200mpg Carburetor conspiracy?

[2strokebloke]

Recently somebody sent me a copy of "SECRETS OF THE 200 MPG CARBURETOR" An interesting book by Allan Wallace.

Allan's book has some rather cryptic sections, for example:

"Recent inquiries have gone un-answered..." shows up throughout the book when he has tried to contact people who claim to have built/sold super efficent carburetors.

There's a history of the carb built by Charles N. Pogue in the 1930's, which apparently could get 25 or so miles out of a single pint of gas.
Pogue late in life became a recluse and refused to speak to anybody about his carburetor experiments.
There's details of other inventions that apparently don't work (such as fuel magnets) the "book" is very old (1982 for this issueing) and appears to be made up out of a collection of newsletters.

Many of the inventers of fuel efficent carburetors were bought out, or simply dissapeared. Some like Pogue simply stopped talking about their inventions. Tom Ogle after selling out, died mysteriously (apparently) of an "overdose" though it's not said from what.

Other claims, such as the now famous "Fish" carburetor are detailed - it was found that performance was increased drastically compared to stock carburetors, but alas no huge increase in fuel economy.

Great read if you can find it.

[2strokebloke]

Oh wait, they know what Tom Ogle overdosed on, I found this paragraph from an article about the inventor:

"Ogle had been gravitating toward gambling at the pool table, and began losing a lot of money in his gambling forays. He indicated to his attorney, Bobby Perel, that he believed people were drugging his drinks. Perel was skeptical, but on August 19, 1981, Ogle collapsed and died from what an autopsy showed was an overdose of Darvon and alcohol. The death was ruled to be a suicide after a cursory investigation, but several people close to Ogle indicated that they did not believe that Ogle would or could kill himself."

From: http://www.io.com/~maniac/environ.html

[Amish_kid]

Originally Posted by 2strokebloke

Recently somebody sent me a copy of "SECRETS OF THE 200 MPG CARBURETOR" An interesting book by Allan Wallace.

Allan's book has some rather cryptic sections, for example:

"Recent inquiries have gone un-answered..." shows up throughout the book when he has tried to contact people who claim to have built/sold super efficent carburetors.

There's a history of the carb built by Charles N. Pogue in the 1930's, which apparently could get 25 or so miles out of a single pint of gas.
Pogue late in life became a recluse and refused to speak to anybody about his carburetor experiments.
There's details of other inventions that apparently don't work (such as fuel magnets) the "book" is very old (1982 for this issueing) and appears to be made up out of a collection of newsletters.

Many of the inventers of fuel efficent carburetors were bought out, or simply dissapeared. Some like Pogue simply stopped talking about their inventions. Tom Ogle after selling out, died mysteriously (apparently) of an "overdose" though it's not said from what.

Other claims, such as the now famous "Fish" carburetor are detailed - it was found that performance was increased drastically compared to stock carburetors, but alas no huge increase in fuel economy.

Great read if you can find it.

I actually had a customer in the other week at work talking about this I was kinda interested in it. He said that lately someone has found and used the design, but before they could sell the design to someone else I guess 2 people showed up at his house and told him "You will not make this, and if you try again you will be shot". I didn't know to beleive him or not just found the whole thing kinda interesting.

[2strokebloke]

One of the former distributors for a certain vaporizer (Flex, which reportedly got 60mpg when fitted to a '77 Lincoln) system lives in my state - he apparently left the bussiness in the early 80's I'm going to try and get ahold of him.
There's some very interesting carburetor designs in this book, I'm going to build a few for fun (some simple surface carburetors and vaporizers) not all claim to get "200mpg" but it'd be neat just to try them out.

[carrrnuttt]

Originally Posted by 2strokebloke

One of the former distributors for a certain vaporizer (Flex, which reportedly got 60mpg when fitted to a '77 Lincoln) system lives in my state - he apparently left the bussiness in the early 80's I'm going to try and get ahold of him.
There's some very interesting carburetor designs in this book, I'm going to build a few for fun (some simple surface carburetors and vaporizers) not all claim to get "200mpg" but it'd be neat just to try them out.

Make sure you lock your doors...

[2strokebloke]

Originally Posted by carrrnuttt

Make sure you lock your doors...

If anybody asks, the toyota is now a "lawnmower" and the moped is now a "weedeater" (that'll throw the automotive industry off)

[Marc-OS]

I remember reading similar things, but it was something about the first cars made originally were powered by magnets/perpetual motion type things, and the inventor was "silenced".

[2strokebloke]

But mysterious death is all part of the fun of automotive inventing. Afterall, anybody remember what happened to poor Rudolf Diesel?

