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What Can I Do To My Engine To Improve Gas Mileage ? Some Tips.

By Bill Williams

Introduction

With the relentless climb in oil prices, many motorists are feeling the pinch and a lot are looking at their vehicles with the unspoken question, what can I do to my engine to improve gas mileage?. Well there are four things that you can do to an engine to improve it's gas mileage and they range from simple service tips to full blown engine conversion kits.

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Basic Engine Servicing

Well the first thing to do in response to the question, what can I do to my engine to improve gas mileage, is to look into your car's maintenance or service plan. Cars run smoother and quietly after an oil change. In fact you get better gas mileage with clean oil than dirty oil. Speaking about oil you get better performance with synthetic oil rather than mineral oil. Remember to change the oil filter between changes. Also regularly check your engine's oil level and keep it topped up between changes.

The air required to burn gasoline in your car has to be sucked through an air filter. A clean filter improves this process makes it easier for your car to breathe and this results in good gas mileage. A further maintenance tip in answer to the question what can I do to my engine to improve gas mileage, is to schedule regular full egine tune up which will ensure that your engine's performance is always optimum.

If you can afford it, use the best spark plugs recommended for your car as the type of spark generated affects the amount of fuel that is effectively burnt which in turn affects the power output and ultimately your gas mileage. Replace your spark plug wires as required. A simple test is to open the hood of your car in the dark and start the engine. if you see any sparking from the plug wires they will need replacing.



Hydrogen Conversion Kits

If you have tranche of money lying around, then one possible answer to; what can I do to my engine to improve gas mileage is to do a serious makeover of your engine using a hydrogen conversion kit. These kits allow a normal car to burn hydrogen as best espoused by the BMW 750HL.

Currently there are two kits available and provide different implementations. The first of the two, which is readily available is form Cyclone and this works by augmenting the normal petroleum/diesel with a stream of hydrogen. The company has twelve gas stations in southern California.The hydrogen gas is stored in sophisticated carbon composites. The hydrogen improves efficiency by reducing unburned gasoline/diesel.

The second of the kits comes from United Technologies and it doesn't store the hydrogen under pressure but in special Nitride tanks that bond the hydrogen to chemical nitrides so the tanks can be extremely lightweight and compact. It is unfortunately restricted to cars with compression ratios of less than 9:5 and also the electrics need a major adaptation because it burns pure hydrogen. Good news is you do not need a specialist hydrogen dispensing filling station as the kit includes a hydrogen generator.

 


LPG Conversion

If you have got this far and are still asking the question, what can I do to my engine to improve gas mileage, then you might consider some old and proven technology and convert your engine to run on LPG. There are two solutions which can be dopted namely open loop or closed loop.

For an open loop system a restricter valve, which is employed to tune the system. By adjusting the valve, the vacuum the vaporiser experiences can be varied and so can control how much gas can join the airflow and as such keeps the engine in tune. Unfortunately, the valve diaphragm beds in over time and so the tuning gradually drifts out. Another disadvantage is that the response of the valve is fairly course and it's not always possible to tune the system such that the optimum gas mixture is presented to the engine under all loading and operating conditions. Although the open loop systems do work, they cannot provide the best economy or performance and also need relatively regular re-tuning.

The other kind of installation is the closed loop system which is generally more expensive and sophisticated when compares to the open loop system described. The restricter valve which controls the gas air mixture into the engine is controlled continuously using an electric motor. This motor is controlled dynamically using an electronic management system. The system uses the signal from an oxygen sensor in the exhaust of the car to provide the input to the electronic management system. This system controls how much vacuum the vaporiser is subjected to and as such how much gas to the vaporiser is allowed to join the airflow. Since closed loop systems are constantly self tuning they always give much superior economy and performance when compared to open loop systems. If you have a diesel engine, at this juncture you may ge thinking that the information presented so far is great for petrol heads but what can I do to my engine to improve my gas mileage.

Unlike petrol conversions which burn either petrol or LPG, diesel conversions employ LPG as a catalyst to improve the combustion of the diesel engine. The addition of LPG/Propane to the diesel fuel results in burning almost 100% of diesel fuel up from the usual 75% to 80% of fuel burnt in an unmodified diesel engine. This results in a dramatic increase in fuel economy, torque and horsepower. An additional advantage is that because the LPG/Propane burns cooler and cleaner than diesel, your engine in turn run cooler, smoother, cleaner, be more responsive and last longer.

 

Hydrogen Hybrid Conversion Kits

If having got this far you are wondering what other changes can I make to my engine to improve my gas mileage, well you might consider installing a hybrid hydrogen kit. The major benefit of these kits is that they are easy to install and are relatively low cost. The most popular hybrid hydrogen kits rely on a process called electrolysis to extract hydrogen gas from water.

Essentially electrolysis involves passing an electric current through water and employs a catalyst to assist the extraction of hydrogen. Actually the process extracts what is commonly called Brown's gas or Oxy Hydrogen. A Brown Gas molecule comprises of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule, sometimes referred to as HHO where the H signifies a Hydrogen molecule and O signifies an Oxygen molecule.

The Brown gas is fed into the intake of the engine and the Hydrogen component acts as both a catalyst and also as a fuel to improve the efficiency of the combustion process. The oxygen component provides for a more conducive combustion environment resulting in more power for the same fuel consumption.

These hybrid kits are suitable for both petrol and diesel engines which benefit even more since they are not very efficient in buring fuel and the Brown gas acan increase the combustion process by up to 25 percent with a corresponding reduction in emissions.

 

Summary

To surmarise the possible solions to the question, what can I do to my engine to improve gas mileage. Ensure that you regularly monitor your engine’s air filter. You can increase your gas mileage by up to 10 percent merely by changing a clogged air filter.If you can afford it use synthetic oils as contain friction reduction additives. Also, ensure that your car's engine is regularly tuned. You may also consider converting your car to burn hydrogen. An alternative to converting to hydrogen is to consider an LPG conversion, which is a proven technology. Finally as a low cost risk option you may opt for a Brown gas conversion which can be easily installed or removed as desired.

 

What Can I Do To My Engine To Improve Gas Mileage? Off-Site Resources

If you found the information presented in this article useful you may be interested in finding out more in detail, particularly on how to increase your gas mileage by adapting your car or truck, running either gasoline or diesel,  to run as a  hydrogen-hybrid vehicle by following this link

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