He received patent number 4,177,779 Dec. 11, 1979, which described "A fuel economy system for an internal combustion engine which, when installed in a motor vehicle, obviates the need for a conventional carburetor, fuel pump and gasoline tank. The system operates by using the engine vacuum to draw fuel vapors from a vapor tank through a vapor conduit to a vapor equalizer which is positioned directly over the intake manifold of the engine."

The Truth about the System

Is it really possible to get 100 miles per gallon? Absolutely it just depends on what case you're evaluating. Did Tom Ogle achieve this on a 351 cubic inch Ford? How can it be proved, other than by skeptical claims that do not have concrete explanations?

Considering we live on earth, the basic laws of physics are all we need to analyze and prove (or disprove) such a claim. These laws are essentially models of what occurs on our planet. For example, Force = Mass Acceleration. This equation can be used to model how much force is required to accelerate a given mass. So, what are the laws concerning Ogle's scenario? Force = Mass Acceleration is one of them - we're trying to accelerate a car to a certain speed for a certain time. Over the course of that time, friction is one of the resistive forces that impedes motion of the car. Gravity also impedes motion of the car. Without resistive forces, one could simply get the car up to a desired speed and it would continue at that speed until a resistive force acted on it. But as we all know, that doesn't happen on earth because there are numerous resistive forces. So we know there has to be a maximum mile per gallon amount that is achievable, since these resistive forces exist.

Is 100 miles per gallon a plausible claim for a heavy Ford? To determine this, we need to know a few things: what kind of resistive forces is the vehicle trying to overcome while making its trip (the trip in which we are measuring its gas mileage), what kind of energy must the car exert to overcome these resistive forces, and how much gasoline is required to create that energy?

For the first two parts of our analysis, the resistive forces the vehicle must overcome and the energy the car must exert should not be altered from any other vehicle. In other words, for our model to make sense in real world driving, the forces that resist Ogle's Ford and the energy that the Ford must exert to drive in regular road conditions are exactly the same for a Ford that does not have the Ogle system attached to it.

Now, the energy part of the analysis is where Ogle made his supposed achievement. The energy equation is quite simple. Energy is composed of 3 parts (in simplified physics - that is, no nuclear power): Kinetic Energy, Potential Energy, and Internal Energy. Kinetic Energy is energy that results from a moving mass. Kinetic and potential energy are unimportant in this analysis and can be assumed to be zero. Internal energy is what is important in our analysis because it describes the amount of energy that a chemical reaction can produce (in our case, the reaction of burning gasoline). Gasoline has a specific amount of internal energy that is released when it is burned. There is a maximum achievable energy. For Olge's system to work, it must get more energy out of the gasoline than a normal car does. His system must come closer to the maximum achievable energy that exists in a specific amount of gasoline. The problem is that the maximum amount of energy in gasoline is not much higher than what an average car already achieves. Simply put, there is not enough 'extra' energy in the gasoline to be gained by burning it more completely, and there isn't enough unburned gasoline that goes through a car's engine to create a significant amount of extra energy. All modern car systems already have exhaust gas recirculation systems that recycle most of the exhaust fumes that still have small amounts of gasoline in them, and this is mainly for emissions reasons. Little gas mileage gains are seen in a properly maintained vehicle.

To sum it up, Ogle did not design a device that made a Ford get excellent gas mileage while keeping the driving conditions the same. He would have either had to find ways to reduce the resistive forces (such as lowering the weight of the car) or he simply had an alternate fuel source hidden on his vehicle. Gasoline only has so much energy to give. Our cars already capture almost all of it. There aren't any significant gains to be made, regardless of how 'optimized' the system is. Significant losses don't occur from improper burning of gasoline, but rather from the resistive forces that exist in an engine and throughout a vehicle.