/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>without any modern systems
>Use a thermoelectric coolerto generate electricity for starting and sparks.
If you're talking about a TEG / seebeck generator, you've already failed the without modern systems requirement and are dreaming.
Unless you mean something else?
>How can I create oil myself or what engines don't need lubrication upkeep.
Use vegetable oil. Engines that don't need lubrication upkeep don't exist.

in 2-5 years oil, diesel, and gasoline will start to break down.
Good luck producing it yourself.
Electric is the only way besides wood(steam)

batteries could be made DIY with lead.
DC motors last forever.

There's these things called horses....

what did the brits do with woodgas during WW2, i've seen pics even of cars with it mounted on back or towing small trailors with the woodgas generator, how old a car would you need to do that shit? how old a carb, or just retrofit an altered carb, etc?

>>1380006
>in 2-5 years oil, diesel, and gasoline will start to break down.
>Good luck producing it yourself.
Nigga did you read what I wrote? That's the whole point of this thread.

>Electric is the only way besides wood(steam)
The plan is to run engine on wood gas (diy renewable fuel)

>>1380016
Yeah and you can't store them in a shed without upkeep.

>>1380029
You can do it with any existing carb engine. You just need to add a valve so you can control wood gas going in as your fire builds/dies.

>>1379998
The idea is to not use shit that needs to be replaced often or will not last. Engine will last. Seebeck generater will last. Oil/gas will not last.

>Use vegetable oil.
How do I make vegetable oil?

>>1380037
Then say that, not a bunch of other shit you don't actually mean.
Anyway now that's clear, use a press to make oil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expeller_pressing

>>1379989
>I'm designing a vehicle that will work without any modern systems in place.
Its called a bike, you fat fuck.

>>1380033
So the gas is cooled back into a liquid by the time it gets to the carb?

Pic related was a cool approach to the application. If you were really in the SHTF scenario and you could find cars but no gas and your project broke down, smash the window on the nearest carbed pickup truck with a trailer hitch, throw your fuel hoses and whatever valve onto the carb and get moving again.

Alternatively- ethanol or alcohol conversions and distill your own fuel.

Or go the electic route if you have faith that you could keep good batteries around. Electric motors have much less to go wrong compared to newer ICEs that refuse to run if a sensor goes bad. Build the same trailer with a boiler and turbine generator on there and run power cords to the car to charge the batteries. You could burn anything in the boiler and no worries about finding 10W-30 when your woodgas car needs an oil change.

LARPing is fun.

>>1379989
A steam engine?

>>1380037
Is it really that hard to cobble together an alternator from a buncha magnets and wire?
Seebeck generators capable of running a sparkplug are gonna be hella hard to make, and be expensive as fuck, and be freaking massive.
Not to mention, how are you planing on generating a large enough temperature difference prior to starting the engine?

>>1380276
>Not to mention, how are you planing on generating a large enough temperature difference prior to starting the engine?
From the temperature differential from the gassifier and the cooling tank.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelzer_engine

It has only one moving part, sems to be able to burn gas, diesel, alcohol, plant oil. Can be engine, pump, generator. Whatever fuel you use, it seems to be very low in consumption.

>>1380037
>The idea is to not use shit that needs to be replaced often
>wants to use veggie oil to lube everything

>>1380315
https://patents.google.com/patent/US4385597

>>1380006
Gasoline starts to absorb water, but oil and diesel practically last forever.
Plant oils polymerize only when exposed to oxygen.

Do you know how much lead you need to make a diy battery big enough to run a vehicle for a length of time?
A literal ton of fucking lead. Lead will be more precious than petrofuels.

If you're going to build a still to demineralize water, might as well use it to male ethanol instead.

>>1380315
Why was this not used for anything in the end? So much effort went into building shit with it, only to deliver no actual products.

>>1379989
Have you considered slaves?

>>1380425
First reason is probably that 2 stroke engines are typically inefficient. And 2nd of all, if you look into those designs, they don’t turn a crankshaft like normal piston engines. They spin a turbine with the exhaust gasses. Not exactly a good application for cars which need a wide range of engine speeds.

I think maybe the biggest reason that alternative engines aren’t used more is that we have over a century of proven otto cycle engine technology at our disposal and even the biggest companies don’t want to spend the time or money on something brand new. Look at the Wankel engine- I think if Toyota and Honda joined up with Mazda and actually put some effort into it, the thing could compete with the best Otto Cycle engines. But it will take a lot of proof to convince consumers and manufacturers to change.

