A Quest to Make Gasoline Out of Thin Air: Prometheus (YC W19)

Re:A Quest to Make Gasoline Out of Thin Air: Prometheus (YC ... by etaioinshrdlu on Tuesday April 30, 2019 @08:16PM (#19793324)

You might find this youtube channel interesting: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2rzsm1Qi6N1X-wuOg_p0Ng/vid...

He has run a gasoline engine on a whole slew of fuels, including some that may be surprising, such as isopropyl alcohol, various solvents, crude oil, and a 50% diesel gas mix.

Gasoline engines can also run on pure propane, but the fuel pump, tank, and some other parts do need to be replaced.

I guess the point is that gasoline engines are not in general super sensitive, while they still could be more optimized for certain fuels.

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Re:A Quest to Make Gasoline Out of Thin Air: Prometheus (YC ... by whenchamenia on Wednesday May 01, 2019 @01:45AM (#19794834)

Thats a low compression mower engine. Modern automobile engines are indeed quite sensitive to predetonation from slower ignition times offered by most alternatives without being designed for them.

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Re:A Quest to Make Gasoline Out of Thin Air: Prometheus (YC ... by dsfyu404ed on Wednesday May 01, 2019 @07:56AM (#19796247)

>Modern automobile engines are indeed quite sensitive to predetonation from slower ignition times offered by most alternatives without being designed for them.

If by "design" you mean a different cam profile to drop the dynamic compression ratio then sure.

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Re:A Quest to Make Gasoline Out of Thin Air: Prometheus (YC ... by etaioinshrdlu on Wednesday May 01, 2019 @03:28AM (#19795188)

Maybe this can be handled by adjusting valve timing in software.

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