Most people have heard how to improve their vehicle's effect on the environment. Slow down. Make sure your tires are inflated. Recycle used oil. Change air filters regularly. Use bio-fuel blends. But can your standard vehicle do more?
In the case of natural gas, conversion kits are available which will allow diesel engines to run on natural gas in addition to petroleum gasoline. This allows the engine to go further on less and to burn cleaner but if needed, the engine can utilize diesel fuel. Conversion kits are also available for diesel engines to convert to biofuel. Keeping in mind that biofuels can erode pure rubber, check to be sure that your hoses and other rubber fixtures are made of a synthetic rubber or soy blend. These are not known to dissolve with biofuel use. Furthermore, after you have run your vehicle for a while on biofuel, be aware that the biofuel has been cleaning your engine of gummy residue from diesel fuel. This may take several fuel filters to remove but it will eventually quit clogging the filter because the residue will not return with bio-fuel use.
Converting your car to run biofuels or ethanol generally follow a similar pattern. There are many guides that can be purchased to explain how to do this. Often filters and special drills can make the process simpler for you. It is likely that you will need to replace the main jet, alter the idle jet and enlarge valve openings. You may also wish to convert automatic choke to manual choke.
The main jet needs to be altered to allow more air into the mixture. Ethyl alcohol actually increases efficiency with a greater air/fuel ratio. Regular gasoline, and thus normal vehicles, have a smaller hole for less air because air can decrease gasoline's efficiency. You may be able to purchase a different carburetor from your auto dealer or, if it's removable, a main jet. If you can get more than one set-up, you will be able to experiment with different air/fuel ratios and then use that set-up in your car. The hole needs to be enlarged by as much as 40 percent, and a drill bit can be used to measure and enlarge your main jet air hole.
The idle jet mixture may be enlarged by loosening and then re-securing the screw at the bottom of the carburetor shaft. This will allow for more mixture to be used when the car is in idle. Likewise the power valve opening and the accelerator pump opening may need to be increased by 25 percent. For maximum benefit, you may want to convert the choke from automatic to manual.
Most recently, converting an engine to hydrogen has become a possibility. Several websites speak to this. The conversion of a regular engine is possible but requires technical know-how and specialist blueprints.
Jason Grace
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany
