View Single Post
  #10 (permalink)  
Old 02-22-2008, 04:25 AM
Bruce Johnston Bruce Johnston is offline
Enthusiast
 
Real Name: Bruce Johnstone
Posts: 1
Default Re: PICCTV.com - anyone seen this snake oil yet?

There is some merit to pre conditioning fuel in order to obtain more efficient fuel use and better gas mileage. I am willing to bet that this is not one of them.

Basically as I understand it, only about seventy percent of the air gas mixture introduced to the combustion chamber actually burns there. Gasoline only burns as a vapor and even the best fuel injection and induction systems cannot fully vaporize the fuel-gas mixture. The remaining unburned hydrocarbons are burned off after leaving the engine by the emission control systems.
Of the seventy percent of fuel actually burned in the power cycle, only about thirty percent of this is utilized for motion, the remaining being taken away in the form of heat.
This equates to the very poor efficiency of todays internal combustion engines and there is plenty of room for gains here.

The greatest potential of a pre combustion conditioner for gasoline would be to achieve a full hundred percent of combustable fuel charge, which in thoery could improve fuel mileage thirty percent. I doubt PICCTV achieves even this and making claims of such greater gains baised on pre conditioning is utter hog wash.

One of the old race pioneers, Smokey Yunick actually built an incredible hot vapor engine where he used part of the wasted combustion heat to pre vaporize the fuel mixture. this process not only put the fuel vapor in a fully vaporized and combustable state, it created a natural forced induction due to the thermal expansion of the gascious mixture.
The result which was well documented, was a substantial gain in both fuel mileage and horsepower.
If memory serves me well, there was an increase of fourty percent mileage, and a near doubling of horsepower due to the higher density and combustibility of the fuel mixture in the cylinders.

There will come a day where the auto engineers have devised a more efficient way of burning fuel which is practical for the mass market, and there have been great gains in this regard.
As for PICCTV,
Don't waste your money.

Bruce.
Reply With Quote