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Messages - skeeter

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Listeroid Engines / Re: Chopping up my Listeroid!!
« on: November 22, 2007, 04:52:04 PM »
Heating 40,000 gal. of water, that's going to take real energy. I hope it's indoors. This summer, I heatx my 12/2 to my pool. It's 24' x 54" deep. I believe the capacity is around 15,500 gals. I hardly seen a change in pool temp, but cooled the engine great.

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Ronmar- The heatex is 24" x 9 1/2" x 8 1/2" with 76 plates (approx. 115 sq ft of surface area). I still laugh every time I look at that thing.

Geno- As soon as I get batteries for my camera, I'll update the picture with new project additions. Also, I'll post running pictures with my laptop web cam as soon as I figure that out.

Today, I'm in the process of proportioning the amount of heated fluid that is allowed to be diverted into a second branch of the secondary loop, in order to slightly lower the primary fluid running temps.

From what I've seen so far, cogen makes a lot of sense with these engines. Also, can be done quite inexpensively with a little shopping around and improvising. 

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Listeroid Engines / Re: Chopping up my Listeroid!!
« on: November 22, 2007, 01:22:36 AM »
I'd disassemble completely, and make the hatch bigger. Couldn't imagine having one of these and not completely taking it apart. This way, you're know how to fix it when it breaks.

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I had recently completed my cogen part of my 12/2 project. if you recall, I heat exchanged through my very big heatx. I connected the secondary loop to three eight foot hot water baseboard heaters (15000-16000btu at 180 deg F.), located in my house addition 60 ft away. I wish I would have added one or two more heaters. Now, with the three eight foot sections, at 75% load, the secondary supply side works its way up to about 182 deg. F. I measured a one degree drop in the feed to the house, and approximately a 15 degree drop through the heaters. The secondary loop  inlet to the heatx is about 15 degrees lower then the outlet. My primary loop fluid runs continuously (195 deg T-Stat remains open), the outlet cooling casting max's out at around 215 deg. or so, with nearby head temp slightly lower. A little too close for my comfort, I think. My saving grace, is that I have other secondary loops that can also be selected, one that heats up my oil storage area. I hope this info helps.

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Listeroid Engines / Re: Water/ propane injection of wvo fueled listeroids
« on: October 05, 2007, 03:09:03 PM »
Update: Not too long after my last post, I started noticing compression drop in the crankside cylinder. Again, I pulled the crankside head and sure enough, it was coked. After decoking, I turned my attention to the less then ideal value seat finish I had mentioned earlier in this thread. I polished the value seat and valve mating surface using 1000 grit abrasive paper, to acheive the best finish I could by hand and eye. Afterwards I cheched sealing using compress air, then continued until I got the best result.
I re-assembled and was back up runing the next day.

It's been a month now since decoking and refinishing, and cylinder compression has remained high. I measured value lash this morning, and clearances have remained were they were set in first week of September. So after 1 month of daily runs, no measurable coking on the valve seats and hopefully problem solved. I'm still running well and keeping my fingers crossed. Anyway, I hope I'm at the point of being able to go 500 - 600 hours between decokings with two tank wvo system. Again, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Regarding use of acetone. My results show its use will not overcome fundamental clearance/ mating issues. Pretty much common sense. It may have allowed for easier decoking, and longer decoking intervals, with better running, when a fundamental problem existed. I'm still using it, although I have thoughs of cutting back on its use just to see what happens. On the other hand, why break what appears to be fixed.

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Update: It has now been about 130 hour of run time since I started using acetone as a wvo additive (2oz./10 gal). Compression is remaining high in both cylinders, fuel consumption remains normal, and exhaust is remaining clear. Overall, engine is running consistantly good.

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Listeroid Engines / Re: Air Intake noise?
« on: August 14, 2007, 02:14:20 PM »
xyzer - I wonder if this slight overlap could be negated by a very slight alteration of valve lash clearance or one or both valves. Probably a dumb idea, since your performance is already good, and you might wind up trading less intake noise for more mechanical noise, or worst yet wear. Maybe the solution is to just muffle it.

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Well, after 28 hours running, It seems to have corrected (at least the symptoms) the problem.

phaedrus  - Good point regarding injector fouling. I guess I started to focus on valve seating due to my earlier observations, and suspected drop in compression. The compression drop (valve seating) could be an effect of the injector fouling. Next time I will visually check spray of injector, and/or swap with other cylinder.

Regarding RUG, I have heard abouts its use also. Something else to research.

Quote
Mind you RUG is sort of an oxymoron.. either its regular or it's unleaded right?

It's hard to tell what to call it now. I think regular is unleaded now ???

Overall, I think an additive in WVO (RVO, SVO) is probably a good thing to minimize coking issue. I will probably keep doing what I'm doing until follow-on research tells me to do something different. Their's alot to learn.

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I must say, alot of fuel for thought.