>>1380315
shakeweighty
The vibration from that is gonna shake the monkeylovingpiss out of anything it's hooked to.

>>1380431
unlike the model you posted, the stelzer can use a turbine but doesn't neccesarry need to as moving part extents outwards and can be connected for example to an linear actuator to produce electrical power (x2).

>>1380469
just suspend it nicely. look at the early otto or diesel engine, they shaked too. anyway, it's about SHTF combustion engines and this one fit the bill. low in mainentence and something like ethanol is easy to come by.

>>1380499
I was thinking about oil too. It would most certainly have to be pre-mix, right?

>>1379989
>I can modify an existing 4 stoke engine
Why not a 2-stroke? those can use vegetable oil without any problems. Also, obviously ethanol would be preferable to wood gas but might run you into some legal trouble.

>Use a thermoelectric coolerto generate electricity for starting and sparks.
sorry to be so direct, but this will most likely never work. Just use a regular generator and start the engine with a kickstarter, pedals or a crank. that'll last a lifetime, and definitely longer than an engine running on woodgas.

>How do I make vegetable oil?
You take a lot of nuts or seeds, grind them up and press them. If you don't have a strong enough press and don't mind bad quality, you can also heat them and wrap them in cloth and then later wring out the oil the cloth absorbed.
However, vegetable oil makes for pretty bad lube since it tends to polymerize, so I woulnd't recommend using it for a longer period of time. Using it in a diesel or two-stroke engine should be fine though.


Also, why design anything yourself in the first place? there are tons of vehicles around that almost fit your criteria. For example, you could take any Sachs50 bike (in case you're not familiar with it, the sachs50 is a 50ccm two-stroke engine used in almost all small west-german bikes between the 50s and 70s), replace the carburator and fuel line with an ethanol-resistant one, stock up on transmission fluid (one liter lasts 50 000 km) and run it with ethanol and vegetable oil. Those bikes usually go for 500 bucks.
Or you could get an old landrover or unimog (5-20k), which can run on vegetable oil without any changes (some unimogs can also run on ethanol, wood gas or even whiskey).

>>1379989
It is called Lada you fuck

>>1380524
You see the video of that Russian dude put the wooden pistons in his little commiebox? Jalopnik posted it so I’m sure it has been on /o/.

Where you going to get spare parts?

You SHTF people are all the same. You want to replace your consumables with DIY stuff, but have no clue about the infrastructure needed to support your devices.

If it's truly SHTF, we're all going back to Amish tech levels. Learn those skills, not how to jury rig some engine to last a year two before it breaks down anyway.

>>1380565
Git gud at woodworking

https://youtu.be/rO-ttUAiVDw

>>1380528
>that Russian dude put the wooden pistons in his little commiebox?

awesome. I wish I had time to try that in my old truck.

>>1380522
>an old landrover which can run on vegetable oil without any changes
Nyet.
Changes are to be made, because the CAV Rotodiesel injection pump found in Rover engines is unsuitable to run viscous fluid.
Vegetable oil must be delivered at around 80c to the injection pump.
How this is achieved is up to you.

The very early Perkins engines might have a more tolerant inline injection pump, similar to the Mercedes type.
But most of these engines were retrofits.

>>1380616
https://www.greasecar.com

I can’t believe how little there is to do it properly.

>>1380591
It didn’t end well. They think the problem ended up being the spark and flame front burning though but it would probably run a couple minutes with some trial and error.

>>1380163
>So the gas is cooled back into a liquid by the time it gets to the carb?
You can't cool hydrogen and carbon monoxide enough to liquify them. You remove the carb.
Seriously this shit is a google search away.

>>1380741
>google search away
Ehh, I was already here. I saw the precipitator and cooler deals in the pic, I didn’t know it was solely carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

The two wiki articles do a shitty job describing how it actually works, just the history. Is the gas cooler there to precipitate water and stuff out? To cool the gas to prevent knock? Or make the gas more dense so the engine doesn’t run super lean? Or all of the above?

>FEMA published a book in 1989 for people in emergencies that describes how to make it
That’s wild. Looks like they were common in Yurop during the wars and nobody mentions them anymore. I never would think they were simple/efficient/reliable enough to outfit tens of thousands of vehicles with them and for FEMA to tell normies to build them and poison themselves with CO.

>>1380635
>can’t believe how little there is to do it properly.

