The Oil Drum

Black_Dog -

Your idea of having a duel fuel system has some precedent with an interesting bit of trivia.

During the 1910s and 1920s mechanical tractors were just starting to make major inroads into US farming practice. At that time, in rural areas kerosene was quite readily available and reasonably inexpensive. Gasoline, however, was not so easy to get and was much more expensive, so some of the early tractors ran a crude Otto cycle engine on kerosene.

But the kerosene first had to be vaporized, and this was accomplished by means of a heat exchanger in contact with the exhaust manifold. These tractors had a single fuel tank separated into two compartments by an internal partition. One side held kerosene and the other gasoline. You started the engine on gasoline and ran it on gasoline until it warmed up and then turned a valve to switch it over to kerosene.

These kerosene-fueled tractors made a distinctive popping sound, and so the farmers nicknamed the early John Deere tractor "Johnny Popper."