in a carburated gas engine you would have a tube(or 2) going through the air filter directly going into the carburator from a propane tank. when the need arise and the choke is all the way open, from inside of the car, you would hit a button that releases the propane into the carb. maybe it would raise the octane.-- demononwheels, Feb 27 2006 Octane rating http://en.wikipedia.../wiki/Octane_ratingBetter than my sketchy description [spidermother, Feb 27 2006] Welcome, [demonwheels].
I don't mind Americanisms or other local variants on an international site, but it might be wise to avoid the non-technical contraction of 'gasoline' to 'gas', especially when discussing gaseous and liquid fuels.
You seem to misunderstand the concept of octane rating. It doesn't mean higher energy content.
Low octane fuels explode violently, rather than burn smoothly, when ignited at high compressions and with high loads. Propane does have a higher octane rating than some types of gasoline, so a system that changed the fuel ratio in favour of propane during high loads at low RPM might be useful.
Duel diesel-gas systems exist. Ignition is by compression of the diesel fuel, which then ignites the gas. I gather the aims of these systems are either to increase the efficiency and cleanness of diesel engines or to create gas engines that don't need electrical ignition. I am, of course, using 'gas' in the technical sense.-- spidermother, Feb 27 2006 Maybe it would work as a profane boost: "Mary, Mother of Jesus, it ##*&*(*&^ %@@## isn't working."*
* profanity rating of 91-- Ling, Feb 27 2006 If you want higher octane, why bother with propane? You can't easily make octane from propane (maybe some organic chemists out there can contradict me)Try butane, then you'd be roughly halfway there.-- coprocephalous, Feb 27 2006 Propane (104) has a higher octane rating than octane (100). Octane is just arbitrarily chosen as the benchmark and given a rating of 100 in the test conditions used to compare fuels.-- spidermother, Feb 27 2006 Can you describe the idea a bit more [demononwheels]? I mean, is this an optional injection of a high octane fuel - if so, what circumstances would you initiate the fuel injection? If the injection is automatic, what advantages does this injection give over using a normal fuel and aren't there systems that do this already?-- Jinbish, Feb 27 2006 By varying the alkane mix, you could play Knock Knock-- coprocephalous, Feb 27 2006 I think this would work, although I sense that [demonwheels] doesn't quite understand how or why.
Computer controlled ignition systems alter the timing and mix according to operating conditions - speed, temperature etc. It would be relatively easy to determine when knocking is likely and increase the knock-resistance of the mixture by introducing propane while reducing the amount of gasoline.
Converting petrol engines to run entirely on propane results in about the same power as before, so introducing extra propane is not going to increase the power in itself. But such a system would allow you to build higher-compression, and therefore more powerful, engines and run them on cheap low-octane fuel except when the higher octane is needed.
For an increase in power at the press of a button you need to add nitrous oxide or nitromethane to the mix - these increase the oxygen supply and therefore the energy density.
I'm not sure where the choke comes into this. Do you mean throttle?-- spidermother, Feb 27 2006 thanks for the crative criticism it is quite educational! the main reason for my wanting to use propane is because it comes in cheap bottles that can be thrown in the back seat if butane is found in such bottles, i dont know of those yet. the reason i used the word choke was to let the air into the carburater it has to be opened with the throttle flap and if it is closed you would have propane coming out of the airfilter in the worst case. it would work like nitrous expet cheap and getto. the advantage is just that is damn cheaper than spending a couple hundered bucks on nitous. even though it would be much better. im sure i used the word octane wrong but i meant to say the additive would mabe make a bigger explosion.-- demononwheels, Feb 27 2006 Was anyone else envisioning the rocket cabin from the Simpsons before clicking the link?-- Cuit_au_Four, Feb 27 2006 On February 6 2006, [demonwheels] obtained a user account and posted this idea.
[demononwheels] also annoed on Piezo Electric Spark Plug on that day, then never again showed a spark of interest visible on the Halfbakery.
Perhaps the propane injection experiment did not go so well.
This update has been brought to you courtesy of the [random] button.-- normzone, Mar 06 2015 random, halfbakery