It depends on your climate, but you can get away with even less and for much cheaper.

A second hand 6 port tank selector valve from Chevy or Ford Trucks to switchover between the feed and return lines.

The Series 3 XJ6 also had two tanks, but the valve was 3 port not 6 so you need two of them. Probably easier to obtain in Europe.

Then you need a heat exchanger for the fuel.
Diesel Mercedes from the mid-late 2000 had a coolant fired type with no electronics.

You can make your own easily with a Bernzomatic and a few plates and tubing of aluminum.

But there is a cheaper option, which is just to wrap insulated Nichrome wire (toaster wire) in a closed short around the fuel injection pump, the fuel injectors, and the fuel filter, then spray or wrap FlexSeal brand Flextape on it. (It's just silicone tape)

Run the injector and pump heaters before starting and during warm up. Run the fuel filter one constantly.

You only need the fuel pump heater on certain injection pumps.
If the climate is warm enough, you only need the pump heater, and that's until the engine warms up.

>>1380879
Actually, you know what forget all of that.


What you need depends on three factors:

Climate
Injection Pump type
Cylinder head Design

>>1379989
I'm more distracted by the op's picture... that is with out a doubt the worst weld I have ever witnessed... and I have made some bad fucking welds.

>>1379989
I respect what you are trying to do, but I think you are shooting yourself in the foot with woodgas. It's finicky and cokes up engines.

You can brew and distill ethanol with a minimum of equipment that is easily diyable or scroungable.

For oil, used oil can be recycled huge numbers of times by distilling it. The temperature required to do this and the flammable nature makes it scary, but it isn't impossible.

>>1380470

>>1381199
On some ships, they periodically spin all the shit out of the oil with a centerfuge, then just top up with new oil.

What people think they will do after ww3.
>>1379989

Pic related :
What they actually will be doing.

>>1381298

Modern car oils have detergents in them that wouldn't be removed by centrifugation. That's why they are distilled.

Interesting trivia, you can extract meaningful amounts of diesel fuel substitute from motor oil by distillation.

The missing piece is a diy-chemistry level way to tack lighter hydrocarbons together to make higher melting point materials. Cracking heavies to lights is reachable, but the opposite direction is hard.

>>1381338
>Modern car oils have detergents in them that wouldn't be removed by centrifugation.

Incorrect.

Detergents hold water in suspension, therefore will settle out in a tank on their own and both detergents and water are denser than oil.

Magnesium is twice as dense as oil and will have no problem being spun out.

At 80c, which is the running temp for most engines, moisture will vaporize instantly upon being spun at 2G or more.

Besides for use as fuel, the first step after dumping into a holding tank should be heating, and mistwashing, because most contaminants will bind to water and settle out to the bottom.

The only thing Centrifuging won't do is change the color of the oil. But that doesn't matter because the natural color is black anyway.

That fresh amber colored oil is a product of bleaching with Sulfuric Acid, centrifuging (again), then sucking with a vaccuum through fullers earth or a similar bleaching clay.
All oil is bleached. Even (especially) cooking oil.

>>1381327

Well what the fuck are we waiting for, then?

>>1379989
Gassified cars were common in Japan after WWII. Old family doctor that was stationed there in '46 talked about them. According to him they were okay on level ground, but when you got to a hill you either got up as much speed as possible and hoped, or had a passenger that got out and pushed when you bogged down slow enough. So... if you live in a plains state, you MIGHT be okay.

>>1379989
Why not just make petroleum fuels yourself?
https://youtu.be/Hq1i7YcawxU

>>1381418
Electric vehicle powered by generator. Small motors run good on diy gas.
https://youtu.be/yaE2M3VdBQ4

>>1380033
>without upkeep.
You'll be farming anyway, just to live and generate veggie oil.

Do you really think you'll be able to live the modern life of leisure when the SHTF?

>>1381338
I've been doing research into this for a college project, notoriously hard to find info on cracking methods, it's a lot of exotic catalysts kept secret by refining companies.

If you are looking at shtf type stuff, look into white gas distillation, if you can do it well you can use gas (even spoiled gas that's been sitting in tanks) to make pure petrol with no additives that doesn't spoil. The only problem is that getting an engine running that can use it effectively is pretty much impossible as it has a very low octane and thus ignition point. Really only suitable for small incredibly low compression engines that run cool (think on the scale of a lawnmower).

