I always heard that gas is thinner then air. Is that true?

 

Not gasoline.

 

look at it this way you can compress air, or a gas you can't compress a fluid

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ICON Motorsports

1st & 3rd

 

ok now that i've thought about that a little i'm not sure how relevent it is to your question, but it does show the differance between gases and fluids.

 

i'm thinking this way.
You have compressed air left in your cylinder, and the leak down rate is slow, but if you filled the bore up with gas i would think the gas would easily get between the bore and rings.

 

I assume by 'gas' you mean gasoline (a liquid). Well for all practical purposes a liquid has no significant advantage over air when escaping a compressed cylinder.
Gasoline is made of comparatively long strands of hydrocarbons, where air is generally a mix of free elements, light compounds, and water vapor. Getting down to the nitty gritty, I would say that air would escape at a quicker rate than a chain-liquid like gasoline.
Curious why you ask?

ODB

 

Well I remmeber hearing long ago when I used to know a guy that worked on Golf Carts that he always had to chage the oil in those cause the carb flooded and gas was always in the oil, and that I now have a vacume leak in my #8 Fuel injector bore and I'm wondering can I fill the bore up around the injector with soemhting?

 

Don't rig your car, that's not very wise for a first planned solution.

Gasoline will attack most sealers. Get a new O-ring and see if that helps, if not, at least you'll get the cahnce to inspect everything and maybe know what to do next.

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"So many Mustangs, so little time..."
ICON Motorsports

 

Well, assuming it fully atomizes or vaporizes or what have you, the gasoline becomes a gas, not a liquid, and yes in technical terms, a gas is fluid, but not all fluids are gas, and a liquid is fluid, etc... but I really have no clue which is lighter, air or gas, but I'd imagine that, since it seems that gasoline fumes rise somewhat, it would follow that gasoline is lighter than air in ideal conditions.

 

Gas is much thicker than air...it's a liquid. Gasoline has a very low point of vaporization which allows it, given sufficient volume of air, to totally vaporize at room temperature fairly rapidly. For instance, if you spill a cup full of gas on the ground it doesn't take it very long to evaporate (unless you spill it in Alaska during the winter). If you've got gas in a sealed container it will vaporize to the point that it has saturated the air space in the can. That's why the "gas smell" knocks you over when you open the can. I'm not sure if vaporized gasoline has a tendency to settle or disperse in air...

-Mark W.
'88 SC Camaro w/ 305 TBI

 

RednGold is wrong, i'm sorry to say. Gasoline fumes are heavyer then normal air. That is why you have so many warning that you should ventalate the area you are in if working with gasoline. If you would like to see the effects, take a piece of V shaped metal (outside, this could be bad for interior if done in a house) about a foot long and raise one end of it on a brick for example. Place a cotton ball dipped in gasoline at the upper end and light a match at the lower end. The fumes will lite the cotton ball. Now get another one and place it at the bottom of the V and the flame at the top. It will not light. Little bit of my Navy HAZMAT training put to good use. Laters all.

Chvywolf

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89 RS Conv 305 700R4
85HO heads
Edelbrock intake
Holley 600
Hedman Hedders and Y pipe
Flowmaster

[This message has been edited by Chvywolf (edited February 09, 2001).]

 

Chevywolf is right. Vaporized gasoline is heavier than air.

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'89 Formula 383 TPI

 

I hate to sound like Bill Clinton here, but define "thinner". Do you mean less viscous? More fluid? What?

And now for our Chemistry 101 refresher lesson (or would that be Chem 98?);

Fumes are metal particulates and gasses from heated metal conversion (like from welding and cutting);

Gasses are gasses, like propane, butane, nitrogen, etc. They are completely evaporated or melted solids or liquids - no droplets, only molecules. Incidentally, did you know that hydrogen (usually a gas) is actually a metal?

Dusts are solid particles suspended in air;

Mists are liquid droplets suspended in air by mechanical means (like carburetion and injection). The particles are larger than a single molecule, so it is not technically a gas;

Vapors are evaporated molecules of liquid suspended in air by heat exchange (as in the word, e-VAPOR-ate). They can condense back into liquids or solids by temperature change alone, without any chemical conversion.

