost-efficient engine package was ignored. Today, Smokey's designs are buried somewhere in the U.S. Patent Office (www.uspto.gov, patent numbers: 4,503,833; 4,592,329; 4,637,365; 4,862,859) awaiting someone to take this technology to the next level. So just when you think you know the rules of how things work, somebody comes along and breaks the rules. It's only fitting that it was Smokey Yunick.
If this, or any line of experimentation finds a way to apply Smokey's methods to the wankel, then I believe that there will be little doubt of just how practical it can be.

Harlan 12-27-2011 09:44 PM

Well, I'm currently visiting my parents. Did 200 miles with vac drag steam injection. Got 19.1 mpg which is pretty good for 70-75mph. Changing the system again for the drive back. I think I almost have a handle on what flow rate I want and the parameters to monitor. I will report more when I have more info and am not typing on a cell phone.

nycgps 12-27-2011 09:54 PM


Originally Posted by Harlan (Post 4152155)
Well, I'm currently visiting my parents. Did 200 miles with vac drag steam injection. Got 19.1 mpg which is pretty good for 70-75mph. Changing the system again for the drive back. I think I almost have a handle on what flow rate I want and the parameters to monitor. I will report more when I have more info and am not typing on a cell phone.

hmm, you sure your engine is working right? cuz I had no problem getting 23+ mpg for a 70-75 mph trip ... and I did quite a few times already ... and no I don't have your "system" ... just premix ...

nycgps 12-27-2011 09:56 PM


Originally Posted by shadycrew31 (Post 4151991)
The rotary isn't practical, yet we all own one hahaha.

might not be practical running with gasoline. but it's great with hydrogen.


Originally Posted by shadycrew31 (Post 4152068)
Yes communism on paper makes sense too, China has been working on that for a minute...

not trying to get into political but ...

point is, we have how many trillions of debt again ? and we just raise it by another trillion something, and we owe who money again?

if u think China is still 100% communism then you need to stop posting and start reading ... :lol:

wrightcomputing 12-27-2011 10:10 PM

This is a great thread, well at least I really like what the OP is doing. Good luck and keep us updated.

xexok 12-28-2011 01:07 AM


Originally Posted by nycgps (Post 4152159)
hmm, you sure your engine is working right? cuz I had no problem getting 23+ mpg for a 70-75 mph trip ... and I did quite a few times already ... and no I don't have your "system" ... just premix ...

Yea on long highway trips between 75 and 85 I average 22 mpg myself, so sounds like something may be wrong there.

Harlan 12-28-2011 07:41 AM

I have never broken 20 mpg actual pump to odometer milleage. Could be driving style, the engine, the o2 sensor, the ecu. I was just stating that I got the good end of normal milleage.

HiFlite999 12-28-2011 07:51 AM

^^^ Based on the large difference seen in idle vacuum w/ and w/o water, I'd guess that this is a high-functioning, low compression engine, say 85 psi. Back in the day, we used to temporarily recover some low-compression cylinders by spraying oil in the intake. I suspect water has the same effect.

One might also note that 20 mpg @ 60 mph is 3 gph of gasoline. 1 gph of water is a lot of water by comparison.

HiFlite999 12-28-2011 08:26 AM


Originally Posted by longpath (Post 4152119)

That being said, I am curious about this as I note that even Gale Banks, who makes no secret of his view that cool air makes power:
http://www.bankspower.com/techarticl...r-Equals-Power
and who noted: <snip> If this, or any line of experimentation finds a way to apply Smokey's methods to the wankel, then I believe that there will be little doubt of just how practical it can be.

Don't confuse "more power" with "greater efficiency"; the two can be related, but often are not.

Wrt hot vapor engines, the devil's in the details:

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/e...e/viewall.html

The have been dozens, hundreds, thousands maybe, of "new" ICE engines developed that do, in some sense, better than whatever standard is in effect at that moment in time.

olddragger 12-28-2011 08:53 AM

this is interesting.
I would recommend that you have a way of checking the air fuel ratios, your short long term fuel trims and do a used oil analysis. That would be good info to document real findings.
I do agree that is a lot of water being used.
Using the vacuum to draw the steam in would mean that the higher the vacuum the more steam that is being drawn in. I would think that is just the oppisite of what you want to do?
The steam needs to be under pressure with rpm/load dependant driver?
The jet air nozzles was a good thought, but you may want to alter their angle some? Steam will flow differently than air and the jet air was designed to be efficent at below 1.2K rpm. At higher rpms it may not be as helpful?


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