[Vwdiesel] Convert 1.9TD to spark?

[Harmon Seaver]

   Well, back during WWII most of Europe ran on woodgas for tractors,
cars, and trucks. And they didn't up the compression, but to get
efficiency from woodgas, it really needs a minimum of 13.5:1 plus lots
of ignition advance. A turbo does wonders on top of this. There are a
lot of people in India running converted diesel gensets on woodgas, some
commercial manufacturers of them even.
   Taking a gasoline engine and running it on woodgas, you lose 40-50%
of the rated hp. If you use a diesel converted to spark instead,
especially a turbo diesel, it's not so bad. And because of the lower
"octane" (slow burning of the CO and H in the producer gas), you can
really use the higher compression.



LBaird119 at aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 1/21/2002 4:09:02 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> hseaver at cybershamanix.com writes:
>
> >    14:1 is barely acceptable, I'd prefer 22:1 or higher. And I don't
> >  know what use the injector pockets would be.
> >
>   I find this interesting since the VW diesel is actually most efficient at
> 16:1 to 18:1 CR.  The higher ratio is for starting purposes only, really.
> They ran a lot of vehicles on woodgas during the war such as in Korea.
> If this is the type of application you're talking about.  I seriously doubt
> that they upped the CR on all those conversions.  Once you get above
> the 13:1 to 18:1 range you're fighting a lot of extra compression that robs
> you of power and efficiency.
>   Just observations and opinions formed from what little I know on that
> stuff.  I've never really seen much on those charcoal powered cars and
> trucks.


--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com