Vital key to 100mpg super carbs!
John Bruce McBurney
Reprinted from: Exotic Research Report (Volume 3, Issue 2; Apr/May/Jun 1999)
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In search of 100 mpg...
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I read a book called The Secret of the 200 M.P.G.
Carburetor by Allan Wallace. It explained a
simple vaporizing carburetor system and discussed
several of the systems from the past. I wanted to see
for myself and set out to build my own system.
First I built a gasoline heater, then a hot water
vaporizer, then an electrical system for heat control,
with a dual disk butterfly mixing control with which I
could vary the air/fuel ratio from 10-1 to 1000-1.
Finally, in a text book while trying to find the
boiling temperature of gasoline, I discovered the
principles of Thermal Catalytic Cracking
(TCC).
I learned that the oil refiners take the heavy oil
leftovers and heat them above 747°F with water or
hydrogen and break them down to smaller more usable
molecules. The idea hit, the system had to lower the
boiling point to make a difference with vapor because of
the principles of refrigeration and compression—that is
to turn vapor back to liquid. Natural gas will stay as a
vapor under our engine compression. It struck me that
this really could cause such a drastic mileage
increase.
I took all I had learned and designed and built a system
on my 1976 360ci. Dodge Maxi-van. It had a large
catalytic chamber heated by the exhaust and electric
elements powered by additional alternators capable of
reaching this 747° and beyond. I air pressure tested it
at 100 lb. at 900°. I also developed different systems
to feed heated gasoline, air and steam. It was very
difficult to get ratio pressures and temperatures
stable. It was difficult to keep it balanced to run. The
best I ever got was 72 mpg for about a 5 mile run as
measured by my mileage computer.
Bruce took all he had learned and designed and built
a system on his 1976 360 c.i. Dodge Maxi-van which
has turned into a full-time billboard promoting high
mileage technology as well as clean air.
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I knew I was on the right track, but I also needed to
computerize the whole system including the two fuel
injectors, steam injector and the temperature, natural
gas and oxygen sensors. All this would cost big bucks to
do effectively... and I needed clean, additive free
gasoline.
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Understanding Reactions
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After researching and experimenting with the idea of
using vaporizing carburetors (they boil the fuel by
heating it) to obtain fantastic mileage improvements, I
came to understand the secret of cracking the gasoline
down into smaller hydrocarbons—and why it really could
yield unbelievable gains.
Our engines burn fuel in a cylinder that generates heat
that exerts pressure on a piston, which is connected to
a crankshaft that rotates to produce motion power. The
type of fuel used dictates the amount of propulsion
(useful energy) and heat (wasted energy) generated. A
fuel that explodes generates more propulsion and less
heat than a fuel that burns. Describing the two basic
types of fuels used in bombs, percussion and incendiary,
will help explain this concept.
A percussion explosion will destroy a
brick building but
not generate much heat or fire. An example is
nitroglycerin, used to extinguish oil fires. The
dynamics of the explosion chase the flame front, or heat
of the combustion, far enough away from the oil without
generating more heat. This uses the oxygen completely
and pushes the heat away so that the oil doesn’t
re-ignite. Percussion explosives have a singular
specific boiling point, and the molecular structure of
each molecule is identical causing the fuel to react
together and immediately.
Engine view of the system on Bruce's 1976 360 c.i.
Dodge Maxi-van. It has a large catalytic chamber
heated by the exhaust and electric elements powered
by additional alternators capable of reaching 747°
and beyond. It has been air pressure tested it at
100 lb. at 900 degrees. The best he ever got was
72mpg for about a 5 mile run.
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This is the type of reaction used in any supercarb
process. It causes the dynamic motion action which
generates greater pressure with much less fuel and
generates much less wasted heat. It has been noticed
that these systems ran much cooler even to the extent
that a man named Pogue ran a car with no radiator system
for an extended time with no engine damage using his
system.
