John R. Fish -- Carburetor -- Articles & US Patent ![](0logo.gif) **[rexresearch.com](../index.htm)** --- **John R. FISH** **Carburetor** --- ![](4bbl-fish.jpg) **4-bbl. Fish Carburetor ...** ***The Spotlight* ( 9 May 1983 )** **Technology for High Mileage Auto Currently Available** **By** **Tom Valentine** The big automakers, GM, Ford and so forth, have long had the know-how to build better performing, more fuel efficient cars, but it would defeat their marketing schedule to give us these advantages all at once. The speaker was Dr William D. Guentzler, Industrial Arts and Power Technology professor at San Diego State University (SDSU) Dr Guentzler has been teaching a special class for graduate automotive engineers at SDSU for the past 3 years --- a class that stimulates the students to create hardware projects designed to cost-effectively produce better mileage and cleaner air. The technology has been around for several years which could provide a car owner with 100 % better mileage, Guentzler stressed in an interview with the Spotlight. **Dollar Savings** With gasoline prices at a present low of $1.16 to more than $1.50 for super-unleaded with service, a doubling of mileage could mean considerable dollar savings. The very best retrofit methodologies (devices or adjustments one can make on the original equipment) would be a cylinder deactivation system (Cadillacs heralded 8-6-4, for example) and an automatic overdrive, Guentzler told the Spotlight This system will typically return from 30 to 60 % improvement in mileage on a V8, and is one of the best mileage improvement systems available. Guentzler recently designed an 8-4 system for the Brown Carburetor Co of Draper, UT (Spotlight, may 2), the manufacturers of the Fish carburetor. **No Vacuum Drag** There are a number of patents already granted for units that simply cut off the gasoline going into four of the cylinders. This is the least efficient method of all, however . The system Ive designed for Brown, which utilizes two Fish carburetors very effectively, is the only system that also eliminates the vacuum drag from the deactivated pistons. Actual mileage improvement figures were being obtained at the time of the interview, but Guetnzler estimates the Brown/Fish/Guentzler unit will derive about 35 % improvement on the road, and will sell for under $500. The Reflan computerized system, which literally deactivates the valves within the engine, tested on a treadmill dynamometer, returned a low figure of 66 % mileage improvement. Of course the Reflan system is expensive, Guentzler pointed out, costing more than $900 installed. Someone with a station wagon, pickup or other large V8 powered vehicle can have the highway fuel efficiency of a small car. The Reflan system starts paying for itself after 18000 miles. Recent statistics indicate that the average auto owner today keeps his vehicle 6 to 10 years Its a marketing conspiracy, Guentzler smiled. They want to sell you a piece at a time, rather than all at once --- for two reasons. It is less costly to tool up for changes slowly, and they will have new features for new models as sales incentives. In addition, Guentzler said, manufacturers do not necessarily use the best components for the best mileage and so forth --- they use parts and equipment that do the job at the least cost. What about the fantastic carburetor claims --- the fabled 200 mpg carburetor, for example? It has never been proved that such a thing existed, and the rest of the auto engine is so inefficient I doubt its even possible for a carburetor alone to provide much more than, say, 20 %. To be cost effective means to get back more in savings than what the gas-saving device actually costs. Many people would lose money if they spent $500 on a retrofit system to save 25%/ Street mileage involves so many variables and factors that mileage ratings may be literally meaningless, Guentzler explained. However, an overall percentage improvement can definitely be obtained with several methods. Often these methods are additive, meaning that the 10% improvement of one method may be added to the 10% improvement of the other. **121 Miles Per Gallon** Guentzler has been testing mileage devices and additive claims for the past 10 years and a few years ago, working in conjunction with Dr Harold McEowen, the SDSU team produced a small diesel sports car that turned 121 miles per gallon --- ***The Spotlight* ( 20 June 1983 )** **American Consumers Victims of Oil-carburetor Conspiracy** **By** **Tom Valentine** In 1934, John Robert Fish proudly announced he had built a simple, inexpensive, fuel-saving, cleaner-exhausting carburetor. But his thoroughly tested and proven invention was not happily received by eager automakers, as you might expect. Instead, the inventor met with suppression and harassment. What was wrong with the Fish carburetor? Why did Detroit react so violently to this easier-to-manufacture carburetor that would have saved millions in production