HIGH PERFORMANCE CARBURETORS
Claims have been made for fuel efficiency in excess of 100 miles per gallon through the use of exotic carburetors, the best known being those designed by John Robert Fish and Charles Nelson Pogue. These claims usually go on to say that the designs were sabotaged or otherwise supressed by petroleum companies and/or automobile manufacturers, in an attempt to maintain the technological status-quo.
Of the two designs, the Pogue Carburetor tended to be the source of more extravagant claims. Although assigned US Patent #2,026,798 (and others), the carburetor was an experimental device and was never put into large-scale production. The theory behind the Pogue Carburetor involved the use of a combination of pressure and heat to improve the conversion of liquid fuel to vapor, and thereby improve combustion and efficiency.
In contrast to the Pogue design, tens of thousands of the various models of the Fish Carburetor were eventually manufactured. Owing to various financial and production problems, paid orders from 1936 were not delivered until 1948, leading to a lengthy battle over alleged postal fraud. Serious production finally got underway in the mid-1950s. It has been reported that the Fish achieved 20% percent better gas mileage and 30% more horsepower when mounted on many different engines. After Fish died in 1958, the design was licensed to a firm that subsequently folded. From 1981-1996, a version of the Fish Carburetor was again manufactured by the Brown Carburetor Company.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Vance, Bill. "Was Winnipeg Inventor Victim of Oil Barons?" Toronto
Star, April 17, 1993, p. H2.
- Brown, Michael H. The Fish Carburetor book. Brown Carburetor
Co., 1982.
- "A 200 MPG Carburetor?" Experimental Vehicle Newsletter, March/April
1982, pp. 14-18.
- Brown, Michael H. Suppressed inventions and how they work.
Desert Publications, 1981.
- Fish Carburetor data and WD-47 mileage manual. Negeye Laboratories,
1980.
- Wallace, Alan. Secrets of the 200 MPG carburetor. A. Wallace, 1981.
LINKS
- Fans of the Fish Carburetor
http://www.boni.com/fish/
- Nobody's Fuel
http://www.snopes2.com/autos/business/magiccar.htm
- Secrets of the 200 mpg carburetor
http://www.incredible-secrets.com/200mpgcarburetor.index45.html
- The Pogue Carburetor
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/cree/pioneer/People/21b.htm
- Opportunity Cost and Hidden Inventions
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=4301
PATENT ILLUSTRATIONS
The preceding information was derived
from the backfiles of the San Joaquin Valley Information Service.
We hope you will find it useful, both as an introduction and as a
guide for further study.
Please consult with your local public
library about obtaining copies of the works cited.
Revised 5/2001 DJD