A wood-powered Chevrolet truck with a V8 engine with more than 60,000 miles on the odometer could show us the way forward if gas ever runs out. We aren’t suggesting people go around cutting trees to run their cars, but this example shows the possibility of various fuel sources out there that can run your vehicles with a little bit of modification.
Running on wood does not mean inserting pieces of it into the gas tank. The 1983 Chevy Fleetside pickup uses a gasifier housed behind the cab that first converts wood chips into flammable gas – a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
The gas is then filtered, cooled, and allowed to mix with air before it enters the engine for internal combustion. A video on YouTube by Jp Prat Projects explains how wood is used to run the V8 Chevy. The first part of converting the wood chips takes around ten minutes. A newspaper helps light the fire, and an electric fan inside helps pull the fire bits into the system to ignite the wood chips.
After the gas is confirmed to be combustion-ready, it is sent through the lines into the engine, a 1972 350 V8 motor, which has been tailored to run on this new gas with a compression ratio of 11.0:1. A big cooling system at the front cools the gas before it enters the cylinders for combustion.
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The owner has installed a revised camshaft and a new intake manifold, borrowed from a Corvette, to ensure the engine is compatible with wood gas. It is claimed that the truck has been driven over 60,000 miles through this method of combustion, making it a pretty reliable system to run a vehicle.
Notably, 35 to 40 kg (77 to 88 lb) of wood is needed to run 62 miles, making it less fuel-efficient than modern cars. The truck needs to be refilled with wood every 43 miles, but refilling the tank with wood chips just takes a few minutes.
The fact that an old Chevy V8 has been kept running flawlessly without a single drop of gas or diesel shows the potential this technology can have. Of course, burning wood leads to extensive cutting of trees. But what if there was another way, like burning plastic from trash to run your vehicle in a more eco-friendly way? Know of a way to do that? Let us know in the comments.
One Response
This was a common thing during WWII in Europe so it’s hardly a “new idea” and it’s far dirtier than burning gasoline or anything else. Nice little project for someone with skills but a terrible idea at scale.