Smokey Yunick’s Hot Vapor Fiero; 51 mpg and 0-60 in less than 6 Seconds! See and hear it run in our exclusive VIDEO!
Smokey Yunick Fiero
Updated 1-17-2011
(Note: We have recently added some additional publications from Popular Mechanics and others at the bottom of this page.)
Our Feature Cars are generally some exotic or exquisite examples of top Classic Cars this example is not one of those. It is unique and very important to the hobby, but it will never stand out in a parking lot. The difference is under the hood and in its history. It is a Smokey Yunick Research and Development Hot Vapor Fiero. Smokey spent decades working on the Hot Vapor Engine. It has been tested by many, including Hot Rod Magazine; it has been called a fake; some say that it doesn’t exist and it has been called the solution to all of our high gas prices. You can do your own research on the Internet and in books and reach your own conclusions. (To read more about Smokey Yunick on our site Click Here.)
Hot Rod Magazine has done at least two articles on this car and both can be found reproduced here at the bottom of this page. The most recent was in the September 2010 publication.
Since this original web site post was published, the Smokey Yunick Fiero has moved to the Don Garlits Drag Racing and Car Museum in Ocala Florida. If you are in the area, stop in and see it for yourself.
This life size photo of Smokey Yunick watches over Tony as he works his own mechanical magic.
This is car owner Tony Allers tweaking on the Fiero.
I am not a mechanic or a genius. Smokey Yunick, in my mind, was both. It is a fact that he held many US Patents and gave NASCAR fits with his interpretation of the rules. He is a Legend in Motor Sports and we need a few more like him today. He invented “thinking outside the box” and being successful. He had no formal education past the 10th grade but taught many a college grad a thing or two about engines and aerodynamics and other things.
The Smokey Yunick Hot Vapor Engine, running R&D prototype in a Fiero. (air cleaner removed)
I urge you to do your own research on Smokey if you are not familiar with him. I never met him but Tony Allers, the man who owns this Fiero was a friend, acquaintance and customer of Smokey’s.
After spending a few hours with Tony Allers, I know they won’t be the last. Like Smokey, he is a very interesting individual and his garage is a small shrine or museum to Smokey. Having been an acquaintance of Smokey’s family, he not only owns the experimental Fiero but also some of the fixtures and old stock from Smokey’s Best Damn Garage in Town as well as a few motors and other artifacts. (Click Here to Check Out Tony, His Garage and New Projects)
A Plain Jane but remarkable little Fiero.
Only modifications to the interior are the additional gauges.
The car is uneventful in its appearance. It’s an early Fiero and white. You would walk by it in any parking lot or car show and not give it a second note. It is spotless with a terrific paint job and some strange tires, but nothing to make you stop. Even with the engine bay exposed you know something is different, maybe a turbo, but nothing spectacular. Start it up and it sounds like a strong little four banger. As they say, the proof is in the details and Tony Allers has the details.
Watch out Corvettes, this Fiero has the Smokey Yunick touch.
There is way too much to this story to tell in even this extended coverage, but I will try to give you an accurate overview as reported by Hot Rod in June 1984 by C. J. Baker.
This is the Homogenizer.
Watch this Viedo of Horse Power TV
This is what the Fiero’s engine looked like when Allers got it.
If you would like to read more about Smokey Check this out:
As most of us believe, making the fuel cold increases density and improves performance. Cooler air and cooler fuel means more air and more fuel into the combustion chamber; bigger bang. That’s why our cars run so well in the spring and fall with that cool, crisp air. Smokey went a different direction. He believed that the quality of the mixture was more important than the quantity. Most engines of the day burnt only 25% of the fuel and wasted 75%.
Hot Vapor Engine with air cleaner removed.
