The E-Tec range of OB engines are now getting sold in numbers into
various markets & their ads are a total pain. So some anti-ads are in order.

In our opinion E-Tec have the potential to be an even bigger
consumer disaster than the first time when they were called Ficht &
marketed in the main by the same dealers/riggers who were then placarded
OMC.

The reasons for holding my opinions of what we say are E-Tecs design &
other problems are many, too many for one short NG post, they fall into
numerous categories any one of which, on it's own, is reason enough to
stay well away from them.

(i) The basic concept of running internal combustion engines with lean
mixtures at power, as opposed to overrun (doesn't happen in
boats:-)),idle or high speed very light throttle cruise (again doesn't
happen in boats).

(ii) The Direct Fuel Injection (DFI)into the combustion chamber (DFI)

(iii) The fuel injector nozzle.

(iv) The fuel injector

(v) The oiling system

(vi) The ignition system.

(vii) The engine displacements.

(viii) The latest version changes.

(ix) The "potential" for union labour to be used to build them.

(x) The "potential" way the manufacture is funded

(xi) The dealers/suppliers involved & the way/amounts they get paid

(xii) The marketing claims

(xiii) The warranty.

(xiv) Common sense.

I'll make a series of posts dealing with each category & if
needs be sub category. Needless to say, similarly I tried to warn you
through this NG about our "opinions" that Ficht would fail, "before" it
had become the disaster it did.

I was viciously & personally attached in this NG by those mostly with a
vested interest in selling/supporting known defective Ficht engines to
consumers. The dealers of course, the union thugs who had the undeclared
invested interest in the funding of OMC & a gaggle of sad simpletons
who, despite ample warnings in this NG, had fallen into buying one &
could only try to deny the obvious to save some value to their boats &
pride to there ego. Alas all sunk along with OMC when it fetched up on
Ficht reef. Save one true fool who went the next step & just kept
claiming he had bought another one every time the subject came up, which
would make him the most stupid person ever into rec.boats, a seriously
sad thing given some of the simpletons we've had & still have here over
the years:-) It's very possible he's just making it up about
buying more of them because if he had, I doubt his brain stem would even
support cardiac functions & remember a heart continues to beat even
outside the body.

So the first subject is running engines at power while lean & I say;

It's a much researched & experimented with idea, almost since IC
"petrol" engines were invented & thus far all attempts by big (Chrysler,
Honda etc) & small (OMC) have failed outright. Most didn't claim to be
able to run engines actually "lean" but all claimed they were clever
enough to know that can't be done (after all the same rules apply to the
shuttle), yet they claimed to have miraculously just "found" a way to
stratify the mixture within the combustion chamber. The claims of having
a "stratified" charge (i.e. the correct mixture at the spark plug but no
fuel anywhere else in the chamber) proved to be just fanciful dreaming.
Even the slightest fuel that doesn't get ignited in a continuous flame
front from the initial spark will result in it auto igniting once the
initial "stratified" charge has increased the chamber temp/pressure past
230C. All attempts cost the manufacturers & in OMCs case killed the Co
outright.

Only gases burn, no liquids no matter how flammable they are, actually
"burn", all liquids that can burn only do so once they're fully
vapourised. It's the vapour that allows oxygen to be available to
support the combustion.

Most flammable fuels have a mixture range in which it's possible to
sustain combustion, ie if the mixture is too fuel lean then the vapour
is so thinly disbursed with air that a flame front can't advance quickly
enough to consume the charge, or if it's too fuel rich then the vapour
does not allow enough air (oxygen) to be available to sustain the
combustion process. Simple enough to prove when the older engines that
had a mixture screw on the idle circuit of the carburetor, too lean & it
stalled too rich & it stalled. Or if you "flood" an engine (too rich)
there is raw fuel in the plugs so no ignition.

Lean at power is a big problem, as said the flame front cannot be
guaranteed to travel at a predictable & known speed because it isn't
uniformly carried in the chamber. This means that the slow burn allows
excessive heat to buildup in the combustion chamber so that the the
remaining un-ignited pockets of fuel can auto ignite.

Petrol vapour will auto ignite if it is in contact with anything having
a temp above about 230C. This is the basic problem with trying to run
any combustion process in a closed chamber with a fuel air mixture
already captive in the chamber, the burn will proceed once originally
ignited very quickly.

With E-Tec they won't tell anyone just how lean the mixture is that
they're trying to run at up to close to 2000 rpm, (when a large OB is
making large amounts of power & therefore heat) but given that when OMC
released Ficht we couldn't shut the lying dealers up about how they run
the Ficht engines are mixtures of 40-1 & also looking at the "claimed"
fuel savings in the E-Tec marketing being run by the dealers it's pretty
clear they are at least as lean as 40-1 but given the new EPA regs since
Ficht maybe even leaner.

Regardless this is dangerously lean as proven with the reliability of
the Fichts:-)

Once the combustion chamber can buildup enough heat such that any part
of it exceeds 230C then autoignition of the remaining air fuel charge
will occur which is generally called detonation. Once detonation
commences the extreme pressure peaks create even more chamber heat & the
process becomes self sustaining, indeed such that even if the mixture is
then richened the detonation will continue or commence or get worse
because the hot chamber just auto ignites the charge.

So the very idea of running very lean mixtures at power is proven to be
a failure & as you'll see in the following of the series E-Tec well know
it but as with past failed attempts claim they can run their charge
"stratified" i.e. they place the minimal fuel around the spark plug so
even though the burn is totally out of control, it will all be consumed
not leaving enough residual (called end gases) to create detonation.

K

Of course the E-Tec series will need to also include a Krause lie or a
loony Tom paste:-)

& the Krause lie for today is his Vietnam lie, the one he concocted when
in a fit of jealousy that John was a true patriot & served his country
like a real man, while socialist scum like Krause cowed behind their
lies back in the safety of their unions.


Just to make your day, not only was
I a civilian employee in SE Asia, it was in Vietnam, it was
during the
war against Vietnam, I did see some horrific sights and I was
working at
the time for a U.S. general. Is that straightforward enough for you,
John, or is your amoeba still chasing your synapse