Hey guys, I stubled across this forum, I live in Nebraska, USA and I drive my fuel injected truck on wood..... No Joke.




I get around 4KM per KG of wood. The combustible part of woodgas is hydrogen and a few other minor gases. It burns very clean and is the only fuel that can claim a negative carbon emission. The slip char and ash is used to enrich the garden soil, technically carbon sequestration.

Woodgas is a low energy fuel and I am looking to supplement some gasoline during acceleration. I have purchased EEC reprogramming chip and necessary hardware; it can hold two data banks one for running on just gasoline and one reprogrammed to run on woodgas. I will be remapping the fuel injectors to allow small amount of gasoline to be metered in for acceleration and stop and go driving. Woodgas does pretty good once you get up to speed but it takes a bit to get their on just wood.

If anyone has any skills in building defintion files for a speed density EEC let me know
Jonathan Spreadborough
Martel, NE USA

thats kinda cool and fucnky

any more info/pics on how the setup works?

Woodgas is made by combusting wood in a controled o2 envioment. The system is completely run by engine vacuum. I use a suction blower to start the gasifer, once the wood is burning corectly (3-4 min cold start 1-2 min warm start) I remove the fan and open the gate to run the woodgas into my intake aircleaner (after filtration and cooling). I simply shut off the electric fuel pump once the woodgas reaches the engine and the motor runs rich.

I use a choke cable to control the fresh air, since the woodgas is run on suction. This allow me to restrict the fresh air to richen the mix as needed but often it run at all rpms preety close to the same setting.



This is a photo of my woodgas cooler. My bumper is on the ground I had a small suction leak behind it and had to remove the bumper to find it.

you can find all the info you want on woodgas at the yahoo group woodgas. Or just google it.

now thats thinking outside the box!!

very cool idea

very outside teh box!

an custome intercooler may provide better cooling and looks thatn your DIY job

but damn good s**t!

Not exactly worried about the "looks", LOL. Heck it is basicly free fuel.

An intercooler should work, but the fin tube was free for the hauling. It has a ton of surface area and was used in an old school house for a steam heat exchange system.

If a person is conserend about looks, I have seen some nice units built on a trailer bed with the cooling completely intergrated into the side rails of the trailer.

Thats back to the future looking stuff right there lol.

Congrats on thinking outside the square.

I recieved my definiton file for my EEC today. Paul Booth wrote me a defintion file for my speed density computer. That Guy rocks.....

I have spent a fair amount of time messing with my trucks EEC, my truck now runs very well in a hybrid mode. I reprogamed the fuel injection tables to meter in gasoline in a hybrid mode. This allows for better acceleration. I use an air/fuel ratio meter to adjust the woodgas choke to achive the proper mix of gasoline/woodgas/air. I am estimating my miles per gallon at around 85, in hybrid mode. But the reality is, I actualy achive much higher MPG because I rarly run in hybrid 100% of the time. When I reach my crusing speed, I close the woodgas choke more and turn off the fuel injectors. Woodgas holds my the reached speed pretty well.

Jonathan

haha thats cool as man

how did u go about turning off the injectors?

Actualy that was the easy part. I just shut the power off to the electric fuel pump using a togle switch on the dash. I also wired a molmentarty switch to my stick gear shift so I can click them on at any molment. Works pretty sweet.

They disable the fuel pump on my truck this way when they do a propane/gasoline dual fuel set up.

Jonathan

How is the price of gasoline (petrol) on your side of the pond

Our unleaded is about $1.45/ltr, premium unleaded fuels are about $1.58 per Litre (not gallons, otherwise quite cheap lol) and diesel is about $1.60/ltr in Brisbane, Queensland.

Did you have any problem with getting your truck registered. I know if someone did that in Australia, the goverment would be quick to shut it down "dangerous fuels" or something like that. (They don't get the tax from the fuel so they would think of something to defect the vechicle)

BUT, Congrats on the woodgas system!!!

A little more expensive than here $3.45 a gallon ($0.91 a liter)




Woodgas isn't a dangerous fuel they would have a difficult time establishing that. The precedent for woodgas as an alternative fuel was set during WWII. In fact even in a wreck woodgas is far safer than a gasoline tank or a compressed flammable gas. I don't think many governments want to be on the side of opposing green alternative fuels either.

Actually each state has it own laws regarding fuel tax and how it is collected. In my state as long as the vehicle is not solely powered by a non-taxed fuel a separate registration is not required. I am not opposed to paying my fair share of taxes on fuel. So if and when they decide to change the laws in my state I would be happy to comply, but honestly so few people are running on wood it would not be worth the legislature’s time to pass a law for the only guy in the state running on wood.

Indecently Australia has several woodgas people; I have read several articles about them. One couple made a trip all the way across Australia on wood in their motor home. I will see if I can find their webpage again sometime. I also have a member of my woodgas group that is working on a woodgas rig in Australia right now; he is dealing with the registration problem right now. They have provided him with a way to begin the process of registering the vehicle




Thanks

You should start up a woodgas conversion business

Thanks for the info, and I wish the guy in Australia good luck with his woodgas system.

here is the link to the couple who drove across the outback on wood

http://highforest.tripod.com/woodgas/woodfired.html

jonathan