Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Not ethanol or biodiesel nor hydrogen.
Video says it all.



This is what happens when lockdown fever kicks in.

Butane or propane conversion isn’t exactly difficult.  A fellow I know had a Honda generator he converted to propane before Honda offered the dual fuel variety. He tapped into the intake manifold vacuum that operated the diaphragm fuel pump, put a Tee and a selector valve in the line, allowing him to either pump gas from the tank, or feed the intake manifold directly with propane. The key was inserting a small orifice restrictor in the propane feed side, limiting how much gas went in.  For a fixed RPM unit like a generator, it wasn’t that big a deal.   I also knew a guy who ran a Model A ford pickup on propane in the 1970s. A homespun conversion.

I could see using a simple intake horn on a hit and miss air inlet, with holes in the horn to suck air, and a tiny flow of propane or butane into the intake horn, similar to the “turbo torch” concept.  I’m guessing you’d need a small propane or butane line with a ball valve or similar to meter the gas. 

It’s amazing how engines will often readily run on most anything if not flooded or starved. I used to clear water from an RC Glow engine outboard by starting and running it with the thin wand of a can of WD-40 Inserted into the fuel line. It would start and run fine on WD.
Similarly, full sized outboards that failed to start due to fuel issues, a diagnostic to prove it was a fuel problem and not a spark problem was to start them by spraying carb cleaner into the air intake while cranking.  They’d run as long as you kept “puff, puff, puffing” the carb spray.

Oil injection ought to be fun. A diaphragm pump operated off vacuum would be my first thought. Similar to automatic chain oilers on chainsaws.