|
If you do a little Googling, you should find lots of info on running gas farm tractors on fuel oil. They get set up the way Lynn described for cars in another post. This was a common practice even without a war on.
I haven't paid much attention to the practice; it might still be common today in Europe & other areas where gas is taxed very high or is hard to get.
Charlie
-------------- Original message from "Mark Steitle" <msteitle@gmail.com>: --------------
Dave,
Well, actually I've been there, done that. Not a rotary, but I have a twin cylinder 18 hp riding mower that I unknowingly refueled with a few gallons of diesel two years back. I didn't want to drain it all out, so I tried to run it. It actually ran pretty good, although it was a little down on power. I don't recall how much fuel was in the tank when I poured in the diesel, but it would start cold and would run well enough to mow the yard. The diesel would settle out during periods on non-use. When I went out to start it again, it would be a little more difficult to start than usual, and it would smoke like crazy for the first few minutes and cloud up the neighborhood (my own mosquito abatement project). I ran all the diesel out and refilled it
with auto fuel and all is back to normal now. So, I would surmise that if it would run in a piston lawnmower engine, it would probably run in a Wankel.
Mark
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 11:04 AM, David Leonard < wdleonard@gmail.com> wrote:
Ok, so who is brave enough to go out there and do it and tell us all what happens??
I might be willing to put in a couple gallons of jet-a into one of the tanks just to see what happens. I could program computer B to be more jet-a friendly. I assume that means lean and retarded timing. Anyone have any specifics? (ie. how lean should it be?)
Dave Leonard
I love that scientific talk.
Mistral is working on the JetA for fuel idea. Since in normally aspirated trim the rotary is difficult to detonate, it is insensitive to a fuels octane rating. So if it already ran on jet A and motor fuel as well, it couldn't be affected by a misfueling situation.
During W.W.II auto fuel tanks held coal oil, or kerosene. An add on little tank of gasoline was rigged up on the fire wall with some plumbing to switch between the two. The car would be started and warmed up on gasoline and then switched to coal oil for the trip to the defense plant. When the destination was in sight, the switch was made back to gasoline so the engine would start for the trip home. Even at 7:1 compression the engines would knock (detonate) and smoke, and timing changes may have been involved, but it worked.
Fuel injection with its forced atomization, would make the transition even easier.
Lynn e. Hanover
OK, here's a question out of left field. A Lancair recently went down in AZ right after being refueled. On the Lancair list, the speculation is that it was fueled with Jet-A. I was curious, if this happened to a rotary, would it run (continue to produce power) on jet-a or would the engine quit? I speculate that due to the fuel pumps continuously circulating the fuel to the fuel rails and back to the tank, it probably wouldn't even start, but if it did, would it continue to run on the mix of jet-a and mogas? I guess it depends on the ratio of mogas to jet-a. Assuming that the fuel was almost 100% jet-A, would it still run?
Ed, you've pretty much had everything happen to you that can possibly happen in an airplane, what-you-say?
Mark S.
--
David Leonard
Turbo Rotary RV-6 N4VY
http://N4VY.RotaryRoster.net
http://RotaryRoster.net
|