[Gasification] lister 6/1 spark conversion fires again on wood gas

jim mason jim at allpowerlabs.org
Fri Oct 15 03:55:10 CDT 2010


After some technical drama with a cut trace on the ignition control board,
the Lister finally came to life on Tuesday eve.  Ron Ohler, Mike LaRosa and
Jay did the honors, but Ken Boak, Marcus Hardwick, Michael Shiloh and Peef
did much of the preparation that made it possible.   Pictures from the first
run are in the workshop gallery here:
http://www.gekgasifier.com/gallery/browseimages.php?do=browseimages&c=44&page=3

This time the spark plug it in the COV valve on the side of the head, not
replacing the injector like the last round.  This time the diesel injection
system was left intact so we can switch back and forth easily between the
two.

For the first run, we fired it on diesel then switched over to woodgas while
running. It was surprisingly easy to switch over, much easier than with a
carburetor on gasoline, as you could get a sharp switch off of the diesel
via the shut down lever. No usual fuel wandering back and forth as the carb
runs out of fuel.

The timing was fussed with quite a bit. We ended up with it about 45deg
advanced, and it still didn't seem fully enough. One problem we found with
the coil over plug arrangement is you can't get a timing light on the spark
plug wire, as there isn't one. The inductive clamp won't work over the plug
boot.

We had the kill-a-watts hooked up on each of two legs and topped out at
2.9kw. That was pushing the absolute max. 2.5kw was easy to maintain. This
was at about 600rpm. A little below the standard 650rpm. Shaky shake started
above 600rpm.

The compression is the 13.3:1 of last time. The injector is leaking a bit
too. We'll likely get a bit more power once we return to 17:1 and get the
injector better sealed.

All in all, i'm happy how much power it made, and how smooth it ran. It
seemed to run about the same as it did with the spark plug in the injector
hole. The biggest difference was in the timing adjust. so given the lack of
good control on that last time, it is difficult to compare properly between
the two modes. But it was clear that it works just fine in the COV valve,
and this is good news, as this is a better place to put it.

The ability to start on diesel then switch over with a hard "fuel off"
switch was very nice.

Thank you ken, marcus, ron, mike and the others that made it go. another
very impressive effort by all of you.

jim

-- 

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Jim Mason
Website: http://www.whatiamupto.com
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