After the gasoline price drop

Bringing the AltFuel Blog up to date is the conversation I had with Joshua of Logan Utah yesterday while filling up my Civic with CNG. Josh is the owner and manager behind the www.123cng.com company which uses and re-sells the Bugatti kit.

Just a little background: In talking with Mr. Gordon of Technicarb, Mr. Gordon who has been in the automotive industry for many years indicated that traditionally Toyota vehicles are not easily tuned using CNG. Keeping this in mind, got me talking to Josh during the filling of his Toyota Tundra truck. The main point of the post is that he was making progress in his business of selling and installing kits. He said that since the price drop, he hasn't had any inquiries about installations.

Josh has gone back to his property management business as his main source of income. During the conversation we speculated at the future of the CNG business. While in South Jordan one day in January 2009, I spoke with Chris of CNGConcepts and indicated to Josh that according to Chris, CleanCities is putting money (I suspect millions of dollars but don't know the exact amount) into CNG infrastructure.

To add to the confusion of the future of alternate fuels and the "Green Car" concept like the Hybrids that are being touted, I spoke with Mr. Gale Banks of Banks Engineering who indicated that his contacts indicate that Hybrids "are not moving". There isn't a concise conclusion to the issue other than as prices "normalize" for gasoline, obviously there is a lot less emphasis on alternate fuels.

Vogas Software

The Vogas tuning software is a little bit overwhelming at first but after a few experiences with the software I came to the understanding that the software is very straight forward.

The heart of the supplemental CNG software is the translation table. Shown here.

One of the best things about the Vogas kit is the ability to use varying percentages of each fuel.
The table shown takes the incoming gasoline injector pulse and multiplies the pulse width by the amount shown. By using an EGT probe, you can ensure that the Natural Gas (NG) applied is not too much. Unlike gasoline engines, running too rich on NG, can heat up the engine to a point beyond the breaking point.

The engine gets too hot and can be damaged. Too much gasoline on the other hand, will tend to cool the engine. Just the opposite effect that the NG has on the engine. The other part of the Vogas software allows one to enter the ratio of NG to gasoline.

This allows what is called by the manual "Split Fuel". A percentage of both can be added or an exclusive amount of a single fuel. I am told that the software allows use of fuel beyond 100%, that is, 100% gasoline plus an additional percentage of NG.

Here is the picture of the split fuel table. Just enter the percentage of NG that you want to use and the software does the rest. For example, entering 80% gives 80% NG and 20% gasoline.

The pictures below show other parts of the software. The first picture below shows the overview screen. This screen shows RPM per cylinder, input from the MAP sensor, what fuel is being used currently, compensation, temperature and gas pressures.

In order to connect the computer - In this case a laptop to the Vogas system, first you must plug in the CAN to USB transceiver into the Vogas harness. Next plug the USB into the transceiver. Once plugged into the USB port of your computer, the software will establish a connection to the transceiver.

Then it will download the current fuel map or table so that you can edit it in the software. A couple of the screens that aren't shown is the setup and testing of the injectors which can be manually triggered via the PC software.

Once connection is established the screen shows all of the pertinent information of the NG gasoline and engine systems. This information can be used to adjust the tuning of the system and once modified; the tables are downloaded to the target Vogas ECU.

A handy item to have available is a dynamometer. When I helped my friend set up his system, we did the load testing on the Edge Products dynamometer. We were able to place a static load on the truck with the dyno and then adjust the fueling to accommodate the best mix or best type of fuel for the load applied.

Although this took several hours because we had to adjust, download, test the system was very able to be adapted to the vehicle and after the tuning session, the truck in this case ran great.
One more noteworthy screen is the change-over screen. Changing from one fuel to the other can be a major headache. Sometimes cutting off one fuel and starting the other fuel works -
Most times there needs to be a slow change over for this to happen.

Other parameters that can effect change over is engine temperature RPM, and percentages of each fuel.
As you can see from the picture, the Civic change over is moderately slow. NG is slowly increased as gasoline is decreasing. This for me was a major time-sync. Getting the car to change over smoothly without stumbling. The Civic test bed still occasionally lowers the RPM as it transitions but for the most part, it changes pretty well.

Inside the Vogas Propane Kit and conversion to CNG

The CNG conversion that I installed on my 1999 Honda Civic was in reality a propane kit from Voltran, a company in Turkey.

Here's a look inside the kit:

The kit consists of a controller, user interface containing level display, propane regulator (vaporizer), wiring harness, manifold, natural gas injectors, a fuel control link (USB to CAN), nuts, bolts, hose clamps, hose and mounting hardware.

One thing that this kit didn't come with is the Bellgas regulator. Since this kit will be used to convert the Civic to compressed natural gas (CNG), a step down regulator needs to be used. This will take the pressure from 3000 PSI to between 120 and 150 PSI. Because the CNG is a gas the vaporizer is not necessary but provides a solenoid valve to shut off the flow of CNG to the manifold. Here is a picture of the vaporizer.




I opened the controller to find out the level of integration and the approximate computer power required for operation of the kit.

