Car exaust flames - Archive File

[megalomania]

gotrun
New Member
Posts: 3
From:
Registered: JUN 2001
posted 06-27-2001 06:28 PM
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Dear friends,
I have a problem. My neighbor and I have a bet on car exaust flames. He says that all they are are movie effects. I beg to differ that it can be done with any vehicle. Could you please tell me how to rig a contraption up. Does a spark plug in the exaust pipe work?

Gotrun



Anthony
Moderator
Posts: 2383
From: England
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-27-2001 07:56 PM
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That spark plug in the exhaust shit from the Anarchist Crapbook is pure BS and fundamentally flawed on several acounts. If you have a copy of the crapbook, delete it now, it's a complete waste of electrons. If you're fortunate enough to have a printed copy you've just saved yourself buying toilet paper this week.
There is no combustible fuel in the exhaust of an engine running properly, it's very obvious that there isn't.

Depends what you saw in the movies, if it was a 20ft long 10 second jet of flames then yeah it was an effect. Small flames can be emitted from the exhaust during a back fire, which can be done by turning off the engine and coasting in gear (so the engine is turning over) then turnign the ignition back on. Because the egine was turning over it was injecting fuel into the cylinders as normal, but because the ignition was not on, the fuel was not ignited and so passed unburnt into the exhaust. When you turn the ignition on the hot exhaust gas ignites the unburnt fuel in the exhaust and an explosion results. Although I know of someone that blew his exhaust off doing this when the explosion wave hit the muffler.

On TV you often see flames emitted from an exhaust when the engine fires up, this is the same thing as the back fire, but you'd have to crank the engine over for quite a while to get enough fuel into the exhaust for it to back fire. Although if you're using a Merlin engine it'd probably dump a gallon of fuel into the exhaust faster than you can say "mpg"

Why have I written so much for a lame thread? If I wasn't so bored I probably would have closed this thread, it's you're lucky day.



ogi
New Member
Posts: 12
From:
Registered: JUN 2001
posted 06-28-2001 01:43 AM
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to make an easy Jame's bond smoke screen with your exhaust fill the window washer bottle with oil, run the hose from the pump to your carby
spose you could also put some kind of irritant also

hey all


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you dont need a long neck to be a goose



richl261
Frequent Poster
Posts: 134
From: uk
Registered: MAR 2001
posted 06-28-2001 07:19 AM
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i recall that one out of the "anarchists cookerybook"( ) too


Anthony
Moderator
Posts: 2383
From: England
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-28-2001 05:39 PM
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You mean run the hose from the oil filled washer bottle to the exhaust manifold... Oil in the carb may muck it up and the engine won't run properly! Chemical irritants might be broken down into harmless chemicals if injected into the cylinders and explosed to the combustion cycle!


YTS
Frequent Poster
Posts: 62
From:
Registered: MAR 2001
posted 06-28-2001 06:30 PM
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Anthony what are you a mechanic or something


PYRO500
Moderator
Posts: 1513
From: somewhere in florida
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-28-2001 06:38 PM
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GOD NO! do nto inject anything into your engine, carb other than fuel (gasoline, diesel, methanol, whatever) oxyagen or n2o
I dont recomend you inject anything deeep into your muffler either, it could gum up in there and screw things up. in some stunt airplanes they make smoke trails by having a screen in their exaust pipe witch gets heated in by the exaust gasses and then a sprayer sprays castor oil through it. if you ere to do this on your car I would recommend making sure the screen isnt restricting the exause too much I also think you shouldn't run a rubber, plastic or metal tube directly to your exaust and a check valve is nessasary if you have too big a hole in your tail pipe (you shouldnt). I would have a ceramic link to the exaust and I wouldn't put oil in my window wiper tank.


Anthony
Moderator
Posts: 2383
From: England
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-28-2001 06:40 PM
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No, closest thing I've ever done to being a mechanic was servicing cars at a garage for school work experience.


gotrun
New Member
Posts: 3
From:
Registered: JUN 2001
posted 06-28-2001 10:01 PM
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Anthony thanks. Jorge my neighbor said the spark plug thing. I found jolly roger and all his shit to be shit. If I cant trick this 87 Mazda to do that is there another way.In gone in 60 seconds they start the car up and it has flames no back fire. Propane settling what is it. Help I lose a 100 big ones.


gotrun
New Member
Posts: 3
From:
Registered: JUN 2001
posted 06-28-2001 10:04 PM
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Whats a Merlin engine?????


Anthony
Moderator
Posts: 2383
From: England
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-28-2001 11:02 PM
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The thing from Gone in 60 seconds (sounds like someone with premature ejaculation) might be an affect, asking someone who runs a big V8 or similar could probably tell you. I've seen flames coming from the exhaust manifold (no exhaust system fitted) of 3l V6 but I think it was quite running rich.
I dunno, I think when the engine started it would push the unburnt fuel out of the exhaust (where it apparently burns at the tail pipe), but there's enough oxygen in the exhuast for it to combust inside, so no flames would exit. If there wasn't enough oxygen then the fuel vapour would be ejected unignited because if you put your hand over the tail pipe, especially when the engine has just started it's no where near hot enough to ignite any fuel pushed through the exhaust.

Any Mustang owners that can answer yes/no rather than my benal ramblings?

BTW The Rolls Royce Merlin engine powered the WWII Spitfire fighter plane and after the war someone built a car around one of these engines. It's still going today although in it's 3rd incarnation because it keeps catching on fire

I only managed to find these links:

http://www.ditto.mcmail.com/Weird/Weird066.htm
http://www.ditto.mcmail.com/Weird/weird072.htm

I think there must have been several different cars, there were certainly many version of the Merlin engine. The biggest one here is 27l and 1000bhp

http://www.britishairborne.org/spitfire.html

Info about the spitfire, one version had a 1700bhp Merlin. Although it seems the last version of the Spitfire used a 2000bhp Rolls Royce Griffon engine which gave a top speed of 440mph and a ceiling of 40 000ft and use them to shoot down the V1 Buzz bombs

Interesting some of the stuff Google turn up.





PYRO500
Moderator
Posts: 1513
From: somewhere in florida
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 06-28-2001 11:23 PM
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you could spray gasoline or propane in to the very end of the tailpipe and have it ignited by a spark genorator, I would not recomend rigging up something to your spark plug power supply for your safety and the well bein of your car. if you are going to use propane you could probably use a N2O solenoid valve or a high pressure line purging solenoid valve if you have the time. a good ignitor for one would be a cheap stun gun and a 12 volt dc to 9 volt dc power converter for cars and wire it to the battery connector for the stun gun and run long wires through aquarium air tubing for fairly ok insulation (just keep the wires away from eachother.) and when the wires get near the exaust attach one end of the wires to the top of the spark plug and the other underneath the spark plug grounded area pinched between the tailpipe and thegrounded area of the sparkplug.


Ctrl_C
Frequent Poster
Posts: 253
From:
Registered: NOV 2000
posted 07-03-2001 02:27 PM
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there are several kits to add fuel injection or propane to your tailpipe.
very rich mixtures can also lead to raw fuel in the exhaust which can ignite.

also, sometimes if you take out the cat, it will get you some flames.



Rhadon
Frequent Poster
Posts: 95
From: Germany
Registered: OCT 2000
posted 07-07-2001 06:23 PM
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If you've got an old car it'll exhaust some carbon monoxide that will be able to burn. Though I don't know if its concentration is high enough (12.5% will be sufficient).


Anthony
Moderator
Posts: 2383
From: England
Registered: SEP 2000
posted 07-08-2001 08:14 PM
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CO burns??!!


fenris
Frequent Poster
Posts: 123
From:
Registered: APR 2001
posted 07-10-2001 08:48 AM
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The easiest is get yourself an old Mazda 626 (at least 12 years old) with stickshift gear and let it run downhill (engine on).
I had one of these and all the car drivers in my rear were constantly frightened of the flames it produced when backfiring which it did quite a lot.
At night it was just real fun while riding the car you could see these huge flashes lighting all what's behind your car, hehe...
I've sold that car a year ago. Consumed faaaar too much fuel.
Did I sell it or did I just leave it in a parking lot at a small railway station after damaging the engine beyound repair, destroying its interior with a flash bomb and taking the licence plates with me? Hmm... can't recall...

[vulture]

Sure CO burns:

2CO + O2 -->2CO2

And with a very hot flame too.

[Anthony]

I just read what I posted about CO burning and thought "damn, someone's going to say something about that..." :)

[vulture]

Oh damn. And it's me again isn't it? Remember that thermite thingy? :o

Won't do it again....

Seems like you've got a past haunting you...:D
Poor chap

[stickfigure]

There are a few Flame Thrower kits on the web for converting exhaust into flames. Some require you add a extra fuel line going into your tail pipe and some don't. It also depends on how lean or rich your fuel mixture is. My friends Nissan Skyline GTR throws out blueish orange flames at high speeds or if he's drifting it and running at high RPM's. A lot of the earlier threads mentioned special effects and some mentioned that exhaust fumes aren't flammable. This all depends on how much extra fuel is not being burnt. It is very possible to get a large flame out of your tailpipe running a rich fuel mixture. And to those who say you can't drift a GTR you can if you have the front wheel drive disconnected.

[Anthony]

It's no big deal Vulture. It'd be pretty arrogant of me if I didn't admit that I was a newbie who new little at one point! :)

stickfigure, that does make sense with a tuned engine like that of a skyline. The skyline is turbocharged unless I am mistaken. In order to boost engine power by more than ~10% with a turbo, you need to inject extra fuel that can continue to burn after it has left the cylinder. The purpose being to raise EGT and exhaust velocity to provide more power to the turbo. This purposeful combustion in the exhaust system would explain what your friend's car does, rather than simply a rich mixture. Since the fuel/air mixture would be ECU monitored and adjusted.

What sort of exhaust system has he got? An exhaust without baffles (i.e just expansion boxes) would also help the flames.

[stickfigure]

Sorry Anthony, didn't mean to ignore your post for so long. My laptop shit the bed and I'm moving back to America in a month so I just canceled my service and use the public computers. I talked to my friend and he says he's pretty much running straight pipes, now he has a muffler but it's pretty much for show and looks like it should be doing something but isn't. His car is heavily modified and he actually has a seperate fuel control computer that allows him to adjust it how ever he feels. He mentioned that at high speeds if he's running it rich, flames will come out constantly, but they appear to look like jet afterburner just on a smaller scale. In the Fast and the Furious those were flamer kits that dumped a lot of fuel into the tailpipe and ignited it for show. As it looks like something akin to a can of WD40 and a match, type flames. He is a lot more knowledgeable about how all this, his car runs about 600hp. and sucks down a tank of gas in a night, if he's running hard.

[yt2095]

forgive my TOTAL ignorance on this topic but i can`t think of a better to place to ask something that`s been bugging me since the 70`s.

i`ve seen hot-rod and dragster type cars with huge flames coming out of the back end, i know some of these cars were "Nitro mix" fueled (what ever specificaly that means?)

so were those massive flames just showmanship then?

probably a lame question and dead obvious for someone "in the know" but cars aren`t my mojo :)

[Efraim_barkbit]

The flames that comes out is fuel that has not had time to burn completely in the cylinder, so it is still burning when it goes out through the exhaust port.
Normally, the flame goes out before it passes throug the exhaust system, but the dragster type cars have very short and wide exhaust pipes, no muffler(correct word ?), and are very high powered, with high RPM (limiting time for the fuel to burn even more) and so on.

if one were to take of the exhaust system of their car, they will probably see some flames coming out too. especially on older, and/or tuned cars.

"nitro fueled" means that they run on a mix of nitro methane and methanol. some cars have N2O system (injecting N2O gas for better combustion --> more power. this is sometimes done in ordinary cars too, giving a LOT more power under a limited time)

hope I got it right, its much more difficult to explain in english than swedish. :D

[DaRkDwArF]

If your lucky enough to have an aftermarket ECU in your car, set your duty to 100% at 7,000rpm, get your engine as war as possibly then start thrashing it so your turbo or charger gets very hot, then everytime to hit 7k your engine will start dumping excessive fuel through your red hot dump pipe :D

works for me everytime, just remember to warm your engine up first and only do it a few times, don't want your car catching alight