Actually, gasoline becomes a mist, then a vapor - small droplets of the liquid molecules suspended in air by spraying or pumping, then evaporated by the heat in teh air, like steam. If the gasoline were allowed to evaporate in free air, then it would become a true gas (gasses) but would leave a residue of semi-solids behind.

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But I digress - all of this means little in the face of a leaking injector bore. As for your leak, you CAN plug it with something - it's called an 'O' ring. If you are testing for a leak, you can temporarily mold some modelling clay around the injector base to test for leaks.

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Later,
Vader
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"I know how to solve your problem, but I can't tell
you since you might use the information illegally..."
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0

 

Vaporized gasoiline is heavier. Propane/butane is heavier. Hydrogen is lighter.

 

Vader,
Hydrogen is not a metal. It is an element (H) and is a gas. The periodic table shows that by the farthest left row being the only gas elements known.

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'89 Formula 383 TPI

 

Are you saying that cesium is a gas? And that lithium and rubidium aren't metals, but are gasses? And that some of the lanthanoids and actinoids are gasses?

I guess I DO learn something every day...

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Later,
Vader
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"No matter how hard you try you can't stop us now..."
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0

 

Sorry, my bad . . .I meant right side of periodic table. But Hydrogen is a gas. Here is a copy of some info for ya....

Compounds
Although pure Hydrogen is a gas we find very little of it in our atmosphere. Hydrogen gas is so light that uncombined Hydrogen will gain enough velocity from collisions with other gases that they will quickly be ejected from the atmosphere. On earth, hydrogen occurs chiefly in combination with oxygen in water, but it is also present in organic matter such as living plants, petroleum, coal, etc. It is present as the free element in the atmosphere, but only to the extent of less than 1 ppm by volume. The lightest of all gases, hydrogen combines with other elements -- sometimes explosively -- to form compounds.



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'89 Formula 383 TPI

 

Greg,

I KNOW that H is a gas in common form, and that it is rare, and very light (molecular mass). I was merely pointing out the interesting but little known fact that H is classified as a metal as well, by virtue of the fact that it is crystalline in solid form. Similarly, Hg is a liquid in its common form, but is also a metal. It, like any other metal, can be chilled or heated to change state from a solid, to liquid, to gas ( and I presume a plasma some where between there). Not a big thing, just an interesting point.

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Later,
Vader
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"No matter how hard you try you can't stop us now..."
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0

 

I hate to get into this educational debate of gas vs metal. But, the two are different characteristics. A gas is any element that at normal room temperature at standard air pressure is in the "third state of matter" (solid being the first, liquid the second and I won't get into plasma which is commonly referred to as the fourth state of matter.

A metal is an element that is able to conduct electricity (plus some other properties). We generally think of a metal as a "solid", but it is not necessarily correct. As Vader pointed out, mercury in its "normal state" is a liquid, but it is also a metal.

Where things get interesting is that at super cold temperatures, many elements become "superconductors" of electricity. Also, many gases will only liquify (or solidify) at the same super cold temperatures.

And last (but not least) they you have certain compounds like CO2 which only occurs in 2 states solid and gas. CO2 "sublimes" straight from a solid to a gas. Oh yeah, "solid" CO2 (dry ice) will not conduct electricity, but any electrical connecting placed on dry ice will have far less resistance.

Hope I have you all confused now; because it is.

 

Actually, other substances undergo sublimation as well as CO2. Ordinary H2O will sublime straight from solid (ice) to gas on a cold winter day, due to the simple fact that solid water does have a positive (albeit small) vapor pressure under ordinary conditions below it's freezing point.

Don't you love how we can take one simple request for information and transform it completely into something quite different? I mean, right now MKOS* is now saying "So whaddafrick does this have to do with my original question?"




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89 IROC with lots o' stuff

-=ICON Motorsports=-

 

DA,

No, he's not saying that. He probably stopped saying that days ago and gave up on this thread.... poor kid. At least he got somewhat of an answer, and a lot more of an answer than he pro'ly bargained for.

On the plus side of the equation, it's refreshing to realize that the majority of the audience is not a throng of wrench-turning, gear-headed dolts. We're EDUCATED wrench-turning dolts, dammit!

Who was it that said a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? That's me. It's a wonder I haven't blown up more stuff.

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Later,
Vader
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"No matter how hard you try you can't stop us now..."
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0