The Green Carburetor

Or "how California (CARB) helped to design a piece of crap."

April 30, 2009

Above: Here's a typical small engine Carburetor of the Day for the USA. There's nothing adjustable, and nothing serviceable. 

I have always been fascinated by how things evolve in design,  the design criteria of the many things we use in our every day lives, who were the designers, what were their priorities?  I offer this Carburetor as an example and hopefully 'food for thought', you may not agree with my current thinking, and perhaps I will change my opinion some day.

Just exactly WHEN did I start wondering about small engine carburetors design?  I guess it started on a warm summer day when I was in front of my work shop quietly applying Dark Hunter Green paint to my latest creation. My neighbor was mowing the lawn and the lawn mower engine was surging from what sounded like 2000, 5000 RPMs for an engine that normally runs 3600RPM or so.  It was certainly annoying, but my neighbor had one thing in mind, and that was to finish the job. It wasn't long after this, I heard another lawn mower in the neighborhood doing the same thing. Just what is going on?

Briggs and Stratton is a leader in Lawn Mower Power, they make an OHV INTEK engine rated at 6.5 horsepower that looks pretty well made. I acquired two of these engines from a friend that takes lawn mowers apart and sorts the metals for scrap, he's retired, and he does this for enjoyment and extra spending money. Amazingly, both these engines surge and were headed for the scrap yard.  I first took off the fuel bowls and found them VERY clean, the same with the oil, no sludge, the engines look to have been well cared for, and really look like low hour equipment. I used air to blow out the jets, and passages I could reach in the crabs and carefully reassembled both.

 Fresh gas added, engines bolted to a test stand, and when they started, they went into this wild surge behavior, as the RPM dropped, the governor would steer from fully closed to wide open throttle, and of course the prior closed throttle plate acted as a 'choke' and pulled in lots of raw fuel, the wide open throttle caused the engine to rev, go lean, and the cycle repeats. Certainly, I only have two examples of the number one selling lawn mower power plant, so I don't suggest there are not other problems or possibilities out there, but I can clearly see a not so clear exhaust during these surges, and I'd bet an hour of running like this creates a LOT more emissions than the carburetor designed by engineers VS the one designed by girls to meet CARB.

I called a few folks that are experts in small engines, one who is now sixty years old, and started working with his father in small engine repair when he was eight years old. One thing he shared with me is the poor quality of our present fuel, and the corrosive nature of same. He has found jets coated with a varnish like material, and found it necessary to run a numbered drill through the jet to remove same and get the run characteristics back in some of the stuff he has worked on.

I made another trip to a local small engine repair shop where engines are sold, I asked the owner what kinds of problems he sees, and how he remedies the problem? He says there's only one thing to do when these CARB legal carburetors get dirty or varnish up, and that's to replace them because it's impossible per design to get into the areas that hold dirt or varnish and clean them. In earlier model, you could better clewan, and better adjust the Carburetor. So you tell the owner the price including labor and watch him process it, they often buy a new lawn mower instead of investing in repair. Those who choose NOT to repair help create the mountain of discarded lawn mowers behind this shop. The proprietor told me he thought lawn and garden equipment was now being designed by the insane, and it would get even worse next year as our Government has now ruled that all lawn mowers will be fitted with catalytic converters.

I'm sure the Arabs that sell us oil are delighted with our direction, cars of the 80s with their simple carbs got as much as 20% better mileage than our present cars get, and some will tell you the real emissions created has everything to do with the amount of hydrocarbons consumed to get the job done, not about how we choose to measure emissions on any given day.

So here's how I see it today, we need to step back and look at the real drivers of these decisions, and I think it has little to do with reality.

Why do we put ethanol in our fuel? some would say the real reason is because there are rich and powerful lobbyists that help career politicians get re-elected, and there are also useful idiots that think green, but have no real understanding of the actual cause and effect. They only vote for those who profess to be green. Oprah was on TV the other day talking about how important it is to have a garden, and to be carbon neutral as possible, she went on to tell her audience that she flies out to her California home once a week to spend time in her garden there. I believe she's a perfect example of those who lead this movement.