Incendiary fuels burn and generate heat
slowly causing a building to catch fire and burn. The
flame front is slower, and doesn’t cause the dynamic
explosion of a percussion fuel. Incendiary fuels are
made up of molecules of many different sizes having a
wide range of boiling points and a greater variance in
molecular structure. These react slower in burning in
progression as they reach different boiling points. Only
vapor burns. Any liquid must become vapor before it
burns.
This is the process used in today’s cars. It causes more
heat to be generated and not as much pressure for
dynamic motion. This requires more fuel to achieve the
motion produced. Today’s gasoline has a boiling point
ranging from 130° to 430° F or 54° to 221° C. When
ignition occurs, the lowest boiling temperature fuel
burns first and the heat from it is used to boil the
next higher boiling temperature fuels. So that they can
burn the up the levels of the fuel to push the piston
down then when the exhaust valve opens and the fuel
continues burning in the exhaust system.
When applying this understanding to any of the many
supercarb systems over the years, there were two
basic ways that achieved the percussion type reaction
to power the engine more efficiently. Both basically
vaporize the fuel.
The first and easiest is fractionalization which
distills the fuel and burns each level of it
simultaneously because each level will consist of
similarly sized molecules. Vapor systems that
recirculated fuel work on this principle. The problem
here is that the fuel that boils over 350°F is left
unused in the tank. If it is a water heated system then
more fuel will be left depending on the vacuum and the
highest temperature of their unit. Thermal Catalytic
Cracking (TCC) is the other method and is the more
efficient of the two.
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Thermal Catalytic Cracking
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TCC causes the molecular structure of the entire fuel to
be changed by breaking the larger multiple carbon
molecules into much smaller singular carbon molecules.
The entire fuel is then made up of similar small
molecules. You get methane and methanol and all the
molecules now have comparable and much lower boiling
points. When it ignites, it burns completely and
instantaneously and the energy is transformed more
efficiently with a smaller charge.
This cracking action uses all the fuel instead of
leaving leftover high boiling point fuel that normally
burns in the exhaust pipe or is reburnt in regular
exhaust catalytic converters if enough oxygen is
present. If not it just goes out unburned to pollute our
air. The car companies' converter does help for reducing
pollution some, but the energy is wasted heat and isn’t
moving you down the road.
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Super Carb vs Natural Gas
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What is basically happening with any successful
supercarb system is that the fuel is being converted
completely into vaporous natural gas and methanol before
getting detonated in the engine. There is a distinct
advantage to this, over the standard system used in
today’s natural gas powered vehicles. That system
pre-stores the natural gas in very high pressure tanks
that could cause very large explosions when
ruptured.
Also a natural gas system can not recover waste heat as
much in that TCC is an endothermic reaction. This
reaction can take waste heat energy and change it back
to chemical energy, specifically, the molecular weight
of the water into hydrogen and alcohol as fuel. Also a
water injection system is used to quench the explosion
and the pressure expansion characteristics of steam help
to keep the engine running even cooler and more
efficiently.
Some previous attempts to produce high efficiency
carburetors used one or both of these processes, but
usually did not run very long. It was not realized by
the builders of these vaporizing systems that the metal
of the vapor chamber itself was acting as a catalyst.
These systems soon lost efficiency because additives in
gasoline coat the metal of the vapor chamber and prevent
the catalytic action from taking place. Since previous
inventors didn’t realize what was actually taking place,
they were continually mystified by their system’s
apparent failure after a certain amount of running
time.
Others have been aware of intricacies of the system for
a good many years but for various reasons have kept
quiet about what they know. It is interesting to note
that lead was not added to gasoline until the time of
the Pogue carburetor in the 1930’s. Also, understand
that to eliminate the ping or knock in an engine you
eliminate the larger, high boiling point hydrocarbon
fuels, the diesel end.
Ping or knock is caused because under compression, the
larger molecules are forced too close to oxygen causing
spontaneous ignition, burning before the top dead center
and spark plug firing timing. The smaller the molecule
the greater the octane rating. The high test fuels just
have more of the fuel that boils at a lower temperature
and a lower top boiling point... 380° instead of 430°
for regular fuel. Natural gas has an octane rating of
about 120. This means you can run a higher
compression.