Smokey’s premise was, heat the fuel to 400-440 degrees and you could vaporize the gas more efficiently and get more power from less fuel. He designed a new cam; a homogenizer (exhaust driven turbine) to mix the air and fuel and a new intake manifold that is totally wrapped by exhaust gas ducting (to heat the mixture). The system is more complicated than my brief description, but you can see in the diagram how it works. I have also included excerpts from the Hot Rod Magazine article as follows.
The following are excerpts from the Hot Rod Article to further explain the technical details of Smokey’s Hot Vapor Engine.
“…consider the Pontiac Fiero shown here. Equipped with Smokey’s “expander-cycle” exhaust and induction system, and requiring only a cam change inside the production 151-cubic-inch (2.5 liter) Iron Duke 4-cylinder, the car now gets more than 50 miles to the gallon, develops 250 hp and 230 ft.-lbs. of torque, runs more smoothly than any 4-cylinder you’ve ever experienced, starts and idles smoothly and cleanly, has no computer controls, passes federal emissions standards, an oh yes, it’ll accelerate from 0-60 mph in as little as 6 seconds flat! Here’s how it works.”
“Some parts of gasoline vaporize easily at low temperatures to help get a cold engine started. Other parts have a much higher boiling point to prevent the fuel from vaporizing in the fuel lines en route to the engine. What this all comes down to is that in today’s typical engines, only part of the fuel entering the combustion chambers is in a combustible state. To fully vaporize pump gasoline, and to keep it vaporized for complete combustion, the incoming air/fuel mixture needs to be elevated to between 400-440 degrees F.”
“First, all the hot water existing the engine is channeled through a heat exchanger directly under the carburetor (or throttle body injection, TBI, unit).” (Next the mixture flows through what looks like a small turbocharger, but this is not a turbocharged engine. The turbocharger-like device is actually a homogenizer and the second-stage vapor generator. In the homogenizer an exhaust-driven turbine drives what appears to be a rotary compressor totally wrapped with exhaust gas ducting. The homogenizer serves to mix the incoming air and fuel into one uniform, homogenous mixture with the surrounding exhaust gases further elevate the mixture temperature to about 285 degrees F. From there the mixture flows through an intake manifold that is totally wrapped by exhaust gas ducting, elevating the mixture temperature to the desired 400-440 degrees F in this third, final stage. The fuel is now fully vaporized and distributed uniformly in a truly homogenous mixture that will burn cleanly and evenly in the combustion chambers without detonation or severe pressure spikes in the cylinders.”
“…all traditional internal combustion engines are dealing with non-homogenous, incompletely vaporized mixtures today. It is also true that the heating of the incoming mixture reduces its density and causes it to expand. On a normally-aspirated engine, such expansion would just push right back out through the carburetor, but on Smokey’s system the expansion is trapped in the induction system because the small turbocharger (homogenizer) serves as a one-way check valve. Consequently, with the expansion contained, the induction system becomes pressurized, providing high mixture density and artificially aspirating the engine.”
“There is a lot of physics and chemistry involved, and a few of the details contained in the various patents on this design have been intentionally withheld by the Smoke,…”
A copy of the entire article is also provided below if you are interested and your eyes can withstand the poor quality of the copy.
According to Hot Rod (their tests, not Smokey’s) the Fiero 151 cubic-inch 4 cylinder engine now produces 250 hp and 230 ft.-lbs of torque. They report it gets more than 50 mpg and will do 0-60 in less than 6 seconds with no emissions.
Here is a 300HP three cylinder Hot Vapor Engine, prototype built from a V6.
The technology was tested on 3 cylinder engines to 454 V8s with equal success. The calculations are 1.8 hp per cubic inch of displacement. Your 302 would produce 630 hp; a 350 equals 720 hp and that big 454 would kick out 817 hp! All this and it has a mild idle and is completely street able.
Tony hopes to build a new version for his big block Avalanche by the first of the year and get 25 mpg or better towing his show car! Now that will be sweet! Go to his page to see more.
Some of the Moroso parts with Smokey Patents.
