Introduction

[888spo]

Hi Karl,

Prius muscle car, who would have thought Sounds like your getting more low end torque? I didn't attend the conference but am curious about any sensor mods the groove needs to work properly. Outside of the TB groove did any sensor mods take place?

Enjoy your Prius Ver. 2.0

D./

[Col.Zimka]

Hi 888spo,

I did not make any sensor changes for the Groove...per se. There are two other small changes I did. I did some air intake blocking in the air filter box. This means that I used some corrugated cardboard pieces which covered over about 40% of the pre-filter side of the air filter. The cardboard is actually two pieces; each piece goes completely across the filter from side-to-side and then down the side edges for stability ( I hope that makes sense!). Imagine the air filter surface separated into three equal sections, the cardboard covers the top and bottom section so the air can flow through the central section. The other item I did is a bit left of center, ahem. Ah, now I don't recommend this, of course, but I by-passed the PCV valve to allow the Groove to work more smoothly and accurately. I am looking to boost the power even more as long as my mileage doesn't go below 40 mpg. The better tires is an absolute must! All the juice needs to be controlled in the turns. My previous car was a Saab 93 turbo, which I really enjoyed. But I like my Prius even more!

Cheers,

Karl

[Floris]

you folks might want to have a look at the gadgetman groove modification for your throttlebody. Quite a few people are seeing quite interesting results from that groove. I'm more of a motorcycle guy where we don't find butterfly valves on the intake (at least not mine) but if you do have one, it may be interesting to familiarize yourself with it.

No I don't know him myself or have stockshares of his company but I do understand what this little groove is about. Reduce Emissions with the Gadgetman Groove

[ken freeman]

Hi Gary,Your photos are very interesting. How does drawing the intake air through the crank case work? Interesting to say the least. thanks,ken

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Ken,

Thanks.

The crankcase has one way inlet valves and one way outlet valves to pump a full cylinder volume of air every revolution into a common reservior. In a four cycle engine the intake into the combustion side of the cylinder occurs only every other revolution. So the underside of the piston is really pumping two cylinder volumes of air into the combustion chamber on each intake event. This translates into a positive displacement, internally supercharged engine with the crankcase becoming the supercharger. No external drive or exhaust back pressure is involved. All the power robbed from the back side of the piston goes directly into compressing the charge with no further losses!

Other benefits include the capture and reuse of piston blowby, and preheating of the intake charge for better fuel vaporization. Everthing worked as planned in my prototype engine, except for the air/oil separator I made. I ran out of time and money before I was able to come up with an effective separator that didn't produce excessive restriction to the air flow. I have several ideas on how to overcome this obstacle, and other people in other countries, have also come up with effective separators in similar engine designs.

I also have some other "radical" ideas that could be incorporated into this design to make the separator unnecessary!

[ken freeman]

Gary, did you actually get boost into the intake manifold? how much? Thanks,ken

[John_Bedini]

My 1934 Truck

@ All,
Yes I build hotrods I will post some pictures of some of the cars I have done.
I did not think anybody was interested in building engines here but that is what I do in my spare time, is hotrods. Picture of the little truck I put together building a L88 427 iron head. Now running a Tunnel Ram with two 650 Holley Carbs about 650Hp truck weight less then 2000 pounds a real nasty ride. Great to have a section for that here.

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Ken,

Gary, did you actually get boost into the intake manifold? how much? Thanks,ken

Yes, it made about 2 or 3 psi boost in the manifold. But it would only run a few minutes untill all the oil was in the separator instead of the oil sump! NOT GOOD! As a result, I was never able to drive it that way.

Theoretically, this idea would produce 14.7 psi boost if it had an infinite compression ratio in the crankcase and there were no pumping losses. Mayby a little more due to the heat of compression. Of course in the real world a well designed, from the ground up, engine would probably only attain a 5 or 6 psi boost which would still give a good power increase. And a proper redesign of the lube system and oil separator would solve the oil entrainment problem. As would never allowing the oil to mix with the air in the first place by using a sealed lubrication system.

Another neat little trick would be to install automatic intake valves in the piston top with only cam operated exhaust valves in the head. This would be a uniflow design with high breathing capacity, internal cooling, and better heat managment in the engine.