To the left is a picture of the injectors, manifold and intake manifold nipples.


Research into the connector to the controller reveled a water tight connection to the wiring harness and a water resistant case. The PC board
is conformal coated to resist moisture. (under the picture of the wiring harness)


Here's a schematic of the wiring harness. Notice that the gasoline injector wires need to be cut in order to hook up the Vogas control unit for sensing when the injectors fire (referred to as benzine injectors).



Below is a picture of how the PC board fits into the plastic case.

The board in the picture is laid side-ways so that the connector is visible and how it mounts into the case.




Here's a description of the type of processor Vogas is using for their controller:
It seems to be "SAF C164G" but the closest match I found in automotive temp is:

XC164CM

XC164CM - Automotive Controller with CAN
The XC164CM is the only member of the XC164CM Series supporting extended temperature range (Ta: 125°C). The XC164CM Series offers impressive DSP performance and advanced interrupt handling combined with a powerful integrated peripheral set and high performance and reliable on-chip Flash memory.The XC164CM is suited for automotive and general purpose markets and features a dedicated PWM unit for AC and DC motors, TwinCAN and a 10-bit AD Converter.

Really sounds impressive - The core is a C166V2 core - Here is a general description:

General Device Information
The XC164CM derivatives are high-performance members of the Infineon
XC166 Family of full featured single-chip CMOS microcontrollers. These devices extend
the functionality and performance of the C166 Family in terms of instructions (MAC unit),
peripherals, and speed. They combine high CPU performance (up to 40 million
instructions per second) with high peripheral functionality and enhanced IO-capabilities.
They also provide clock generation via PLL and various on-chip memory modules such
as program Flash, program RAM, and data RAM.

The only problem I have is that all of the C164 series I found are 64 pin this one is an 80 pin version.

4 x 2 MB (8MB) of memory: ST 29F4000

Here is the entire board - In the top right, two FET drivers (i believe) and maybe injector drivers in the lower right.

Also an ST high side driver between the memory and the processor ST VN820SP
Pretty simple in hardware - Very adaptable configuration software.

In order to use this kit, a Bellgas regulator was used. The P-39 series regulator takes the high pressure and regulates it down to around 150 psi. The regulator that was purchased has an adjustment screw under the octoganal cap. The default pressure turned out to be around 120 psi.

View a picture of the regulator below. I sell a universal regulator mount from my web page:

http://www.advanced-fuelcontrol.com/


The last item I will cover is the user interface as shown below the regulator - It has a button for gasoline / CNG and an input into the control box will take a pressure senor for displaying a bar graph of tank pressure.


In operation once tuned with the custom software from Vogas, the system runs very well. Only occasionally has there been a problem with the way the system is programmed and the user interface that runs on a PC there is sufficient controls for the compensation for any type of engine.

Probably the biggest detractor for using this kit is that the distributor Fire em Up diesel: www.fireemup.com/ is so hard to work with.

During my tenure at Edge Products, we tried to partner with them as a distributor of the Edge Products propane kit from MSD Ignition the parent company. It took weeks and weeks for them to give me a call back and when they finally did, they weren't very congenial - I guess I talked to Jeff and ended up yelling at him in order for him to understand what I was proposing - Hearing damage from all of the engine work he has done? Maybe.

After that episode, Edge Products also evaluated becoming a dealer for Electrodeil - A company out of Columbia. Not a bad kit but didn't pass the NFPA regulations for 300 bar pressure for components and the tanks were not DOT certified - You can get their kits from Awesome Pool products in Clinton, Utah. http://www.awesomepoolproducts.com/

Edge Products contacted the parent company Electrodiel to try to get their vacuum valves direct, but Edge had to become a dealer - Unfortunately, even though Edge Products had some 2 to 8 million dollars in various inventory items (trying to show that Edge is a pretty big company), Electrodiel wouldn't sign them up and indicated that the pool products company was the preferred dealer - Good for them however Edge Products could have probably moved more of their products.

Apparently the local dealer gets his Voltran products from Fire em up diesel and has also had some undisclosed problems with them as well.

New Business Venture:
Due to the economic slowdown, I was laid off as the Alternate Fuel Manager at Edge Products - Too bad in some respects. Really good in others - So this leaves me with the option to join the workforce as a soldier or create a new career as a general. I opt for the general position. Although still looking for opportunities at the soldier front, in the mean time building eco-projects in order to survive.

So, working at Edge, I installed a couple of CNG conversions for testing - From the experience, realizing that we would need regulator holders, I designed a simple solution for Edge from 1 inch x 1/8 inch steel as you can see in the top picture. After being laid off - I realized a general solution would be better so a friend of mine and I built a production holder from stainless steel - Second Image - Want one? Order them through my web site: http://www.advanced-fuelcontrol.com/#

I recently finished my first beta of the MileageMinder product. You can see a preview at the same web site and order Arkon mounts as well for the MileageMInder and also for the new releases from Edge Products: http://www.advanced-fuelcontrol.com/#