Now that gas is more expensive than steak our attention is turning towards ways of stretching our fuel dollars. Gadgets abound from little fans that "spin" the air going into your engine to devices that inject water into your gasoline. "Hypermilers", drivers who tweak their cars and driving habits to squeeze the most out of their tanks probably produce the only genuine "tricks", making gains in the 10-15% range.
Messing around with gas mileage doo-dads isn't new. In 1935, Charles Nelson Pogue built a device called the Winnipeg. He was from Winnipeg after all. It was a modified carburetor that was claimed to be capable of getting 200 miles out of a single gallon of gasoline. Now this is gas sold at God knows what price in 1935.
Without a real long technical harangue, Pogue's idea vaporized the gas before delivering it to the cylinder. The heat to do this came from the exhaust or radiator. There is some history on these so called vapour carburetors, with lots of spooky oil companies buying up the patents. Trouble is most attempts to make one of these gizmos has usually failed, even when qualified engineers get at shot at it.
It's back to turning the engine off going down hill I guess.
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