Imagine if we took this CARBURETOR to China, and told them this is the way of the future, "you need to follow suite". I know what would happen, they'd laugh and tell you that they would likely find themselves lined up at the next firing squad for 'sticking it to" their public. The Chinese don't have much tolerance for insanity or corruption, and as you likely saw, they know how best to deal with Pirates too. While the Europeans and others pay ransom and build a thriving business for the pirates, (giving them money to buy faster attack boats, and even heavier weapons), China had a different idea, they gave the Pirates operating off their coast a fair trial and then executed them, the same pirates that believed that dead men tell no tales and killed a large number of their victims before they were caught. No color TV, no hotel and meals for life at our expense. Imagine, the problems with Pirates ended overnight! Many lives were saved. One needs to ask, what entities have respect for life? It's clear to me that the Europeans and others are only interested in getting 'their' people back that day, and they care nothing about what happens even the following week! What a sad comment on Western ways some will say.        

But back to our story..

I suggest that this Carburetor above and many of our environmental laws are actually harmful to our environment and were really designed by Politics and NOT men of science. I watch what comes out the exhaust of these two engines as they wildly surge, and I'm fairly certain it wouldn't look all that good IF we were measuring the emissions, and I'm also certain the owners of this equipment are going to keep mowing as long as the thing runs! As I see it, this so called tamper proof California approved piece of crap is actually creating more emissions not less. But let us look at the real impact. What kind of emissions is created when we haul this piece of junk off to the landfill, and what kind of emissions is created when we replace it?

Looking to next year, there will be a catalytic muffler on the lawn mower that will increase the price by 20 percent or more on average, and it will likely burn more fuel to get the job done. As we add complexity, we also add to the probability of failure, and when something fails, what are the emissions then?

The EPA and CARB might be replacing the King's Religion of  past days. Their Palaces grow larger, they employ more Knights, Bishops, and Pawns every year, the King finds a need to raise more taxes to fund these new religious organizations. They spew out new rulings, they crush long standing efforts to produce cleaner burning and higher mileage vehicles seeming totally oblivious to what they do. Wise men might remind them, the more rules they write, the more likely it will become that one rule will contradict another; that their efforts to regulate all will likely kill efforts to lower emissions.  Are California CARB, and the EPA replacing  religion on the left?

Here's two possible examples of what CARB and EPA are doing to strangle efforts to produce cleaner vehicles.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/20/ironic-legislation-carb-ruling-to-kill-aftermarket-plug-in-hybr/  

A second example you'll need to do your own research on, CARB has, and will likely further ratchet up NOX requirements to the point where biofuels at any percentage are no longer compatible with the diesel engines. Some of the older ones run well on straight veggie, and yes many of us have been excited about these biofuels, but as insane as it sounds, manufacturers have found that they can use multiple injections per power stroke, and although the post injection adds nothing to thermal efficiency, (in other words, the fuel is not completely burned) it does lower one emission CARB measures. Increasing this post injection in duration will cause the unburned fuel to get by the rings and contaminate the lube oil AND actually cause it to fail as a lubrication! This means the manufacture must void the warranty if you use >ANY< percentage of biofuel beyond what they think the engine can tolerate.  If you were feeling good about using B5 or even a hire percentage of bio fuel, feeling good about reducing emissions and burning a renewable resource, forget it, CARB is going to unwittingly screw that up, just like they're doing to lawn mowers, the latest tiers of emissions standards have already ruled out biofuel in diesels. I'm sure there are those on the left that would simply say.. "no big deal" just build trucks that run on natural gas, that's the problem, we have the Greenies who vote that have no clue about energy and how much is required to get any particular job done. They'd vote for all electrics, having no clue the grid could never deliver that kind of energy to the point of usage where it is required. In their world Peter Pan, and others are real life characters, some expect hydrogen to be available at the pump next year.            

