HISTORY AND MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS

Marclais ecological valve for gasoline engines is the final outcome of an extended research, development and adjustment process, based on a similar gas economizer model launched in the USA during the seventies when the big V-8 gas consuming engines were suddenly confronted with the severe oil crisis episode in that decade.

However, considering the larger cylinder capacity in American engines for which the fuel economizer was originally designed, along with other aspects including the dissimilar driving habit patterns of the north American driver; the fact that most of their vehicles had built-in automatic transmissions; the differences in octane gas types for the various engine compression ratios; but mostly because the entire development of the automobile industry had been designed to operate within the 0 to a maximum 1,000 meters altitude range, made our local topographical conditions, in which the car fleet in Colombia had to operate, unparalleled and unique.

In 1980 at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Andes University, a research project aiming to correct engine performance problems caused in part by altitude, which affected engine gas combustion, was introduced. Finally after hard work during a 3-year period, a group of researchers came up with a pilot design. After that a prototype model was built. Later on, several exhaustive tests were made to complete the altitude compensator mechanism which not only complied with all the proposed technical objectives but also was widely praised in academic circles.

In 1986 through a research initiative under the technical supervision of the Colombian Motor Company, within the Mazda vehicle post sales department, evidence of engine deterioration caused by incomplete gas combustion factors was found. It was directly related to air density reduction and associated with high altitudes. This was especially true in all vehicles running on geographies higher than 1,000 meters above sea level like the Bogota metropolis. Back then, the use of the ecological valve, as an effective tool to address the problem by correcting engine lubrication failures and reduce oil consumption, was corroborated. The report conclusions warned on the lack of a special mechanism that could timely alert the carburetor about the variable altitudes where the vehicle was running in order to make proper air-fuel mixture adjustments and therefore to prevent the early negative impact on the engine performance.

Starting 1994, the rapid vehicle increase ratio in Colombian major cities burdened by the engine combustions problem, (low oxygen density in highlands produced motor choking and reduced engine power), plus the increased level of polluting gases beyond permitted limits, created a favorable platform for Marclais ecological valve to become the most feasible device available in the market that would efficiently help protect the environment in cities located at over 1,000 meters above sea level. That was exactly when we started to envision the tremendous potential scope and great feature product usefulness of our ECOLOGICAL VALVE. It actually had the capability to lower such engine performance challenges in our market.