Update - After 21 hours running since adding acetone as a fuel additive, I believe I am seeing positive results now. Exhaust temps are now approaching (and relative to each other) where they were before they started to change. Engine is also sounding better, with just the normal valve train "clicking", and not the other abnornal sounds I had started to hear. I'm not sure of any differences in fuel consumption. It looks like this may be the ticket for me, at least until my next decoking. I may reduce the amount of acetone to 1 oz/ 10 gals, after a few more days if things remain on track.

Overall, this tells me next time when I decoke, to pay more attention to the seats and valve mating surfaces. This is where I think the underlying problem may be.  I think I will also try to determine actual compression of each cylinder, and make adjustments to spacers if needed, to fix compression to 18:1, or there about. I am also starting to believe that their is a good case to be made, for the use of acetone as a additive, especially if alternate, dirtier fuels are being used.


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Listeroid Engines / Re: Air Intake noise?
« on: August 11, 2007, 05:27:24 PM »
xyzer - has this engine always had loud intake noise, or is this something that has recently develop.

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gpkull -

Also, keep in mind, this is only happening on one cylinder. The other cylinder acts perfect. Head/ water temps measure approx. the same. Linkage was adjusted initially for equal exhaust temps (within resolution of adjustment). I believe with all I have done, either the spray pattern of one injector isn't quite right or something else unique to that cylinder or head is causing the problem.  I also remember when I first stripped it down, their were radial tool marks on one of the valve seats on that cylinder head. At the time, I smoothed it out pretty good by hand with 1000+ grit abrasive.

After the second full day of running, I believe that the acetone is having a positive effect. Compression feels alittle stiffer, exhaust temps  might be starting to creep up. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, but if I works, and I can use just use this intermittantly until my next scheduled decoking (300 - 400 hrs more running), I'd be happy. I think I'm going to give it a few more days and if things don't straighten out, I'll pull it apart again. :( :(.

Long term, this is not my solution. Next time I decoke, I'm going to pay much closer attention to the valve seats and valves, and will also measure everything else. I will not reassemble until everything is perfect. I will also probably swap injectors if nothing  else definitive is found, just to see if this problem moves with the "suspect" injector.

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I've got a heater on a dedicated fuel filter that gets the temp up to 145 - 150 deg. F, before the ip. My 225 deg. heaters are wrapped on the high pressure fuel lines, just before the injectors. If you touch the locknut at the injector stem, you'll get burned. I think I've done all I can on this part.

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Since my last post with 50 hr more run time (200 hr post decoke), what was then a faint change in sound, became more noticeable. Sound coming from crankside cylinder and definitely sounded more mechanical, llike excess valve clearance.  I suspect, for whatever reason, this cylinder tends to coke up quicker, causing excess valve clearance due to buildup on value seat(s). I didn't actually measured it yet, but I'm pretty sure I know the sound. Also noticed cylinder was becoming a little harder to start. Instead of popping on first compression stroke, it started firing on the third or more, and exhaust temps for this cylinder seemed to have dropped a little (other cylinder temp bumped up a little). Compression also felt reduced for crankside cylinder. Since my last post, I read up on others results of adding acetone. Not the long term cure, but promising for my case.

Yesterday, was the first run with the additive (1 oz. acetone/ 5 gals wvo). I decided to leave the valve clearance adjustment alone for now, believing that if the addition of acetone has a cleaning effect, I would soon notice a reduction in valve noise, as the carbon is removed from the seats. After the first days run, "valve noise" is still apparant, and cylinder temp may have picked up a little. When feeling the cylinders compression by hand pushing through compression stroke, I believe compression has increased some. Today, when starting, cylinder popped on first compression stroke, and after just checking (3 hours into todays run), valve noise may be reducing slightly. I guess at this point, I'm going to continue what I'm doing, unless someone has a good reason why I shouldn't. I'll post as thing play out.

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Listeroid Engines / Re: 12/2 cooling system, round 2
« on: August 05, 2007, 04:14:12 PM »
After considering the wire idea for awhile, I think I'm going to try threading one through my loop. Although this branch does a real good job of shedding off the thermo-load, targeting more into the pool and having less loss in the return trip, will only make my wife happier. ;) ;)

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Listeroid Engines / Re: 12/2 cooling system, round 2
« on: August 05, 2007, 03:04:41 PM »
Jens - capacity is overkill by many X, I know, but I got it real cheap. Original plan was to thermosiphon secondary loop through it from 80 gal tank, then pump hot water from tank to branches. Because of the low flow rates I would have had in each loop, overkilling capacity was a good thing.  I simplified that plan by removing the large tank. Having removed the storage, I now have to add overtemp shutdown in a hurry. A good thing about this is, I will never have to worry about heatx capacity, no matter how much load is on the genset or how large an engine is connected to it, as long as my selected branch(s) can handle it. Also, sufficient flow through it should never be a problem, even if a few ports clog.

ronmar - Interesting post. I'll be interested in how things progress.

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