>>1380029
https://www.treehugger.com/cars/diy-trash-powered-gasification-car-video.html

some 90s accord running on trash

>>1381463
Thermal cracking is a better option for the homestead.

"White gas" is basically White Spirit, a cleaner version of Kerosene, Winter Diesel, or Jet A1 fuel, or similar to the stuff sold as Coleman stove fuel.

Blending with vegetable or motor oil at 50% or higher will slow down the ignition point and make it run in a diesel engine.
Otherwise you will get engine knock from ignition when the piston is still on upward travel.
Vegetable oil will delay this reaction.

If you need lower compression, try using a thicker cyl head gasket.

I've seen 4cyl diesel Mercedes w110 converted to turbo and a custom made gasket was the easiest solution to lower compression.

>>1381667
I've never heard of the white gas oil blend in a diesel, might have to try that. I know as a fact (because I do this) that it works completely fine in my small lawn tools because most require an oil fuel mix, I mix before I fill up but before that it stays stable in the shed indefinitely.

>>1380327
Harvesting plant fats was one of the earliest technological innovations. Unless you live in some pretty specific parts of the world, it will require farming, and the ability to make a press. But it should be doable in post civilisation scenario.

>>1379989
Just use an alcohol engine you retarded faggot, or get good at fuel synthesis (it's super fucking mundame, conditions are well under 1000F and 1000psi).

>>1381463
>exotic catalysts kept secret
Just google ochem mechanisms, and then add fuel/oil/gas/petrol synthesis and google again.

>>1381827
>Just use an alcohol engine
Name one place where you can easily find an alcohol engine

>>1381834
They're just normal gasoline engines that are modified and use alcohol resistant orings/tubes.

>>1381860
Not only.

Alcohol fuck ups seals and hoses, plastic, and metal. The whole engine will need to be rebuilt with resistant materials.

To to run properly you need to increase compression, fit larger jets, and advance timing among other modifications.

Much of that is beyond what the average car enthusiast can accomplish.

As someone who is only experienced with diesel engines, I wouldn't even know where to begin with a culborettor.
Plenty of people do but way more do not.

And skimming a cylinder head? You need an engineer for that.

Alcohol is also more prone to suffering vapor lock, and absorbing moisture.
Over time, metal parts of the engine will corrode as the alcohol draws moisture from the atmosphere and the cooling system and it gets deposited in the engine causing rust.
The water passages of an aluminum cylinder head will probably be the first to go.

If enough alcohol gets into the crank case by seeping between the rings on a cold start, it might even blow the whole bottom end out.

>>1381893
Acquire a car that says 'flexfuel' on the side.

>>1380006
You can make and distil your own ethanol. all you need is sugar, water and yeast. it will also store for a long time. you can get up to 95% ethanol on a pretty simple reflux still. it would just take a lot of messing with the carb to get the air/fuel ratio correct, I think you need a lot more air.

what about an engine powered by steam?

>>1384869
That's stupid. A steam generator is less stupid.
Bottom line is that electric motors are more efficient in post-shtf. If you were concerned about transportation while shit was hitting the fan, you would be using a motorcycle.

>>1384876
Moterscikel is stuped.
You can carry more things on foot.

What you think you are run away from? A a lava? Why you need to going alway fast like sanec?

Try walking. It's a lot easier and no one will make fun of you for riding around in a dumb fucking cart with a campfire being towed behind you.

>>1380469
Run two cylinders with the pistons reciprocating in opposing directions. Then you just need to absorb the torque as the engine tries to twist back and forth.

>>1380741
you don't need to remove the carb; the gas can be fed directly into the intake below the carb through a flashback arrestor. No injectors or venturis needed since the fuel is already vaporized. you COULD remove it, but it'd be stupid and you could ONLY run it on wood gas instead of being able to switch back to liquid fuel if needed.

>>1380016
>>1380146
underrated post

Wood gasifiers are also coal gasifiers.

>>1380146
i've said it before and i'll say it again, the best thing you can get for SHTF is a mountain bike with electric support motor and few spare batteries at the homebase. take a small solar panel with you on the bike for when you go on extended trips. bicycles work great, ask any european

>>1385913
You know that you need a big panel to charge a battery in a reasonable amount of time right?

>>1385935
Bike has 500Wh battery. One house solar panel is 250W. You could charge up your bike in a day pretty easy.

But it means carting a solar panel around. Just use your legs you fat fuck.

>>1385999
Electric bike a shit. Get over it.