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In the Public Domain...
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Now let me give you the short run of the years of
frustration I went through with our patent office. The
following patent is classed as public domain, because
just at the time I was publishing my book and filing my
patent, the laws were changed. The Patent Office put me
on hold due to some regulation and by the time it was
looked after, it was just too late.
I did know the laws and had done as I was supposed to,
but the law was changed and that was that. I appealed
twice and my only option was the Supreme Court and that
costs mega bucks. I couldn't afford to chase anymore and
did not think they would ever patent it anyway.
What follows now is a more specific description of the
process taken straight from my patent application,
complete with diagrams. Included is an explanation of my
original innovation of a replaceable catalyst container
with increased catalyst surface area. This was filed
November 3, 1989.
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Patent Abstract
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In the conventional carburetor process in the internal
combustion engine, a mixture of air and fine gasoline
droplets are produced for combustion. In this invention
the gasoline is catalytically converted to small
molecular, light hydrocarbons, methane and methanol
which are then mixed with air for combustion. The new
carburetion process improves internal combustion engine
efficiency and greatly reduces atmospheric
pollution.
This invention relates to a carburetion process for the
internal combustion engine. In the internal combustion
engine, a mixture of air and fine gasoline droplets are
drawn into the cylinders where it is exploded to provide
propulsion power. The gasoline droplets are converted to
gasoline vapor by the explosion initiating sparks in the
cylinders. This conversion is one source of internal
combustion inefficiency. The gaseous products of the
explosion and combustion of the gasoline vapor are major
contributors to the pollution of our atmosphere.
I have found a process for, vaporizing the gasoline
droplets before they enter the cylinders of the internal
combustion engine, mixing the gasoline vapor with water
vapor, and for converting the gasoline and water vapor
mixture over a catalyst into a mixture of low molecular
weight hydrocarbons, methane, and methanol. The methane
and methanol then mix with air and this mixture of low
molecular weight hydrocarbons, methane and methanol is
then drawn into the cylinders where it is exploded to
provide motive power more efficiently. The gaseous
products of the explosions and combustion of the low
molecular weight hydrocarbons, methane, and methanol,
are minor contributors to the pollution of the
atmosphere.
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Claims
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The embodiments of the invention for which an exclusive
property or privilege is claimed, is defined as follows:
- The vaporization of gasoline droplets by waste
heat from the exhaust gasses of an engine to
increase the efficiency with which chemical
energy stored in gasoline is converted into
propulsion power.
- The catalytic conversion of a mixture of water
and gasoline vapor to small molecular weight
hydro carbons, methane and
methanol.
- The combustion in the internal combustion
engine of a mixture of air, small molecular
weight hydrocarbons, methane and methanol to
produce less pollution of the
atmosphere
- A process for generating methane and methanol
for use in an internal combustion engine
generated from gasoline and water by passing
them over a catalyst heated by exhaust gases.
- A pre-carburetion system consisting of a series
of tubing and catalyst bed heated by exhaust
gases to regain this heat energy into further
cracking of a liquid hydrocarbon and water into
a lighter more aromatic hydro carbon and
methanol.
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How it Works
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In a caveat filed, November 10, 1987, I described
the theoretical background for this invention. (A
caveat is a preliminary patent application
designed to register an idea before perfecting and
filing a completed patent application.)
This system will change the molecular structure of a
hydrocarbon, and water into a finer compound state (ie.
methane or natural gas and methanol). Using a iron
particle catalyst cartridge, vaporous gasoline and steam
will be regulated into the cartridge then flow into a
further heated coil to allow time for the hydrocarbon to
crack into a smaller molecules this finest state,
natural gas and methanol.
This will align and lower the boiling point of the fuel
for greater efficiency. Using heat from exhaust and
electric energy from auxiliary generation, the iron will
be maintained at a temperature of about 500°C.