          How do we stop the insanity? We simply need to look at how things get done here in America an why. It all starts with the career politician and his principle job, that is to get  re-elected, and here is the root of many of our problems. There are two groups we need focus on... powerful lobbyists that exchange favors with our politicians, and useful idiots that have no real idea regarding cause and effect, their votes are more about feeling good about themselves than doing anything worth while. They are easy prey, a good slogan that rhymes is sometimes all you need, and of course the promise of a free lunch. These folks are often suckers for free energy schemes, they love hydrogen power, cars that run on moon beams, the promise of the impossible. One example is an air powered car, saw it in the news again last night!  Some crazy French engineer is 'sticking it to India', as the story told on the "History Channel", he will allow the people of India to travel up to 120 miles on a charge of FREE air! Of course a basic class in physics, and basic knowledge of thermal dynamics and just what happens when you compress a gas and the staggering losses in efficiency would cause any rational person to call it a scam. Try to pull this off in China and you might find yourself in a hole with those Pirates. Apparently those who run the history channel either don't care about reality, or they are also just as clueless, many in the media would be there to give the next car that runs on water free coverage.     

All we need do to turn a Career Politician into a Statesmen is place term limits, it is what our Fore Fathers warned us about, it's all so obvious as per my measure, and has been at the root of our problems all along. Think of all that Social Security money that was moved to the general fund, why was that done? I suggest it was done so they could deliver the PORK to those who promise to re-elect them. Had it been left in a separate account, they couldn't raid it and use it for their benefit. A friend of mine wrote me about 'NRA', never re-elect anyone. This might be a great strategy, but we know those who promise the free lunch are getting the votes now.

 So, in the end, if you want useful idiots and large companies like ADM to be the driving force behind the design of products and our entire world, work to keep career politicians in power.

There is no better example of the priorities of a career politician than Arlan Spector displayed yesterday. If you read what this man said prior, he clearly lays all his cards out on the table. It is all about him and self preservation, there is NOTHING more important to him. Some say he has less ethics than a street whore, he is driven only by money and power, and he is all too typical of a career politician. But he's not the problem, the American voters are, as they empower the career politician and don't seem to understand how term limits could make these people work on the needs of our country instead of their careers. Imagine a politician saying "WE need to get rid of the IRS and go to a flat tax"  think of all the parasites that would have to find a real job if that happened! Think of all the energy that we import and burn to heat buildings, carry IRS employees to work, accountants,  book keepers, tax law attorney, software makers like turbotax, and near countless other parasites that feed off a process that adds nothing to the GNP, yes! this creates a rather staggering amount of emissions and pollution and it all creates nothing of value. And think, the greenies are after lawn mowers and model air plane engines when they could be supporting a flat tax.      

So when you look at this piece of crap for a carburetor, when you look at the harm that California CARB rules are actually doing to automobiles and trucks. when you realize how much extra fuel a diesel truck is burning to satisfy these emissions standards by dumping raw fuel into the exhaust port to lower NOX as these idiots measure it..

REMEMBER

You likely are the root cause of this madness because you are not demanding term limits. You and others like you helped design this insane carburetor, no Statesmen would allow it, it only comes out of the madness created by career politics and all that follows it.

 Need a new lawn mower, or gas powered tool of any kind? better buy it before the end of 2009, or you'll be forced to buy a far more expensive unit, that has a shit load of problems designed in. And yes, you can thank your green thinking friend that likely doesn't know the difference between a BTU and an ATM, but hey, they control the world today.

Oh, I forgot to add,  I saw Al Gore on TV last night, he was being grilled about how his wealth has gone from two million to 100 million while working on Global Warming, just imagine this new game of energy credits trading, and all the insanity that will come out of that. I'm sure that Al and all his friends have it all set up, broker fees, tracking the credits and more! It's a whole new religion for the left, new Castles to build, new Czars to appoint.  Did you see Al on TV lately? The boy is getting down right portly, I heard fat people make a far bigger carbon foot print, somebody; get that boy some time scheduled in the gym, there should be a law to encourage that right ??   

  All the best,

George B.