Remember I said the Fiero had a strange set of tires? Well, Smokey was an expert on all things car. He designed what he liked to call the “Bald Eagle” tire for Good Year. It is a slick with groves in it to make it work on the street in everyday conditions. It also has a special compound to reduce deterioration from ultra-violet light rays. There were only 100 of these experimental tires ever produced and 4 are on this Fiero and 2 are in Tony’s storage bay just because something might happens to one of the others.
Look closely on the side wall of the tire and you will see and X in the serial number for experimental and “Not For Sale” stamped on the side.
Summary
What do I think? I think the Hot Vapor Engine is real.
Why didn’t GM, Chrysler, Ford or Toyota build it? Big business makes decisions by committee and doesn’t like to take chances; it moves slow.
Why doesn’t Edelbrock, Year One or Jack Rousch or some other independent jump in and make crate motors or conversion kits? I would love to give one of these a try. If I could double the horsepower and mileage on my muscle car, I would be on it in a heart beat. Can you imagine over 700 Horse Power and 30 MPG or better from your 350 powered Corvette or Camaro?
Maybe it is just another urban legend, but how do you explain the results of all the tests conducted by independent testers? Just maybe the reason GM, Ford and Chrysler are doing so poorly in today’s marketplace is because of poor decisions they have made in the past, maybe not pursuing the Hot Vapor Engine was one of those poor decisions.
If you would like to do some more research on your own you might want to begin the Smokey Yunick site at: or if you want to know what someone else thinks, take a look at what Banks Power | Cool Air Equals Power has to say about Smokey’s invention.
The SY4 is only found on this car; it stands for Smokey Yunick 4 Cylinder.
Now for the video!
The following is a copy of the original Smokey Yunick Hot Vapor Engine article in Hot Rod Magazine article that appeared in the June 1984 publication.
The following is a copy of the second Smokey Yunick Hot Vapor Engine Article that was published by Hot Rod Magazine in September of 2010.
This is a copy of one of the Patents for the Hot Vapor Engine.
We would like to thank Tom Beeman for suppling these articles.
If you have trouble reading these try clicking on the image and then clicking on it again; it should increase in size and be easier to read.
My name is Andy Zabrodsky. I worked for Smokey Yunick on the Hot Vapor Cycle. I worked for MotorTech, out of the Crane Cams Blvd on Fentress Blvd in Daytona Beach, 1983-1984, under Bill Krick and Frank Druzinski. Bill Krick was the Vice Pesident of Crane Cams at the time and Frank Druzinski was an engineer they got out of Ford Motor Company. Three of the smartest men I ever worked for. I was their Illustrator and Draftsman. Funny thing was Smokey didn’t care for suits, but for some reason he was cool with me. Any way if anyone down there remembers me “Hi” from Andy Z, I selling cars at Robin Ford in Glenolden, PA (610) 586-3600 ext 118. see ya.
Well….does it work according to urban legend or is it just an exaggerated myth?
50-MPG
250-HP
If you own it and drive it daily, you should know.
Fast Freddie, if you read the entire information supplied you will see that Tony Allers is the owner of the car and not Legendary Collector Cars. We have seen the car, photographed it and listened to it run. IT IS NOT A DAILY DRIVER. It has been restored for show and historical purposes. All of the statistics on horsepower, 0-60 and mpg are the results of independent tests from sources like Hot Rod Magazine. This is no Urban Legend…it is real and it exists. If it was fake we would tell you so.
Legendary Collector Cars.
Hey thanks,
It’s been some time since those sources. It’d be nice to see those stats confirmed by today’s standards now that all the dust has settled. I read all kinds of remarks on an engineering forum about it, mostly negative and based on calculations. Yet no one has taken the effort to reconstuct the experiment based on the patent. It would be nice to see someone attempt it and put the mystery to rest. The patent is easily available and free since it has expired.
Fast Freddie, the owner of this Fiero says he will make it available to any legitimate testing organization who wants to do an honest test. I think it would be a great opportunity for a magazine or TV show to do a tightly controlled series of tests to validate the results. If it is real what a story, if it doesn’t work it would still be a good story!
