roadkill

I've been looking into buying a still for making some alcohol for my car, I know about starting to run it onl a mower or some other thing other than my car at frist but still I haven't found a still or a recipe for somehing that sounds like it would work in m car.

Any one got some infor on this important matter?

Craven Morehead

Ethanol? I think you'll probably consume more energey to create it than it will provide - although with rising gas prices, that's not for certain. I think you can only add 10% to gas anyway.

Uncle Pony

You have to replace the valves in your heads or you'll burn them out with alcohol.

I make wine as a hobby, and used to have a still for making shine. Who doesn't in Pennsylvania?

Anyway, if you're not planning on drinking it just get a five gallon bucket, water, yeast, a lemon, 10 pounds of sugar, and a 1/2 can of corn meal. Bring a few gallons of water to boil and stir in the corn meal and a few pounds of sugar. Try to dissolve the sugar as much as you can. Boil that for a few minutes, then dump it into the bucket. Top up the bucket with cold water. When it cools to room temperature slice up the lemon and squeeze it in. Add two packets of baker's yeast (Red Star), and add the rest of the sugar. Stir it. Cover with a dish towel and let it sit to ferment for 10 days. Stir it once a day. You can find all these ingredients at the local supermarket for around $15. Use the cheap stuff.

Look on the net for plans on building a still. You're looking to build a reflux still, not a pot still. Build the reflux tower as high as you can to get a higher percentage of alcohol on the first run. It'll cost you between $50-$100 to build a good still, maybe less depending on what you already have on hand.

Daniel_

It is of course illegal in most places.

But if you do it - post pictures of the still, as a chemist, I'm interested.

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Uncle Pony

It's not illegal to make alcohol, only to distill it.

Daniel_

So the "it" that is illegal was the building a still and refining the ethanol (double with sugar on)

Just out of interest - it's not too hard to make Methanol instead of Ethanol - it has the advantage that drinking it fucks you dead, so nobody can accuse you of making 'shine.

Not sure exactly how you ferment it - I guess you just need the right yeast culture.

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gump

if you got a diesel vehicle, have access to alot of used cooking oil, and some spare time and cash you can make your own diesel.

Bio Diesel

LoganSnake

Can somebody please explain what these guys are talking about? Alcohol for your car? ingridients? Why is it in auto forum? Help plz?

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Uncle Pony

In plain terms, alcohol burns hotter than gasoline, thereby creating more power from an engine.

Daniel_

Also, neither alcohol nor bio deisel need to be pumped from the New Orleans area...

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

tug mcgroin

you want to build a fractioning or a compound still and some turbo yeast and about 20 pounds of plain white table sugar

roadkill

So is there nay way that I can get just alcohol for my car rather than just 10% i want a 100% alcohol burning vechicle.... other than that are thoese recipets going to work for a car or for drinking?

Uncle Pony

It's simply not worth the effort. To burn alcohol you'd need to build an engine that can handle it. That would run you probably 20 grand at a minimum. Then you'd have to make the alcohol in mass quantities. A 5 gallon bucket will yeild about 3/4 of a liter's worth of fuel. That's roughly 2 gallons of fuel for every 50 gallons fermented and distilled. You'd need to ferment and distill 800 gallons at a time just for a tank of fuel, and it'd take you 11 days at a minimum to make 1 tank of fuel. You'd have to be fermenting 1,600 gallons at a time (800 for this week's tank, 800 for next week's tank).

roadkill

What about all these stills? I know about the parts for the alcohol engin and what not but still if I got one of these stills runing at about 90% alcohol then I bet that I could start saving money in about 4 months givent the price of the upgrade still and also the ingredents.

http://www.revenoor.com/merchant.ihtml?id=2&step=2

This is the link for the stills ^

LoganSnake

So how much money on average do you think you'll be saving after you take into account all the costs of the upgrades and the time it takes for you to get your money back in saved money?

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Uncle Pony

A bit pricey. Look at different sites from New Zealand for buying a still and research the laws about importing them.

TM875

From and economic perspective, in the short-run, you'd lose a TREMENDOUS amount of capital. The cost for engine upgrades, ingredients, and building a still would run around $30 to $40 thousand.

In the long-run, the costs will, of course, even out. However, we're talking the real long-run here.

Say you spend $20 a week on gasoline. Simple math tells us that it would take about 1500 weeks (or around 29 years) for you to break even . After that, assuming that inflation of food products has not surpassed the inflation of gasoline (who knows?), then you may - may - save yourself about $2 or $3 a week on gas. And that's just a rough guess (there might be a equally devastating hurricane in 2030 that destroys all the world's sugar crops, thus making table sugar priced at $15 a pound...).

In the end, I don't think it's really worth it, do you? Plus your car would never, never pass inspection

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LoganSnake

No offense but after reading TM875's explanation it sounds like a dumb idea.

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roadkill

I'm not convinced at all. I really would like to see where it says that I need a new engin and where I need to be concerned about one season of suger runining everythign 25 years away. Also look at the stills in that link I posted if you spend 20$ a week for gas then you are really using about 10 gal a week at 3$ a gal and on of the stills there made 3.5 gal /3hr now with that you don't even need to run the still the entire timea and yes it would take longer to break even but still because of the cost of production after say 2 years you break even at that time say gas is 5.5$ a gal then you really are saving a ton of money by having that stuff allready running.

Turbotom

If you want to make your own fuel, Bio Diesel is much more practical.
It can be used in any diesel car, as long as you add the proper lubricants for high pressure injectors.

roadkill

I've heard about it but shit if I know how to make it. Also I don't have a diesel car I've got a gas one.

Uncle Pony

I don't know how car savey you are, but here's a good link explaining a few things you need to take into account.

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/farmmgt/05010.html

duck0987

running a gasser on ethanol will require some conversions, I'm not one to ask about how to do this but I dont see how a factory MAF could get the correct air fuel mix, especially since ethanol is 35% oxygen, petrol is no where near that. I have heard about E-85 fuel (85% ethanol), but this requires engine modification or a factory car rated for this type of fuel

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Spyder_Venom

I don't understand why you guys keep thinking an alcohol motor costs so much. When I spun a rod in my firebird last year I decided to pickup a used IMCA motor. These motors can be had for 2-3 grand, and one that was freshened up can be had for 4-5 grand. Granted, you are stuck with carb small block chevy motors but still. They are cheap, make awesome power and are quite durable.

These motors also run quite a bit cooler than the petro counterpart. I have no more oil or coolant issues but I do change the oil often - running methonal isn't the kindest thing to run through a motor. Getting fuel from lubetech isn't a big deal, you can get there Power M for cheaper than what most places are charging for 92 oct right now.

This may be some what impractical for the 'daily driver' but for anyone looking for a higher HP application it's something that should be explored. If I were working on a daily driver, Bio Deisel all the way.

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