You could travel a hundred fucking miles on a decent bike and burn less gas than what fits in a bottle of water.

>>1385440
>oh fuck, apes (read as: niggers/non-whites) have ruined the highways
Motorcycles are the pinnacle of off-road transportation.
The obvious answer is a helicopter, but niggers will shoot at helicopters during a disaster for fun because they aren't human.

>>1386061
>Electric bike a shit. Get over it.
/thread.

The only exception is extended range electric because it lets you only run at the most efficient RPM, but leftists/eco-terrorists don't actually care about efficiency or the enviorment.

>>1386061
gasoline will go bad long before you battery degrades, short term i'd take anything with a combustion engine but past one year it's gonna be either LPG or electric because your gasoline and diesel will have degraded.

homemade fuels are an option but only if you have some form of permanent shelter.

>>1386604
Last year I pulled a 70's Alfa-Romeo out of a tool shed where it had been sitting since 2005.
I burnt the plugs, dropped some Ballistöl down on to the pistons, changed the oil, the filters, and sprayed cleaner on the culbs.

The owner said the gas in the tank was older than when the car was parked and it smelled like it had gone off.

With aid of starting fluid it fired up fine and ran ok once warm.

So gas does degrade, but it is a gradual degradation. It will still be somewhat useableafter a decade.

I have a Mercedes thats been off the road since 2012 with gas from 2011 and it still fires up on half a turn.

Diesel? I don't think that ever goes bad enough that it stops doing it's job.

Maybe newer gas is different.
Biofuels are more prone to absorb water from moisture in the air than Petrofuels.

If the problem is indeed moisture content, then it can be remedied by use of a Super Absorbent Polymer like Sodium Polyacrylat which is often sold as fake snow, chemical toilet or water beads.

>>1381893
>alcohol draws moisture from the atmosphere and the cooling system and it gets deposited in the engine causing rust.
>The water passages of an aluminum cylinder head will probably be the first to go.
>alcohol draws moisture
>water passages first to go from moisture

wut

>>1380367
> Gasoline starts to absorb water, but oil and diesel practically last forever.

Maybe you're from a lucky country that doesn't do this shit, but here in
Germany gasoline is tainted with a minimum of 5% ethanol. Diesel is tainted
with a minimum of 5% vegetable oil. Both of these will form clumps that will
easily clog a fuel line after about 3 months of storage.

It's been fucking up emergency generators something fierce for the past couple
of years. Nowadays most generator manuals say "Use heating oil instead of
Diesel, otherwise you'll void your warranty." somewhere. A couple of months ago
even a squadron of Tornado fighter planes was grounded because their Kerosene
was tainted with "Biodiesel".

Fuck greens and the horse they rode in on.

>>1387035
Do they make a Stabil alternative for diesel? It’s easy enough to use that in gasoline engines. Or around here since boats are popular, you can get Rec 90 gasoline at many gas stations and that is 0% ethanol.

>>1387038
No idea. They might. There is a Rec 90 alternative for tainted diesel though: heating oil. You're not supposed to use that since it's taxed lower than diesel but other than the red coloring they add to mark it as heating oil it's the same juice...

>>1387015
Modern cooling systems are not meant to use water.

>>1387041
That’s probably the same thing we have at the commercial gas pumps near my work. It’s “Off-Road Diesel” and dyed red but from everything I hear it’s the same thing but taxed less and some idiot puts it in a truck from time to time. Never hear people refer to it as heating oil though.

>>1387049

FFS, stop trying to act knowledgeable on the Internet.

Modern cooling systems use a mixture of coolant and water. A tiny bit of moisture that alcohol would bring wouldn't make a difference. The problem there is if you're getting water from alcohol fuel into your cooling system, you've got bigger problems than water. Your fuel isn't supposed to be able to get in the cooling system.

>>1386612
Newer fuel is different. Low sulfur diesel has issues with algae ruining it and petrol breaks down pretty fast. Different additives in it for environmental reasons. Ethanol gas which is most gas in the US now is only good for 1-3 years. You can use stabil or better and best PRI-G to keep it going pretty much indefinitely as long as you treat it every year. Pri-G keeps forever as long as its sealed. Stabil causes problems with some seals and gaskets.
Pure gasoline keeps for 5-10 years.
High grade aviation fuel has an indefinite lifespan properly stored. High lead though. Can cause issues in automotive engines. Lead is good for lifters and valves but not that much lead. Older fuel is better. My grandpa is into general aviation. He has some 95 octane gas from 1958 in barrels. About 400 gallons worth. We have used some in the past. Still good, sitting in a shed all that time.

