The "Otto-cycle" engine is, basically, a heat engine.... That means that there is no explosion in the cylinder or any magic, for that matter...
The ideal (stoichiometric) ratio for gasoline fueled engines is roughly 14.7 to 1 by weight. Now... the reason for this is for nothing more than combustion efficiency. If the mixture is much richer, there is not enough oxygen available to react the gasoline delivered...... similarly, if the mixture is too lean, flame propogation slows down and, since there is too much space between fuel molecules, there is a very good chance that there will be unreacted fuel after the combustion event. Anyway... back to the subject.....
Asthe fuel and oxygen react in the combustion chamber, the other 70 some-odd percent of the air is being rapidly heated and expands quickly.... driving the piston down in the cylinder. It is the amount of heat released during the combustion process that is the key to the operation of thees engines. There is a finite amount of heat energy contained in one pound of gasoline. Interesting to note that your article states that methane and alcohol are "more powerful".... methane is just plain explosive and alcohol as (IIRC) roughly half the BTU content of gasoline..... meaning we are going to consume nearly twice as much alcohol as gasoline just to do the same work. We'll leave out the fact that that methanol is corrosive... just ask any alcohol racer that hasn't flushed his fuel system and changed his engine oil after a race.
FWIW... diesel has a higher BTU content but it is unsuitable for spark ignition engines.... It doesn't atomize well at the low pressure drops found in carburettors and can create a lot of grief due to sooting and carbon deposits. If we look closely, diesel engines do not use a throttle plate (except for a very few EGR equipped diesels where an electronically controlled throttle plate was installed to assist EGR operation). Taking that a step further, we start to realize that a diesel cannot have either a rich or lean mixture (and we wont get into "overfuelling" at this time).
If your Grandpa was as smart as you figure, he would have known that tetraethyl lead had been added to gasoline as an octane improver (with the added benefit of lubricating valve surfaces) since Gawd knows when.
FWIW, tales of the Pogue carburettor surface from time to time.... usually presented as someone close to the writer to give an air of familiarity with the device. Less common are tales of exotic looking engines (still working on the Otto premise of "suck/squeeze/bang/blow) utilizing less efficient scotch yokes and/or other devices to turn reciprocating motion into rotational motion.
For now, we will remain being slaves to the Ottocycle engine and the heat content of available fuels....
For inciteful.... you get a D-..... for grammar and spelling, a B+..... for originality you get a "get lost you plagiarist bastuhd...".