Well now that the election is over and the oil companies are going to get zapped with big goverment taxation, it will start to trinkle down rapidly at the pump. The $5.00 a gallon price should be back with a vengance and so will be the ferver to make gasoline engines more efficient.
To those who think that Hybrid cars will offset the immediate impact….think again! That little hybrid Toyota or Honda will make such a huge dent in your pocket in terms of cost and maintenance that the overall fuel savings will be irrevalant. We need efficiency now! Not ten years from now. If Smokey was on the right track, a bolt on package would be a giant leap for us working Joes.
I’m not an engineer or a pro in this area but this is a technology that could help in the short run, (untill the so called green technology automobile is readily available without the humongous price tag).
Somebody take on this effort and see if can be done. The rewards may be staggering!
I’ve been in contemplation for years about this design. I have the original issue of Hot Rod Magazine which says that information is left out of the patent documentation, which I also have. I’ve read the article, all 26 pages of patent documentation, and every web site I could ever find. I have a feeling there is a restriction plate somewhere after the homogenizer. I also heard a rumor about some kind of aluminum brush type object like the one shown in the 8th picture, which is also seen in the trunk in the video. I have also heard of gentleman from Texas who has apparently reproduced the hot vapor system on a for 390, but I can not find any information about what exactly the missing links are. Is the brush like object under the carburetor just a fixed piece of aluminum? Anybody with any kind of information please feel free to contact me at xkv8r@comcast.net. Thank you, and wonderful pictures/video! I can surely say they have been long awaited by many people!
the brush spins. read the article. the brush is probably also a catalyst, think Fitch.
Smokey hit upon how to not have detonation. That is the thing no one has figured out. I think he made a gas via catalyst in brush (probably nickel or palladium or platium or something). With modern electronics he may have eventually eliminated the spark plugs and have had it diesel.
The Fiero SY4 has been to a couple of Fiero Swap Meet events at The Fiero Factory in Toney, Alabama, including last year (when I had a ride offered but we discovered that the cars wasn’t properly insured).
The brushes do NOT spin. Since there are some of you who won’t believe me because “you saw it on TV” I’ll say it again: the brushes DO NOT SPIN.
I have held the assembly containing the two brushes in my hands and they are affixed to the box in which they sit. There are no bearings and there is no motor by which those brushes are motivated. They. Do. Not. Move. The brush-like aluminum object is nothing more than a very efficient heat exchanger. You can find that kind of fin on the condensors of several different models of high-efficient air conditioners and nearly any mechanical engineer would be able to tell you what they are.
I’m perpetually amazed at the number of people who don’t think it can just work as it is. No, those fins aren’t some kind of magical catalyst which transforms gasoline. A little basic chemistry education will dispel such silliness. What Smokey did was apply well-known and commonly accepted principles of heat exchange, internal combustion engine efficiency, and combustion mixture to turn a car that already got 35 MPG (with equivalent tires), into a car that got 50 MPG. His engine simply rejects less total heat, which means it requires less fuel for a given amount of mechanical work. It’s really that simple.
Is ther any information on the custom camshaft ?
“The only internal change was the camshaft to make maximum utilization of exhaust heat and to provide maximum cylinder scavenging. All else was left stock.” Sounds like the only change was a broadening of the exhaust lobes. ???
One thing that springs to mind is, how do you reliably heat up an intake charge to 400 to 440F under a variety of driving conditions, that must be done with a thermostatically controlled system of some kind. Yet he claimed that “preheating is controlled by sizing of orifices in the heat loop.”
475F is autoignition temperature of the fuel/air homogenized mixture, if it is being heated up to 440F that is getting pretty close to causing a fire outside of the intake valve (bad news).
I have to think that whereas the system may be more efficient, it happens at the expense of higher fire risk.