costs even back then? Why did they turn thumbs down on a lower-cost, better-performing carburetor that outperforms what we live with today? *The Spotlight* has learned that it wasnt something wrong with the Fish carburetor that ld to near oblivion; it apparently was the secret that the Fish device uncovered that posed the threat. Today the Fish carburetor has been resurrected. And, although the monopoly powers and their government flunkeys are trying to continue the cover-up, the device is readily available today [1983] Michael H Brown (*Spotlight,* 1 Nov 1982 ) is the owner of the Brown Carburetor Company of Draper UT. He is the man who single-handedly revived the Fish carburetor. Brown manufactures and markets the carburetors as high-mileage, high-performance equipment. An immense mythology has built up concerning carburetors and fuel efficiency, Brown told The Spotlight in a recent interview, but the Fish is the only carburetor that gives you 4-way satisfaction. It will give you more miles to the gallon, and yet it can be set to register zero emissions. If you care to sacrifice a little fuel economy, it will deliver up to 30% more horsepower. And, thats not all. The Fish is the only multi-fuel carburetor in existence. You can run gasoline, kerosene, alcohol, and even crude oil, or Diesel fuel with a Fish on your gasoline engine. Brown is not blowing some when he talks of fuels and the carburetor mythology of America. Brown goes out of his way to explain carburetion to neophytes. Essentially, the carburetor is the device mixes fuel and air so that the mixture will explode inside the cylinder chambers of the engine to provide motive power. The mixing of fuel and air in a moving vehicle, with variables in the demands for changing engine speed, poses all kinds of problems for makers of carburetors. Most of todays carburetors have at least 25 moving parts and 5 times as many part components. The Fish carburetor has only 3 moving parts, and a total of 17 components. You can imagine how inexpensive they would be if they were manufactured in the numbers of the big auto companied. My carburetors retail for $189 --- and thats only because I make only a few at a time. A 4-barrel Rochester carb lists at $311And theyre tooled up to make millions!, Brown stressed. The first carburetor was intended for use with diverse fuels, such as kerosene and alcohol, because, at the time (the 1890s), gasoline was nothing more than a waste product in kerosene distillation. **Studied Chemistry** Brown went back to college and studied chemistry for several years before he felt knowledgeable enough to throw his weight into the defense of his Fish carburetor program, and at the same time tackle the great oil scam he uncovered. Ive studied petroleum chemistry for years, and I enrolled in GMs carburetion classes in order to know what Im talking about, Brown said. And I know, now, why so much useless verbiage has clouded the picture when it comes to carburetion, mileage and pollution. Brown, who produced the first dial-fuel gasoline-alcohol care back in 1979, explained that the compression ratio in an engine holds the key to combustion --- combustion which produces horsepower, mileage and exhaust emissions. These explanations are oversimplified, of course, Brown explained. But, if a piston travels 4 inches upward to compress the air-fuel mixture in a cylinder 5 inches long, the compression is said to be 4 to 1. Fuel ad air mixtures, like gunpowder, provide more power the more they are compressed. Drivers who recall the muscle cars of the 1960s and 70s --- cars with immense power, and low mileage, which were designed to run on premium fuel will recall tetraethyl lead, or simply ethyl, the stuff used to make gasoline perform better in those big, higher-compression engines. **High-Priced Gas** Tetraethyl lead also was a premium air pollutant, and eventually reaction to the fact ushered in the now nearly universal unleaded gasolines. Curiously, all gasoline is unleaded when refined --- only today we pay a higher price for it. Refiners claim the higher price is due to the need for additives other than tetraethyl lead. But skeptics say its merely a curious twist of supply-and-demand pricing, controlled by the cartel. In the early 1970s, Brown continued, the federal government forced the automakers to lower the compression ratios --- setting automotive design and tooling back a decade or more. The earlier engines were unable to run such high compressions, because, as the engine developed speed, severe hammerings and knockings would result --- the infamous ping! Brown, trying not to be too technical, explained that the so-called octane rating was introduced as a means of rating the ability of a fuel to resist such knocking. Obviously, oil companies and automaking companies had to work together. Brown furrowed his brow for emphasis when he reached this point in his explanation because he was nearing the key factor in the great fuel-carburetor scam he