>>1387051
heh, in my state some people get away with it in cars. Cops hardly ever pull over diesel trucks to begin with to check for off road diesel. They never touch a car. So a few people I know drive diesel cars, fill up barrels and refuel at home. Huge savings. Most people who get caught are idiots who fill trucks at the station.

>>1387235
Oh I doubt they would ever find out unless you brought it to a shop and they wanted to be a dick and report it. But we had a couple drivers using it a lot and I think management would be more worried about an audit or somebody higher up seeing fuel cards being used on unauthorized fuels (using a truck card on onleaded will flag it and send a report). Simply a case of CYA but I don’t see an independent guy getting caught.

>>1387051
> Never hear people refer to it as heating oil though.

Guess that's a German thing, then. Around here, oil fired furnaces for central heating are pretty popular, with natural gas coming a close second. Of late heat pumps and solar heated rooftop tanks have become popular among the green crowd. They usually throw that shit out in favour of oil or gas after one winter, though :-)

What do you guys use for firing furnaces if it isn't oil? Or do you use it and it's just a matter of different terminology?

>>1387296
Natural gas for furnaces most places. At least in the Midwest where I grew up. Now I’m in Florida and no natural gas line to the house. If this house has heat, I have never used it and it must be electric of some sort. And people in rural areas will sometimes have a large propane tank on their property that gets refilled by the truck. I’m not sure how popular using actual liquid oils is for heating in the US.

I miss the natural gas because if your electricity went out you still had hot water and a stove to cook on.

>>1387411
Hi there!

You seem to have made a bit of a mistake in your post. Luckily, the users of 4chan are always willing to help you clear this problem right up! You appear to have used a tripcode when posting, but your identity has nothing at all to do with the conversation! Whoops! You should always remember to stop using your tripcode when the thread it was used for is gone, unless another one is started! Posting with a tripcode when it isn't necessary is poor form. You should always try to post anonymously, unless your identity is absolutely vital to the post that you're making!

Now, there's no need to thank me - I'm just doing my bit to help you get used to the anonymous image-board culture!

>>1387296
It most certainly is referred to here as heating oil, and it is 100% regular diesel with dye in it. It is also be used on farms for tractors, just not in a diesel road vehicles, because of taxes. "Bepis" doesn't speak for the whole board, definitely not for the whole country. He's not as knowledgeable, or as cool, as he thinks he is. He just doesn't know when to STFU.

>>1387414
What part about me saying I have never heard of people calling it heating oil implies that I’m speaking for everybody?

I didn’t grow up on a farm so only time I encounter it is the “Off Road Diesel” at the pumps.

You gotta get that sand out of your vagina.

>>1387422
Why are you posting with a trip?

>>1387422
So you decide to speak on something that you readily admit you have no experience with, but an Anon saying that you need to STFU is the problem? You seem angry.

>>1379989
Stirling engines need minimal oil and work just fine, you would need to read into that. Seriously i fucking love those. It's also way easier to get the thing to run because you only need a flame and not really anything with conventional engines. Only problems are that you cant regulate rpms so would have to do all of that via transmission.

>>1386604
>gasoline will go bad
No. The additives will degrade, but pure gasoline won't degrade at room temp and below.
inb4 can't readily buy pure gasoline

There's lots of theoretical advice in this thread but has anybody actually tried it?

>>1388961
>There's lots of theoretical advice in this thread but has anybody actually tried it?

Yes. I ran a vw beetle engine on woodgas as an experiment. It takes a while to get the wood hot enough to cook out woodgas. Be prepared to light your car a half hour before you want to leave. Woodgas has a bunch of particulates and steam in it. The beetle had an oil bath filter that cleaned it out pretty well, but I had to clean it several times in under 500 miles. It also burns very dirty. The power output sucked, and got worse. I tore it apart and my intake valves were coated in /thick/ black carbon that was a pain in the ass to remove.

I switched over to propane after that. It worked fantastic.

>>1389674
Or... just fucking distill it beforehand and be competent.

>>1389674
Sounds like you used a fema style gasifier. They tend to tar. An imbert style gasifier can reach the proper temps to crack the tars and make stronger fuel. I prefer a charcoal updraft gasifier. Way simpler and no chance of tarring the engine.

>>1379989
holy shit flux core batman