I would love to see the MPG and HP figures independently verified one more time, this time with video documentation. Where are you, Speed Network??
Kevin you are right; I was thinking the same thing. heating an air fuel mixture to 440F is dangerous to say the least. It might be okay in a controlled situation but sounds very challenging to do in a daily driver.
Dave was right about the heat exchanger, it’s common in air-conditioning, you can find it in old a-c window units (the same looking stuff). I believe the hot water flows through it to initially heat up the fuel mixture and at the same time the design also breaks up and separates the heavy droplets of liquid fuel. Now I have a question about the point of auto-ignition; considering that the homogenized mixture is under positive pressure from the turbo, is it more or less likely to auto-ignite in the intake chamber? This is the whole key, you want the mixture to be as volatile as possible to get as much efficiency as you can from the mixture …
The brushes are more obviously, to me, flashback protectors in the event of a fire. I use a similar technique in my on-board, on demand Hydrogen Generators. Not trying to second guess anyone here but from a technical observation point of view from someone who works in a similar R & D environment this would be my assessment.
Regards,
Sam
I believe the brush under the carb is to serve as a heat exchanger. I’ve been wondering about that one for a while. I wouldn’t be the least but surprised to discover that hot coolant is plumbed through it. Dave is right, I showed the image with the aluminum brush in conflict to my father-in-law (has owned a commercial refrigeration company for 30 yrs) and he identified it right away as coming from the cooling system of an old air conditioner or deli case. Aside from Howard’s wonderfully educated and polite comments, I can’t imagine a way to make a long piece of aluminum so thin with arbitrary placed “hairs” spin with any kind of balance. I have a 2.5 in the garage that I was planning on using to attempt to recreate this project. I noticed after looking at the engine, it appears as if the manifold on Smokey’s fiero looks very similar to a stock manifold. The block-off plate on Smokey’s car tipped me off and looks as if it could be where the egr valve used to live. Has anybody else made this process work?
Sam in R&D, I’d like to know a little more about that subject before I turn one of my old BMW intake manifolds into this set-up. Gimmie a call, or the beemer GETS IT!! Anyone else that has something like this let me know thier out there. Im getting into that point next,would rather help someone else close enough or working with them.575-770-4204
Samuel, I’m sorry I didn’t read your reply before my last post, however I feel you are providing misinformation. I cannot understand in your “technical R & D” perspective how you can declare that object in question a “flashback prevention device.” That statement in itself seems ridiculous. Just for clarification, you are stating that an air / fuel mixture heated to a point which could be considered comparable to many other modern engines, all while under vacuum, that the mixture will become potentially volatile enough to require any kind of flashback prevention device? Sir I must say that your hydrogen generators and this system are, in their closest relationship, apples and oranges. On Smokey’s system, before the turbocharger, the air fuel mixture has not yet become a vaporous state, which most know is the most dangerous state of gasoline. Although the heated mixture is more dangerous that gasoline in a non-heated liquid form, it is hardly as dangerous as vapor. Your hydrogen system may very well require such a device as the Brown’s gas being produced by your hydrogen generators is a vapor at all temperatures. Please before you proclaim to have any technical experience examine your argument.
I remember reading about this back when I 1st started working on cars for a living. I always wondered what happened to this. Figured it got swept under the rug. I find it hard to believe that this was a fraud.
My thoughts as to who Smokey made this work go mainly to the cam and ignition.
Since the homogenous air/fuel mixture should burn rapidly, especially as it is already close to the flashpoint, I would expect that significantly less ignition advance it needed than in the stock engine.
I’m very curious about the cam timing, particularly the intake closing. My supposition of the moment is that Smokey might have used something along the lines of the Miller cycle but delaying the intake closing enough to effectively lower the compression ratio without lowering the expansion ratio. I’m also wondering about the exhaust timing.
I vaguely recall reading that Smokey planned to eventually do a 3 cylinder 2-stroke version of this concept and am curious just how well this concept translates to 2-stroke piston and 4-stroke Wankel engines in applications where engine weight is particularly sensitive.