Also, more on Tom Ogle - the company that bought him out later reported that his designs didn't work. Uh huh, yeah. Right.

[Porsche]

If you could provide some more info on the designs or where to find the book if possible, I'd appreciate it.

I don't think it was a Carburetor conspiracy, but my physics teacher once mentioned something about a guy who created an uber efficient engine in the early 80's. One of the big oil companies bought him out or something like that, the details he gave me were really sketchy, that's why I'm happy you're more educated on this topic. It could be the same thing, but I'd like to know more.

[2strokebloke]

Well the book is titled Secrets Of The 200 MPG Carburetor and it was written by Allan Wallace and published by Premier Publishers. I'm sure if you just did a search for the title on the internet you might find a copy somewhere.

The Fish and Pogue carburetors are the best known of the "super carbs"
The Fish however became mythical mostly through missunderstanding. The popular legend being that the Fish was a 100mpg carb, and that oil companies bought all the patents to keep it out of production. In reality, the Fish was designed not to improve economy, but to provide more uniform carburetion over a wider rev range, and to be simpler in design that most other carbs. The reason the Fish never went into any mass produced cars was that the U.S. government stepped in, and accused the inventor of being a fraud (interesting, they did the same thing to Tucker when he also had a bright idea) perhaps the oil concerns helped sway them to make this decision? We'll probably never know. However, Fish carbs were eventually made, as aftermarket items. They're extremely hard to find these days.

Now the Pogue carb's fate is more mysterious. It's a carb and a vaporizer built into one. First, it has not float in the conventional sense (excess gas in the bowl simply flows back into the fuel pump) and secondly, there's a heat exchanger that takes heat from the exhaust, and uses it to fully vaporize gas before it enters the engine (meaning that compared to most cars of the thirties, engines with this carb, would in theory run as clean, or cleaner than car equipped with catalytic converters) the idea being that less gas goes unburned, because it is better vaporised before burning. There are some other interesting details which I won't get into, just to keep this post from becoming too long.
The Pogue carb was tested by very knowledgeable people in the automotive industry, who reported going further than 26 miles on a single pint of gas (further than 200 miles per gallon!)
Mr. Pogue's invention caused a problem at the Canadian stockmarket among the oil concerns, and only a few of his carburetors were ever sold. He later went into business making oil filters, but never again carburetors.
Only one Pogue carb is said to exist today.

Other carbs detailed in this book are the Baldwin carb, which although the book doesn't say so - is probably somewhat similiar in principal to Tom Ogle's invention (which this book has no design details on - in fact I can't find any details on his design anywhere)

The Tucker Carb, which is a very simple surface carb/air filter/gas filter (I plan on building one because the design is so simple)

The Gerrard, and Schwarts carbs.

The Shelten carb, which is a heated surface carb, more complicated than the Tucker, but I'd like to build it anyway.

And then some more devices.

I know that there are some websites about the Fish carburetor if you search for them, but not much info on the other designs on the web.

[YogsVR4]

Conspiracy theories are always a fun read. I just love outlandish theories and the way they try and make up facts to support them.

[2strokebloke]

That's part of the fun of this book. As I already pointed out, the Fish carburetor, contrary to popular belief did not get 100mpg - and was not bought out by oil companies, which is the popular automotive legend.

Nobody knows why Pogue decided to never produce his design, and instead went into manufacturing oil filters. Since his death however, people have built carburetors based on his designs - so far nobody has gotten fuel economy increases that are worth shouting about, however people have reported that engines run smoother, and perform better with this type carb in place of the stock units.

Tom Ogle, died under somewhat mysterious circumstances - just shortly after selling out to a company in Seattle.

It's because so much is unknown about these inventors or their inventions that their stories are so easy to turn into conspiracy theories.
Afterall, it seems wierd that Pogue after inventing his carburetor, which had been seen and tested by many in the automotive business would just give up, and refuse to talk about his design for the rest of his life. The only remaining Pogue carb was supposed to undergo testing in the 1980's using a wide variety of fuel - I've not read if the tests were ever carried out, and if so what the results were. It does make one wonder though.

Although Allan Wallace never steps out and writes that "oil companies bought all of the designs, and destroyed the tooling to keep them off the market" he, as I pointed out has some rather cryptic sections throughout the book, leaving one wondering what exactly he meant.

[grimmy]

that sounds like a realy realy good bok. im going to have to check that out.

[zebrathree]

Have a read of abovetopsecret.com. I read it on night shift; great for a few laughs.

"Thats what they WANT you to believe!" its often quoted.

[zebrathree]

Originally Posted by grimmy

that sounds like a realy realy good bok. im going to have to check that out.

I check all the good Boks too, but only the females of course.