[WillH]

Hi Gary,

I'm Will from Australia. I just read your post, about having problems separating the oil from the air stream. A few years ago, I was asked by a local businessman, who turned out to be a conman, to assess some air conditioning technology. The company name is Earth to Air Systems (in TN) and they had designed a Deep Well Direct Exchange air conditioning system, that apparently approaches a COP of around 8 and I don't think that was using an inverter, just an old style, three phase, on/off compressor. One of the key innovations, was the ability to separate the oil from the refrigerant. I believe that it's a separately patented product. Randy Wiggs was the owner of the company and I suppose the patent. He was a real nice guy too.

I thought that there might be some synergy there, if you ever decided to rebuild your motor.

[WillH]

I've also used the Gadgetman Groove on my 2000 WJ Jeep 4.7L V8 and had great results so far. I'm now seeing highway mileage when running around town, 12L/100kms (19.6MPG).

I've just grooved my '06 Prius too. No improvement initially, but I'm now seeing improvements. It takes some time to notice changes with the Prius, because of the hybrid drive, you can have wildly varying, short term results.

[Tom C]

Hi Ken,



Yes, it made about 2 or 3 psi boost in the manifold. But it would only run a few minutes untill all the oil was in the separator instead of the oil sump! NOT GOOD! As a result, I was never able to drive it that way.

Theoretically, this idea would produce 14.7 psi boost if it had an infinite compression ratio in the crankcase and there were no pumping losses. Mayby a little more due to the heat of compression. Of course in the real world a well designed, from the ground up, engine would probably only attain a 5 or 6 psi boost which would still give a good power increase. And a proper redesign of the lube system and oil separator would solve the oil entrainment problem. As would never allowing the oil to mix with the air in the first place by using a sealed lubrication system.

Another neat little trick would be to install automatic intake valves in the piston top with only cam operated exhaust valves in the head. This would be a uniflow design with high breathing capacity, internal cooling, and better heat managment in the engine.

deisel

Tom C

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Tom.

deisel

Tom C

Yes, it can be used with diesel, LP, gasoline, or whatever! It can be direct injection, indirect injection, or carburetion!

The problem is separating the lube oil from the induction air. There are several ways to do this, but I ran out of resources (aka time & money) to actually make an engine with an effective separator. I still think the best way is to use a sealed lubrication system and eliminate the oil entrainment and the need for a separator.

[skagwayroadie]

Has anyone tried the Singh Somender grooves in the cylinder heads?

I made a crude mod to my heads on my Ford Explorer v-6 when replacing head gaskets. I also did the Gadgetman groove in my TB. Both made significant improvements to the performance and economy of my truck, despite winter arriving here in Alaska and tired high mileage engine.

I have played with HHO as well. Had some success, 25% increase in economy, but had lots of drivability issues, along with overheating of the cell and brown sludge build-up as well. I got rid of the overheating by going to, what amounts to 4 generation leap in design. The sludge buildup was in part not using distilled water, not conditioning the plates and using poor grade of SS. Have not cured the drivability issues as my truck seems to be really sensitive to sensor tweaks and being a 1st generation fuel injection system, I have OBD 1 which make tuning and tweaking more challenging. Working on the PVC mod now.

Anyways, great to see some activities from experienced mechanics. So many folks are to afraid to share their ideas and inventions with others.

I love the idea of internal supercharger. That is a huge way to increase efficiency and power to a very inefficient ICE.

[jonnychooch]

ref Gary Hammond quote "Other benefits include the capture and reuse of piston blowby, and preheating of the intake charge for better fuel vaporization"

great idea for sure and should be revisited.

what temperatures did you see in the charged air from your design.

I can see how it worked on a flat 4 .

However I can see a number of problems that would need to be addressed to achieve any reasonable service life from the engine.

On a factory designed inline 4,5,6 cylinder, v8 ,v10 , v12 etc engine you would need some major redesign work due to the negative effect of apposing piston stroke on a open block design which would cancel out the positive pressure cycle,the need to chamber each individual cylinder into compartments throughout would be required.

