[Gasification] Air/gas ratios (was fireballs)

[Doug Williams]

Hi Andrew,

You compare:

> OK but if you ran the same engine on natural gas and then made that
> mixture wrong by a similar ratio how would it fair?

Natural gas and LPG are much the same, and can handle a wider gas/air ratio, 
than producer gas. It has to be said however, that all fuels have their 
prefered optimum sweet spot.

>I run a vehicle on lpg and I don't get second chances if I foul up starting 
>that (truth be known if I have a hot stall I inevitably have to revert to 
>petrol
> to get it running), I know the mixtures not quite right for hot
> starting but it's the best I've been able to get.

When I had my LPG system installed, it had a gas shot for starting (like a 
choke reaction) but although it was set up "correctly" according to the 
experts,
the power was way off when hot. The trouble turned out to be the hot water 
supply to the vapouriser, making the gas to hot, so I just put a squeeze on 
the hose to slow the amount of heating to the vapourizer. Believe it or not, 
the same thing happens to engines on producer gas when you heat up the gas, 
so the engine can get rid of the condensate from the cooling gas. Check your 
hose configerations as a first step, you might be in the same circuit as the 
car heater.
Regards,
Doug Williams.