had uncovered. The problem is that in all these years, no one has ever noticed that the octane rating is not dependent on compression factors alone. It was, and is, almost totally dependent on a defect in the idle circuit of almost every carburetor manufactured in the entire world from 1890 to present --- the Fish carburetor being the sole exception Brown has published his analysis of carburetion in detail. Essentially, while learning all he could about carburetion, from every source he could find, Brown discovered that the oil-auto industry built its multi-billion dollar business by requiring multi-billion dollar refinery capacities in order to break crude oil down into gasoline with an octane rating. **Burn Crude** Its a huge scam! Brown stressed. Diesel fuel used to be extremely cheap, because the gasoline was distilled out, and the leftover was labeled Diesel fuel. Its an absolute fact that crude oil --- unrefined, cheap crude --- can be run straight in a Diesel engine, with its high compression ratio. Crude and diesel fuels are chemically almost identical. Well, with the Fish carburetor, you can run crude in a gasoline-type engine --- fairly efficiently if the compression ratio is high --- and there is not more pollution than with refined gasolines, said Brown. Browns penetrating question is: Did the automakers know this about the Fish carburetor when he approached them in 1934? Could that have been the reason the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) landed on him when he tried to manufacture and market the carburetor on his own? Could that be why the post office authorities came down on him with the old false fraud charges game and nearly destroyed his business in 1954? (Fish ultimately refuted those charges in court.) His company finally failed because of his death, Brown added. But Fish had a better product, and the world beat a path to his door --- not to praise him and make him deservedly rich --- no, they suppressed him because his carburetor could have demolished their octane rating game. **Disqualified** Brown glowed with anger as he recalled one of the all-time low points of the Fish carburetor suppression story: Back in 1955, Fireball Roberts drove a Fish-carburetor equipped Buick in the Daytona 500 race, and he beat 3 Chrysler supercharged 300Gs by a mile and a half. They disqualified Roberts for reasons never given. Now, in my book, that the height of suppression. Fireballs victory and his need to make fewer pit stops because of the Fish carburetor threatened to make Fish a major factor in the aftermarket. Browns point is simple: If there is no need for an octane rating, which is apparently deliberately engineered, there is no need to refine the fuel. If theres no need to refine the fuel, then theres no need for Exxon, Standard, Shell and the like. We can simply pump the crude out of the ground, as some Kansas farmers do, let the sand and water sink to the bottom of tanks, and use it directly as fuel. Brown grinned, then explained: Dont let your image of motor oil in the can confuse you when thinking about crude as it comes out of the ground. Crude is much closer to Diesel fuel. **Proved It** When Brown, his mechanics and distributors first completed their research on this discovery about the Fish carburetors multi-fuel capacity, one Kentucky dealer told Channel 18 television in Lexington about it. The television people said, Prove it. Using a 350 Chevy, the mechanic used crude, kerosene, Diesel fuel and even dry cleaning solvent, as the news cameras recorded it. It took only 7 seconds for the mechanic to adjust the Fish carburetor when switching from one fuel to the next, Brown said. On addition, the carburetor consistently proved its ability to brig emission levels down lower than any carburetion system to come out of Detroit --- [**http://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/bccfish.htm**](http://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/bccfish.htm) **** ***The Fish Carburetor Book*** **by** **Michael H. Brown** **$20.00** Are you currently interested in a Fish carburetor for one of your older vehicles? The New Fish Carburetor Production : **** Order a new Fish Carburetor: **** --- **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/ --- **** FOR SALE : --- Fish Carburetor 2 M1 Original Vintage with Dual Manifold --- ![](m3diag.gif) A- Accelerating shot adjusting screw. 1- Spark control connector. 2- Spark advance adjusting screw. 3- Idle air screw. 4- Dash mixture & throttle control wire. 5- Auxilliary fuel adjusting screw. 6- Fast idle cam. 7- Idle speed adjusting screw. --- **The Fish Carburetor** *30% More Mileage on Gas, Diesel fuel, Toxic Waste Chemicals, or even Unrefined Crude Oil !