If you try this, you do it at your own risk!

It’s common knowledge that running an engine lean burns the valves but, why is this? To understand the science here let’s start with the common air to fuel ratio: 14.7 to 1. Now this would be wonderful if it actually worked this way. CO2 and H2O are quite beneficial to plants and hardly noticeable in air. CO2 constitutes 0.004% and H2O is at 4ish % (location of streams and ponds can change H2O vapor in an area a lot) of the Earth’s air mixture.

Now, the real story! Exhaust is CO, HCx, NOx, CO2, SO2, and H2O. Why do cars produce all these extra toxic emissions if we did our stoichiometry right? Well, let’s look at an engine. The intake stroke pulls our fuel and air into the cylinder. Then we compress the mixture while igniting it. The burning mixture burns down the cylinder’s power stroke. We finish with the exhaust stroke venting the cylinder of spent exhaust.

Let’s have a look inside a running 4 stroke engine. We can see the liquid fuel in the cylinder. We also see that the cylinder runs out of oxygen before all the fuel is spent. It’s interesting how much liquid fuel can be in a cylinder and still run. And even fuel held in vapor like this “acetylene demonstration shows”. Excessive vapor fuel leaves fine carbon partials, soot, demonstrating a lack of oxygen in the cylinder’s burn.

From our look into a running engine we learned why an engine produces more than just CO2 and H2O. A fuel in a liquid form requires time and energy to vaporize before it can burn. This extra burn time and the heat it causes produces additional NOx and SO2 (from the potential sulfur in the fuel) over the amount generated by the spark plug. That just leaves the CO and HCx which is left from the lack of oxygen in the cylinder.

So, is there a way to get closer to just CO2 and H2O as exhaust? Well, Yes there is. We put more air in the cylinder, a lot more air. We vaporize the gasoline and mix it with air before we send it to the engine. Then we retard the timing past top center. We do this to cushion the concussive force of the bigger explosion in the engine. The fuel and air entering the cylinder should be dry and very explosive. It doesn’t need or use a lot of heat to prepare a little vapor from the liquid injected. It isn’t forced back into a liquid during the compression stroke. Engines are actually air pumps that use fuel vapor for heat.

I only saw one flaw in this last example. He didn’t retard the timing. As a result the engine had to overcome the advanced timing. This was done by needing a rich fuel vapor to maintain the flame up and over top center. This “rich mixture” reduced the potential power and fuel efficiency of the engine. This example also showed the junk left over after the “white gasoline” is removed from the additives and water from the pump.

Gasoline vapor is extremely flammable when mixed with air. It requires a 200 mesh stainless steel screen to stop a flash fire in case of back fire. All of this boils down to two ways to design a fuel mixture. You can use lots of wet gas and regulate the air like the convention. Or, you can fix the “air/fuel-vapor” ratio and use the mixture to regulate the engine.

The benefits of burning vapor:

• better gas mileage, much better... no matter the size or shape of the vehicle

• oil isn’t as polluted by blow-by and lasts longer

• engine runs cooler reducing NOx and SO2 emissions

• engine runs more efficiently reducing CO and HCx emissions

• cars such equipped need no catalytic converters unless you need ice (CO2 and H2O under pressure as in a Cat freezes making ice).

• The ability to make enough white gasoline from yard at home waste is doable

However, there is a point between “lean wet fuel” and “rich vapor fuel” where gasoline is extremely hot. It’s in this range valves get burnt.