Wrapper

"mark_digital©" <xxx976r@comcast.com> wrote in message
news:2L-dnbaZt7Y6FknZnZ2dnUVZ_vSdnZ2d@comcast.com...[color=blue]
> Air contains a certain amount of oxygen depending on altitude. Suppose the
> oxygen intake was increased by just one to two percent (at sea level)
> without adding all the additional stuff that's in the air. Could the
> engine and mpg benefit by this or is the engine designed primarily for sea
> level and above (oxygen amount) range only? Has oxygenated gasoline made
> it impossible to add more thru an intake? Your thoughts?[/color]

At higher altitudes, more air is required in engines to get the proper
amount of O2 needed for optimum combustion. The air intake (hence the O2
intake) is adjusted automatically by modern cars via the electronic systems
in them. In the old days, this was done by adjusted the carburetor for high
altitude locations.

So it is already possible to adjust the amount of air (and O2) intake to
some degree. Also, the principle behind turbochargers and superchargers is
to force even more air into the engine to gain power, but this uses an
additional amount of gas that is mixed with the extra air to achieve the
increased power.

From "How Things Work":

"It turns out that there is a particular ratio of air and gasoline that is
"perfect," and that ratio is 14.7:1 (different fuels have different perfect
ratios -- the ratio depends on the amount of hydrogen and carbon found in a
given amount of fuel). If there is less air than this perfect ratio, then
there will be fuel left over after combustion. This is called a "rich"
mixture. Rich mixtures are bad because the unburned fuel creates pollution.
If there is more air than this perfect ratio, then there is excess oxygen.
This is called a "lean" mixture. A lean mixture tends to produce more
nitrogen-oxide pollutants, and, in some cases, it can cause poor performance
and even engine damage."