* The most famous --- and most often copied --- high mileage carburetor in history. The first Fish carburetor was hand-built in 1933 and tested by Ford Motor Co 1934. Ford admitted the carburetor delivered 34% better mileage but then demanded that John Robert Fish --- the inventor --- immediately furnish a worldwide service network. Undaunted, Fish put together his own organization in 1937 and by 1947 was outing out a handful of them. By 1954 --- after repeated battles with everyone from the Post Office to the US Navy --- the Fish Carburetor Company of Daytona Beach, FL was cranking out over 2000 carburetors a month. John Fish died in 1958 and his Company folded the next year. Another company in San Diego bought the rights to the carburetor in 1961 and produced 6000 of them up until they went bankrupt in 1965. The San Diego Company neglected to put bushings around the throttle shaft of their version of the Fish carburetor and as a result almost all their carburetors developed leaks in the castings. The Fish was guaranteed for a minimum 20% increase in fuel economy. 30% is average. The Fish won a lot of stock car races in the 50s The Fish will run on any liquid fuel that will burn hotter than rubbing alcohol, including but not limited to alcohol, used dry cleaning solvent, diesel fuel, and crude oil --- **FIG**![](FishM1.gif)![](fuelpikuparmchambr.jpg) **How and Why This Carburetor Works** In the top photo the entire carburetor is pictured. The float chamber on the left operates on the same principles as other carburetors. The diaphragm plate fits between the float chamber and the throttle body. The lead --- or reed --- valve on the diaphragm is your accelerator circuit. When the fuel pick-up arm moves forward suddenly the pressure closes the leaf valve. The fuel that is ahead of the fuel pick up arm is forced up the arm, which is hollow. At the top of the fuel pick-up arm is a needle valve. The needle valve adjustment allows you to set your carburetor for fuel economy, power, or the utilization of alternate fuels, such as ethyl alcohol, flammable toxic waste chemicals, or crude oil. This adjustment is made by removing a blanking plug and using an allenhead wrench, a procedure normally taking less than 30 seconds. There are no jets or metering rods in the Fish carburetor. The fuel metering groove at the bottom of the fuel pick-up arm replaces the idle, intermediate, and high-speed circuits in a regular carburetor. This groove starts at 0.0023 at idle and goes to 0.078 inch at full throttle. When the pick-up arm moves over this groove it creates a constantly changing main jet size. The changing jet size is where a lot of out fuel efficiency comes from. The bottom photo shows the view from the top of the carburetor throat. At part throttle air is drawn through the top three holes and mixed air and fuel is pulled through smaller holes in the bottom. This is a superior method of atomizing fuel. At full throttle fuel comes out all six holes in the throttle shaft. This feature allows the use of regular six holes in the throttle shaft. This feature allows the use of regular octane gasoline in high-compression engines and eliminates the need for a fuel with an octane rating (more fully discussed in Browns Book of Carburetor) . By loosening the allenhead screw on the throttle valve you can change the air-fuel ratio by adjusting throttle valve angle. You can adjust the air volume just as you can adjust fuel volume with the needle valve, from 20 to 1 for maximum fuel economy to 6 to 1 for wood alcohol In plain English, weve been running high-compression engines on low test gasoline with no problems and have no ideas when well stop climbing on the compression rations. We might even pass the diesel If there is no carbon formation, there is no way to pre-ignite or detonate. If there is no need for an octane rating there is no need to refine the fuel --- **US Patent # 2,236,595** **[ [PDF](us2236595.pdf) ]** **Carburetor** **J.R. Fish** **( 1 April 1941 )** ![](usp123.jpg) ![](usp4-8.jpg) ![](usp10-15.jpg) ![](usp16.jpg) --- **** **2-bbl. Fish Carburetor ...**![](fish2bbl.jpg) **The Fish Carburetor Story** The Fish Carburetor was originally invented by John Robert Fish in America in the early Thirties. J.R. was not an automobile engineer but a brilliant all-round inventor with a strong grasp of pressure differentials and expertise in machine tooling. He was possibly the originator of the "Iron Lung" as he invented a "pressure bag" for his wife who appeared to suffer with serious circulation problems. The raising and lowering of the bag pressure apparently helped her greatly. 