Actually, since I wrote the article, I figured I would chime in...
It really surprised me how well this engine performed under the
conditions. It is true that a constant speed is maybe easier on
the engine. One point is that since the Generator will make as
much power as possible, the engine was always running at
max capacity. I would equate it to driving up a 60% grade at
full throttle in first gear. You should have heard this thing
running! You could really tell it was working. The motor has
since died, it wound up throwing a rod through the block and
that was the end of the project but it far exceeded our wildest
expectations. It ran a total of about 3 years with only several
days of down time due to failures in the electronics. We also
had a problem with the distributor wearing out... We rebuilt it 3 or
4 times.
It is true that natural gas is cleaner, but we were running this motor
on so called "Dirty" gas... Straight from the well, no processing other
than a screen filter to remove chunks from the gas.
The engine oil did stay pretty clean and it was funny because towards
the end of the motors life, they just kept adding oil every few days as
it would use it faster than changing it completely.
Since the death of the Patrol motor, the company switched to a larger
generator with a natural gas Chevy 454 big block. That motor lasts
about 1 year and then needs to be replaced. The little Patrol engine
did 3 times the length of service!
Steve
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