Gasoline Saving Devices

Back during the oil crisis of the 70's we began seeing a lot of fuel saver devices hit the market. There was one that clipped over your gas line and through the miracle of magnetism, the fuel molecules would be aligned as they passed through the magnetic field and this would result in better engine efficiency and your vehicle would use less gasoline. This of course was a bogus claim but you can still purchase these items if you have a wish to throw away your money. After all, how much iron can your fuel contain anyway?

Then there were the ignition items you could add to your electrical system. The idea here was to give you a higher intensity spark and thereby realize a better burn for your fuel and this would create more horsepower, or better efficiency, and your engine would require less fuel. This one wasn't far off the mark but auto makers were already converting to electronic ignitions for increased efficiency and besides, these add on devices rarely delivered much more than the factory ignition systems already installed.

My favorite story from all those years ago was where the oil companies were accused of purchasing a new type of carburetor from an independent but unnamed inventor that would allow a car to get well over one hundred miles per gallon of fuel. And this story was widely believed because many people were convinced that the oil companies were voracious greedy corporations and of course they would not want such a device to get loose on the market and spoil their bottom line.

Well let us look at these claims for such a carburetor and see where it leads us. For those of you who do not know what a carburetor even is, it is simply the way fuel was metered to the cylinders on cars before the now widely used fuel injection systems. The carb sat right on the intake manifold and the engine sucked it's air through that carb and in doing so it also sucked in an amount of fuel at the same time. This fuel flowed through metering jets that let just the right amount of fuel go through. The carb also contained what are called circuits although they were not electronic. For example, the carb had an idle circuit, a float circuit, a choke circuit and so on to allow the engine to start in cold weather, to jolt the engine with a blast of gas for passing and adjustments so that it would idle well.

So a carb was a fuel management system that was mechanical for the most part and it did it's job very well. But, they were wasteful and one cannot deny that. With higher emission standards and competition from more efficient systems the carb was phased out.

Now let us use some common sense to determine if there could have been a carburetor that could have allowed a car to achieve over one hundred miles on a gallon of gas.

A cars engine runs on gasoline. A fuel expert would tell you that an ounce or a gallon of 87 octane fuel will contain x amount of energy it will release on burning. Compress that gasoline into the tiny space of a cyylinder at top dead center,mix in the correct amount of air and when detonated, you will achieve maximum energy release of that fuel. That energy will be used to drive the piston down and thus, we have created and used power. That piston is connected to some pretty heavy steel on down the line. Things like the crank shaft and the fly wheel and past that the transmission and the drive axles and everything else that goes into the workings of an automobile.

There is only so much energy available in an ounce or a gallon of gasoline. And an internal combustion engine is not an efficient engine to begin with. In short, it is going to take x amount of fuel, and using that engine, regardless of the type of carburetor used, to create x amount of energy used to power that vehicle down the road. Anything less than that amount of fuel will result in a stalled engine, low power and the inability of that engine to create the power it was designed to make. Math not being my strong point I think it is obvious what is going on here.

Or put another way, don't ask a burro to do the work of a draft horse. The burro being the wonder carb. Regardless of how the fuel is metered it is STILL going to take x amount of fuel to power that engine so it can create the power needed.

Yet another example to clarify the issue before us. How far would an Olympic long distance runner get if we shrink his heart to one third it's original size? He would be able to walk around. Slowly. And while the muscle and spirit to run and win is there, his body will never get the oxygen his body needs to endure such a run. His wonder carb cannot support the demands placed upon it.

So in order for such a carb to exist, it would have to have an engine designed around "it" that could actually run and produce work using that carb. But as we have seen, given the fuel and the maximum energy it can deliver under ideal conditions,the vehicle that we would be riding around in using that engine and carb combination would most likely be slow, vastly underpowered and rely on a good tail wind. Or maybe a sail?