Thermistors will monitor the temperature to input to a
computer to control electric elements on cartridge. A
catalyst cartridge will require replacement as the iron
surface is poisoned out.
Figures 1 and 2 illustrate embodiments of this
invention. Figure 1 is an elevation partly in
section of one embodiment of the process, Fgure 2
is a top view of this embodiment.
How it Works
1 Is a fuel injector that is fed by 12, which
injects gasoline droplets into a mixer block 2,
where the gasoline droplets are mixed with steam
produced in the coil 3 that is heated by hot
exhaust gases which enter the steel heater 4 at 5
and which leave heater 4 at 6. Water enters coil 3
at 3, is converted to steam in coil 3. The flow
rate of the steam is controlled by the steam
control valve 7 and the control flow of steam is
heated further and injected into and mixed with
gasoline droplets in the mixer block 2. The
mixture of steam and gasoline droplets pass into
coils 8 which are made from tubing. These coils
are also mounted in heater 4. The heated mixture
of steam and gasoline droplets become a mixture of
steam and gasoline vapor which then enters the
catalyst bed 9 which contains fine metal catalyst
shavings and which is separated from heater 4 by a
thermally conducting lubricant. The catalyst bed
is easily removable, for catalyst regeneration or
replacement at the connector blocks 11. The heated
mixture of low molecular weight hydrocarbons,
methane and methanol, which are produced in
catalyst bed 9, exit at 10 to be mixed with air
for combustion.
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The gasoline and water feed lines will be preheated by
coiling them around the exhaust pipe and insulating with
foil and fiberglass. The gasoline will be controlled by
fuel injection into a vaporizing coil maintaining a
temperature 350°C to maintain a complete vaporous state.
The steam will be passed through a liquid trap to insure
only vapor steam entering into iron catalyst
cartridge.
The main structure is cylindrical with center area
access for catalyst cartridge replacement. The cartridge
cylinder is directly exposed to electric elements and
heated surface of exhaust gases. It will be filled with
a catalytic material—a metal such as steel or iron.
Experimentation will produce a better catalyst. It will
have two fittings, one for input and one for output, and
will be baffled inside to allow greatest surface use and
time exposure. The output of the system will be
connected to a cooling coil then regulator for flow to
engine. On the outside of the exhaust heat exchanger the
coil for the gasoline vaporizer stage will be wrapped,
also the liquid trap may be mounted on the end.
When the steam and gasoline vapor enter the iron chamber
the water is broken down, the oxygen forms with the
carbon, creating methanol the hydrogen forms with
hydrocarbon, cracking it into the finer form, natural
gas.
The entire unit, except for the cartridge, should be
made of stainless steel, for safety and long life. This
system could work also with a standard carburetor or
fuel injection for the warm up cycle with an automatic
temperature sensing thermistor to automatically switch
the system to natural gas production when proper
operating temperature is obtained.
This system will work and should be more efficient than
the standard carburetor, as the reaction is endothermic.
Regaining the wasted exhaust heat energy back into the
fuel which now is natural gas and methanol that should
give a more complete burn in the cylinder for more
propulsion power. The compression ratio will be
increased and the timing changed to enhance the burn of
the new fuel for greater efficiency.
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Suppression
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Numerous times over the last sixty years, both mechanics
and inventors have either stumbled upon, or through
diligent experimentation on vapor carburetors, obtained
fantastic mileage gains. These systems used either
catalytic cracking or fractionalization. According to
the many patents and books on these, most did not
recognize that it was accomplished by more than just
vaporizing or boiling the fuel. In most every instance
sabotage or suppression has blocked the research and
development needed to get it to our market.
There are records that show the oil companies now own
many of the applicable patents. I have also found that
if the oil companies do not own the patent then TCC was
not understood by the inventor and could be easily
sabotaged by gasoline additives. Therefore they did not
have to buy the idea, they just would let the additive
poison the system leaving the inventor wondering why it
did not work any more.
For the complete history and details check out the
Super Secret Mileage Report.
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