Smokey was the master of common sense and looking at what others WONT SEE! Smokey has seen about every kind of fuel delivery system there is and he simply and elegantly used his gift of observation to whip the problems that he overcame. Smokeys Hot Vapor Engine is an adaptation of the system used on PROPANE Fuel engines where the unvaporized liquid propane is vaporized with the engines hot cooling system . Smokey increased the Thermal Efficency of the Gasoline engine by utilizing the wasted heat from the exaust and coolant to EXPAND, Vaporize and Homoginize the air fuel Mixture. the articles that I have read show that the increased heat utilization allowed a radiator of a much smaller area than original. The turbo also pressurizes the mixture and prevents it from backing out of the intake as the engine reaches operating temperture . An article in Pop Mechanics back in the eighties also showed photos of some trick heads that Smokey Crafted with extremely angled Intake valves to promote some kind of swirl in the Combustion Chamber possibly leading to NO Pre-ignition. The Big Car Co.s have spent billions to curcumvent other inventors patents and thats why Smokeys Patents have not been used because his patents are unable to be defeated to be utilized. and after all the last thing that Big Oil and Car co’s want is a car that does not wear out as fast is less complicated and uses less fuel products. Vene, Vidi, Vici.
Me again, Al Bore, I gave up dealing with the intake kind of. I think I may be the lucky guy who took all the ideas were looking at today, especially this from Yunick, and can put it to use on any new vehicle. Ill let you all know how it turns out. There is hope after all I believe. The invention was always here, they been made before, we just have to find them again .
Check out this spark injector I put together which I plan to keep Smokey alive while running my fuel after the injector and then into the top of the sparkplug. Were going for fuel injected vehicles instead of carbs. Playing with timing and getting fire at the right time, since the fuel will be a vapor entering the cylinder. I can also let hot exhaust gas enter through the plug to mix instantly with incoming fuel.
Hey Doug-O, where is the fitting for the Fuel Supply? Or does it just make its own Fuel from the Yellow Tape? Verrrrryyyyy Interestinggggggg!!!!
In regard to concerns of fire because of the heated vapor autoigniting, here is the solution that smokey already knew!
The Intake is pressurised by the “Homoginiser” ( TURBO ) to raise the flash point of the hot vapor way above what it is at atmospheric pressure. Remember that this engine is not Naturally Aspirated.
The principle of the Pressure Cooker applies here: You raise the Boiling Point of a Liquid by pressurising it!
That way you can get it to absorb more heat raising its temperature above the normal boiling point.
Al Bore, the fuel supply will come in through the injector that is in the picture. The fuel lines 2 of them can be routed around the exhaust or in it coiled up. I’m getting about 425470 degrees and up outside the exhaust manifold.-inside would be overkill, I can wrap my lines running to the injector in thermal tape, that kind of tape?lol.
Anyways, I have spent some time and money on this of my own, if you know anyone who is willing to help out let me know it’s more than welcome. Im short a $1500-$2000 on a standalone management system for the car I’m dealing with, they make these systems work for any car, it will allow me to test and define what I believe is going to change the way people look at DIRECT INJECTION, in an aftermarket sense, and also it’s not readily available for cheap.
Right now I don’t see any companies trying to make this a full time business, to the aftermarket. Manufacturers are all going this way.
To get this running on something like water would be nice, but it’s not the goal for now. I know through dyno testing, and emission testing I will be able to show numbers, improvements for sure. I’m a one man business right now. So it’s gonna take awhile, I got a life to live. esults and progress will be shown on my yahoo groups page. Thanks:)
The only way something like this will make it to market where people who need this can get it
Has Tony Allers made any progress in his 454 Smokey motor? I have not checked up in awhile. Has anyone else here made any progress in modifying their own engine? Thanks, Gene Climer, Smokey Yunick Fan
I am not sure, I will try to talk to Tony and find out. As way of an update the Fiero is now in residence at the Don Garlits Museum in Florida. I will give an update after I have been there sometime in March. Check back for the update.
