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A comment on Smokey’s New Hot Vapourizing Engine Creates Heat in Detroit (1983).

Re:Smokey’s New Hot Vapourizing Engine Creates Heat in Detro... by pengaru on Sunday April 16, 2023 @04:17PM (#35593882)
In my gearhead days I had a dead-tree copy of Yunick's Power Secrets, and read about his adiabatic modified car engine.

My understanding at the time was that the main barrier to market was emissions related. Oxides of nitrogen in particular were far too high from the high temperatures. If you look at an emissions test summary NOx is one of the few things they actually measure.

> NOx gases are usually produced from the reaction between nitrogen and oxygen during combustion of fuels, such as hydrocarbons, in air; especially at high temperatures, such as in car engines. [0]

So I'm pretty sure the opening line "meets all emission standards without electronic equipment" from TFA is incorrect.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx

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Re:Smokey’s New Hot Vapourizing Engine Creates Heat in Detro... by vhodges on Sunday April 16, 2023 @06:40PM (#35594886)
I read the PopSci article on this way back when and always wondered what became if it, thanks!
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Re:Smokey’s New Hot Vapourizing Engine Creates Heat in Detro... by qbrass on Sunday April 16, 2023 @07:01PM (#35594995)
NOx can be reduced using non-electronic equipment. Well, you could do it in 1983, anyway.
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Re:Smokey’s New Hot Vapourizing Engine Creates Heat in Detro... by actionfromafar on Sunday April 16, 2023 @08:10PM (#35595348)
Honda had a famously complicated mechanical contraption IIRC.
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Re:Smokey’s New Hot Vapourizing Engine Creates Heat in Detro... by dredmorbius on Thursday April 20, 2023 @05:26AM (#35637890)
I'd recently learned of emissions-reduction kits fitted to diesel systems which use ammonia to reduce NOx emissions.

I believe that's Selective catalytic reduction:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_catalytic_reduction>

The process uses "diesel exhaust fluid" (not to be confused with blinker fluid), sold as "AdBlue" in Europe, possibly elsewhere:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid>

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