0n another occasion, Bob Fish cabled the President with instructions at great length on how a very simple pressure box could be lowered to rescue some sailors who were trapped in a sunken submarine! **Carburetion Principles** When he came to look at carburetors initially, it was to stop the waste of fuel as it slopped about on cornering, braking and hard acceleration. All standard or conventional carburetors are entirely dependant on a stable fuel level to feed through the "Manometer" principle. He demonstrated the point by fitting a glass jug to the bonnet (hood) of a car. The level changed by literally inches on hard cornering. The typical four barrel carburetor of the time had float chambers almost all round the unit to prevent starvation but it was very wasteful on the high side of the float chamber. All conventional carburetors still use the "Manometer" or "U" tube principle today and rely on a Venturi to accelerate the incoming air so dropping the pressure which then lifts the fuel level through the jetting. Unfortunately, this tends to strangle the engine at higher revs. Fuel of course has a much higher inertia than air so jetting has to be much richer at low speeds (air velocity) which means that when the fuel finally catches up with the air flow, it would be chronically over-rich requiring it to be corrected by an "air corrector jet" to bleed down the over-rich main jet. Small carburetors suit bottom-end flexibility, response and fuel consumption but not top-end power which then requires a larger or multi-carburetor set-up that in turn produces poor fuel consumption and flexibility. Bob Fish produced a carburetor that entirely eliminated these compromises as: * Fuel level was not critical to metering under any conditions. * No Venturi was required to potentially strangle the air flow. * A single progressive metering groove did away with both main and corrector jets, as well the Venturi. * The carb works on pressure differential - not air speed, which means that it is almost instantly self adjusting & self compensating so any change in weather or altitude requires no adjustments or modifications as with conventional carbs. Hence all round suitability for cars, boats, aircraft, mountain or pressure charging use. * Instead of the usual one main fuel discharge point within the carburetor, the "Fish" has from SIX to TEN leading to vastly superior atomization and therefore much improved vaporization and since wet fuel DOES NOT burn (only the vapor), better and more complete combustion is ensured enabling more power to be extracted from the same amount of fuel. * Result - again LESS WASTE! **The Struggle** The "Fish" was seen as a very serious threat to the "Original Equipment" establishment and could not be tolerated. J.R. suffered years of dirty tricks and persecution in an attempt to put him and his carburetor out of business. He even had his mail stopped on trumped up charges which were entirely UNTRUE and the case never went to court. It was simply a deliberate time wasting exercise to stop his cash flow and ruin him. He was not to be beaten and moved to Florida where he kept going by selling carbs to individuals including some wealthy big game fishermen which enabled them to reach and return from their fishing grounds much quicker so having more time to actually fish (no pun intended!) and increase their catch potential. *Fish Plant on Ballough Road, Daytona Beach at the foot of the Seabreeze bridge* *Picture Courtesy of Orlando Boni www.Boni.com/fish* At about the same time an up-and-coming local Stock Car driver got involved. The famous and almost legendary "Fireball Roberts" who drove the original M-1 car and carburetor in place of the big 4 barrel "Works" carbs. He literally left them standing with his otherwise out-of-date car. His epic performances must have helped put Daytona Beach race track on the map. In those days, it was partly on the road and partly on the beach itself! The "Works" organizations did not like it one bit and again the "dirty tricks" started. "Fireball Roberts" frequently made Pole Position and gained the trophy. Repeatedly, however, his race tires developed "mysterious problems" when leading the race convincingly. These "faults" suspiciously did not seem to occur in the "Works" cars. - It would seem that the Fish Carb could not be allowed to succeed either on the track or commercially. **The Revival** In the early Fifties, one of J.R.'s many backers, a Canadian by the name of Eric Liebman of "Fish Canadian Carburetors" from Willowdale, Ontario, talked J.R. into producing a "sleeved down" M 1 called the SM (Small Medium) and adapt it to the growing tuning market for VW Beetles. This helped the factory's financial situation for a while. Then in return for his considerable ongoing financial backing, J.R. granted Eric Liebman exclusive "rights" to the Northern States, Canada and the rest of the World. Bob Henderson first met Eric Liebman in 1956 and was granted a Dealership for part of Canada. In 1959, Bob Henderson returned to the U.K. with a few samples for his friends to try out. The interest was considerable and an unexpected business then took off. The Americans could not keep up with the UK demand so Eric Liebman granted Bob Henderson his "rest of the World" rights with a view to being supplied back with carbs from the new production of further improved models. Bob Henderson was granted improvement patents for the "Minnow Fish" (small fish) versions and obtained registered trade marks for the name MINNOW and the Fish device itself. --- ![](fishlogo.gif) ![](Fishshop.jpg) ---