Modern day version:
“Transonic Combustion, a startup based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. A test vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving, which is far better than more costly gas-electric hybrids, such as the Prius, which gets 48 miles per gallon on the highway. “
If Transonic is not using battery energy to heat the fuel, this approach might make some sense. However, if they are simply trading one kind of energy for another, not so much.
Richard, any word from Tony Allers? He does not seem to reply to my emails or phone calls.
Gene
Gene, I know Tony started a new job and has been extremely busy but I have not communicated with him lately. I do know that the Smokey Fiero has been donated to the Don Gartlits Museum in Florida. I hope to visit there soon and will report on its new home.
I remember reading the original article when I was young man. Over the years I developed into nothing more than a backyard builder. With my limited knowledge I have one question. How do the cylinders hold up over time burning what should be a very lean mixture? Thank you
I don’t know why everybody seems to think this is some mystery. This is not a “very lean” mixture. There is a stoichiometric ratio of air and fuel that is CHEMICALLY REQUIRED in the oxidization reaction between gasoline and oxygen. 14.7:1. It is not able to be violated. Everything has a vaporization point. Gasoline has around a 90% vaporization point above 300 degrees F. This system raises the temperature well beyond that to ensure vaporization of all the distillates found in pump gasoline. In the manifold, after the turbocharger, the gasoline in the STOICHIOMETRIC mixture is heated to a vaporous state. The air/fuel mixture in the manifold DOES NOT CHANGE, however it’s pressure and temperature does.
Smokey did not use a lean mixture. He actually kept it a little bit on the rich side!
Engines run at other ratios. It is not as cast in concrete as you make it sound. If you measure any engine, you will see variation from lean to rich. That is what a choke does on a carb, it makes it run rich. Smokey setup his engine to run a little bit on the rich side from all of my reading of his books. I think this actually helps to minimize the chance of detonation some. The mystery, if there is one, is in the method used to get that heat where it needs to be without metal fatigue and reliability issues in the fabrication and life of such materials.
Hello it’s Andy Z again. Illustrator, Draftsman, and Logo Designer, for MotorTech Inc . This engine really worked great. My job at Motortech was to convert Smokey’s Hot Vapor Cycle, hand-made proto-type pieces, into production parts, then illustrate it and make official engineering drawings. We were going to put this into production as a bolt on application for small american engines. These engines were so efficient, it barely needed a radiator, the Turbo was really a check valve, since the motor ran above our atomosphere’s pressure. These motors made power and saved fuel. Mr. Yunick and Druzinski were thinking outside of the box. Smokey was light years ahead of us.
Smokey dusted a top shelf Porsche in his Dodge Omni?
The Porsche owner claimed to say, (after Mr. Yunick left him in the smoke), “I just paid $60,000 to have one of the fastest cars on the street, what do you got in that Omni?” Smokey replied as he opened the hood. “Just your basic 2.2L Dodge 4 cylinder.”
If anyone has any questions regarding Smokey Yunick or Frank Druzinski about the Hot Vapor Cycle, please feel free to:
Call Andy Z. at (610) 715 – 4626 or email me at
deach22@ymail.com
Yes, I am still in the automotive business, back here, in south eastern Pennsylvania.
Mr. Bill Krick, please drop me a line at your conveneince.
The Hot Vapor Cycle is Light-Years ahead of what the Auto Business is doing these days, and that was 20 years ago. Please take it from a motorhead like me, I am suprised that there isn’t any of these on the Drag Strips. If gas goes to 6 bucks a gallon, we will be seeing this come back and go production. Something put the kabash on this incredible design. You would only have to see it once to understand what I am saying, so keep reading, I saw it, there were no engineering problems, just making it in production format so any Tom, Dick or Harry could bolt it on, was the only problems at that time. Polotics is why this baby was put to rest! Andy Z, I was there!