Issues with increase back pressure would force atmosphere into oil system via all open internal oil journals and thus reduce oil flow due to pressure difference, probably best to require supply and return oil ways with seals.

problems with piston ring oiling / sealing due to crank side pressure , probably different tolerances required and sealing redesign for correction.

Any major boost increase would require either doweled / pegged oil seals or retaining plates to stop outer oil seals being forced out .

The oil starvation issues can be partly over come with a proper dry sump setup , remote oil reservoir, multi stage oil pump and collection system.

Piston to cylinder wall lubrication would need some fancy work.

Gudgeon pin lubrication would need separate supply and return oil ways & oil seals to reduce oil vapor and positive pressure reversal causing reduced lubrication.

The concept is totally possible as you have proved but without complete block , crankshafts, conrods etc being redesign to deal with much of above , and as you stated you found the engine very close to failure due to oil lubrication problems, ouch.


have you gone any further with the design since.

[Gary Hammond]

Hi Jonnychooch,

Thanks for you interest!

what temperatures did you see in the charged air from your design.

I never was able to keep it running long enough to measure it. Theoretically it will pick up internal heat from the hot engine parts as well as heat from being compressed.

On a factory designed inline 4,5,6 cylinder, v8 ,v10 , v12 etc engine you would need some major redesign work due to the negative effect of apposing piston stroke on a open block design which would cancel out the positive pressure cycle,the need to chamber each individual cylinder into compartments throughout would be required.

Correct. No open block design for this to work. In line engines would require main bearings and their supporting web between each adjacent cylinder. This is desirable anyway for a high performance engine. Opposed engines would require a main bearing and web between adjacent opposed pairs. And v type engines could use a different crankshaft with overlaping rod journals, so that both pistons (across from each other) traveled up and down at the same time. This is already done in 90deg v6 engines.

None of this would be difficult to do in an engine designed from the ground up. However, modifying most existing engines would be more problematic.

Issues with increase back pressure would force atmosphere into oil system via all open internal oil journals and thus reduce oil flow due to pressure difference, probably best to require supply and return oil ways with seals.

The problem isn't oil pressure and oil flow to the bearings. That can be increased a small amount to compensate for the slight pressure (2 psi to max 15 psi) in the crankcase. The problem is all the oil that escapes into the airstream and has to later be separated from the induction air! A sealed lubrication system could be used to totally eliminate oil entering the air stream along the lines you sugested.

problems with piston ring oiling / sealing due to crank side pressure , probably different tolerances required and sealing redesign for correction.

I have several ideas for solving these issues with a sealed lube system. And these issues are not a problem with a conventional lube system that requires air/oil separation.

The oil starvation issues can be partly over come with a proper dry sump setup , remote oil reservoir, multi stage oil pump and collection system.

This is what I started to do when I tore down the engine and found bearing damage. I was only able to run the engine for a few minutes before all the oil would get trapped in the separator and I would have to shut it down. Was never able to drive it this way, so I blocked off the intake reeds and unhooked the boost plumbing from the carb and drove the car that way for a couple of years or so. Because the oil sump I made was not properly baffled, it would starve the engine for oil during hard cornering. And some of the epoxy I used to "stuff" the crankcase and seal the intake reed valves came loose and wound up in the oil supply! Not good! This is what caused the bearing damage, along with high oil temps caused by elimination of the factory oil cooler. .......IF induction air had been flowing through the crankcase all the time, it would have cooled the oil and heated the air as per my design.

Piston to cylinder wall lubrication would need some fancy work.

Only with a sealed lube system. Not a problem with the conventional lube system and air/oil separation.

Gudgeon pin lubrication would need separate supply and return oil ways & oil seals to reduce oil vapor and positive pressure reversal causing reduced lubrication.

Again, not a problem except with the completely sealed lube system. I have incorporated all the required lube points in a totally sealed system idea I have. Never built it!

The concept is totally possible as you have proved but without complete block , crankshafts, conrods etc being redesign to deal with much of above , and as you stated you found the engine very close to failure due to oil lubrication problems, ouch.

The main failure was the inability to separate out the oil, and then running it in normally aspirated mode for two years while the epoxy was letting loose inside the engine! And yes, I have contemplated building a complete engine from the ground up. Decided the cost and time required are beyond my present means.