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Propane Research
This is something I'm quite proud of; my research into alternative fuels.
The hydrocarbon Propane to be specific, and it's usefullness for power production.
I wanted to see if I could convert a gasoline powered engine to run off of
Propane. In search of the engine that I would convert I decided to use a retired single cylinder lawnmower
which put out somewhere around 4-5 bhp when run on gasoline. It is a four stroke design which was small
and simply constructed so it wasn't too bad to do the customizations that I needed to fuel the mower with
propane instead of gasoline.
I re-engineered the entire fuel delivery system so that the mower would operate
on the Propane that I pumped in. I built a new intake manifold from the old components and some new hardware
that I bought locally. I receive a lot of emails asking what kits are available for this kind of conversion,
I'm sorry to say that I am not aware of any such kits since all the components on my lawnmower that I customized
I fabricated myself. However I do not mean to say that such kits are not available, with the extent of the internet I have
good faith that they are available, but if you are looking to do the handi-work yourself I would be more then happy
to tell you how I built mine. My lawnmower has been running on strictly Propane since the Spring of 2003.
I conducted extensive research on the fuel/air mixture that would be necessary for the combustion
or Propane within the engine and was surprised by my findings. What I found was that the propane to air mixture actually has
a huge range of flammability; 2.4% propane/air all the way to 9.6%. I discovered that a air to propane mixture of 24/1 is
the best in the spread (about 4%). As for power production you can look at the different experimental runs that I recorded
here. ( hp on the vertical and propane consumption in ft³/min on the horizontal, appended Zig Herzog May 2005 ).
Have questions about my research, check out my FAQ page.
If you would like to know any more about my research please write me an email and I would be more
then happy to give you all the information that you would like about how my propane lawnmower operates.
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