You hit the nail right on the head Andy!!! Politics is what is keeping this concept from every internal combustion engine. I read about this concept a few years ago and since then I have been working on making my 1986 Fiero 2M6 SE into a much more efficient vehicle. I took some of Smokey’s concepts and have implemented them into my project. I don’t want to give details at this time because I don’t have complete data. But I do know for a fact that I get quite a bit higher MPG than when this project 1st started. And at $2.78 per gallon, it is a nice treat to not fill up so often.
Technology is a magazine from MIT. Here is an article dated March 8, 2010. I remember the original Smokey article. I have wondered for years why we’ve not heard any more. The method in the March 8th article may be different but, both appear to be superheating the fuel. Its about time someone picks this back up.
Wow, I have this issue of Hot Rod somewhere, and remember reading about this when I was a kid. I often wondered why it never made it into production cars. I am just glad that there still is interest out there, and the car still exists.
Why hasn’t anyone, with all of the focus on fuel-efficient vehicles, manufactured these systems? Is it because modifying stock systems would cause then to fail smog checks? Is it because it only makes sense for mass production to incorporate it into new vehicles at the time they are built?
Hey SteveO,
If you can pony up the cash, I can get it built. I want to build a GM Quad 4 motor to double the HP and double the mileage. Probably wouldn’t make it all the way there on the first attempt, but even 50% more HP, and 50% better mileage would be a blazing success. Any takers?
Gene Climer
Beaverton, Oregon
climer97007@yahoo.com
Gene, If anyone takes you up on your offer let us know. We would like to cover the build and results on the site!
I have a set of turbos from smokey. They are set # 3 from one of his builds back in the 70s when he built the twin turbo indy car. I have all documents with them. If anyone is intrested in them or want more info please email me @ propaintsauto@yahoo.com.
thx, kenny
Hey Tony!
At least Hot Rod spelled your name right most of the time!
I’d be happy to post the build and Dyno test results here after I build it. It might get released to Hot Rod first mind you.
😉
I need some help in the process though. I saw your picture with Ralph Johnson. Can you get more enough information from Ralph on the Cam design profile so that I can have a reproduction made to Smokey’s specs?
Thanks! Gene
The fact that the car is not a daily driver is proof to me that there are issues with the system.
If I had a car that held so much promise and obtained such good gas mileage, I would be driving it as often as I could.
Or at least there would be other examples of this type of engine driving around.
Although I don’t completely understand the technology, logic dictates that if no one is using it today, then there is a problem with it.
Proof of issues? The system was patented. And Smokey was not an easy guy to deal with, and that does not need any proof. Just the facts, man. If Smokey didn’t want to deal with it or you, forget about it.
Now, you want proof? Hot Rod magazine tested it and proved it. Not a fraud.
Doubting Dubya, when you have something that you don’t believe in, some people might just ask more questions. This is one of those kinds of things. Instead of sitting on your skeptical certitude, maybe open your mind to alternative points of view.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I didn’t see much of a test by the magazine above.
And I’m not simply doubting, I’ve asked questions. The article is 25 years old! The patents are over 20 years old. Where are the aftermarket kits that said would be out a year after the article?
I asked why it wasn’t daily driven.
I asked why there are no other cars around.
Maybe it’s the fact that while this may improve performance over a simple carb, maybe fuel injection provides even more benefit. I don’t know.
Again, if someone can post some real world mileage numbers or another car with the system, I’d be happy to look at them.
Dubya,
Have you ever owned a legendary car?
Most people have better sense than to drive them daily.
A good friend has a Rolls Royce.
This is not a one of a kind car.
Needless to say, his Rolls is not a daily driver.
So, that argument of yours seems rather non-sensical to me.
As far as the kits go, you need to get closer to the players.
If you had been there, you’d understand.
Nobody in the oil industry wanted this to work. Nobody.
You need to get a clue.
Gene Climer