400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

[flintlock]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Watch out thrifty, Starving is working up a screed the likes of which you haven't seen since you were 9 and went in the water before waiting the prescribed 45 minutes.... Steel yourself.

I can't do him justice but since you're new here, I'll give you a preview:

You dope smoking, la la land, pot head, eco-frauds are all incapable of a clear thought. Why don't you drive a car powered by solar powered bull***t and just hope you're not on the same road with a real man driving a 10 ton nuclear powered battering ram. Hell, my "Government is bull***t" bumper sticker has more mass and more meaning than every eco-nut idea you've ever had. Did I mention that lettuce costs too much and you eco-terrorsts are to blame?! Don't get me started.

Like I said, I can't riff like the master but you get the idea...

You forgot Feminists!:mad:

[santafe2]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

You forgot Feminists!:mad:

Damn, you're right....edit added, thanks.

[Guest]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Ya. What Santafe2 said. Starving Steve is an elemental force of nature when he gets roused into righteous wrath about the eco-nuts. Watch out for your arms and legs cause he's liable to tear one off!

Watch out thrifty, Starving is working up a screed the likes of which you haven't seen since you were 9 and went in the water before waiting the prescribed 45 minutes.... Steel yourself.

I can't do him justice but since you're new here, I'll give you a preview:

You dope smoking, la la land, pot head, eco-frauds are all incapable of a clear thought. Why don't you drive a car powered by solar powered bull***t and just hope you're not on the same road with a real man driving a 10 ton nuclear powered battering ram. Hell, my "Government is bull***t" bumper sticker has more mass and more meaning than every eco-nut idea you've ever had. Did I mention that lettuce costs too much and you eco-terrorist, feminist whiners are to blame?! Don't get me started.

Like I said, I can't riff like the master but you get the idea...

[Guest]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Flintlock -

Yes they have a very deep bench of talent in all areas of industrial design. It's "special" for Italy, just like watches are "special" to the Swiss. Italians do good industrial design, and they produce some very good modern architects too - which is very much a sister discipline to the vehicle design which Pininfarina's and Bertone's design shops are famous for.

They were respected for their industrial design way back in the 1960's too. Me, I'm pining for one of those mid-range Alfa's already. Make a gaudy red splash. Why not, if you can score an entry level model with only $25,000? :eek: What am I gonna buy from Ford with that? A Ford Taurus?

Nobody's saying Italy's a paragon. Their governments have been chaotic for many decades, and the country's industry does OK regardless, which is a living miracle all by itself. But they are good with style everywhere. Fashion design. Industrial design. Car design. Architectural Design.

Don't tell the Brits, French and Germans, as they will all start grinding their teeth with envy. Well the French and Germans do some decent car design. The Brits are the laggards - although I'm a shameless Anglophile, I will "betray" them on this much. British car design is my last pick among the four. Am I gonna get shot for saying that by one of our resident Brits going berserker with national pride here? :eek:

The Italians really know how to design bodies don't they? They make boring cars look good.

[Chris Coles]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Am I gonna get shot for saying that by one of our resident Brits going berserker with national pride here? :eek:

No, but it did cross my mind that you might like to consider that your, sometimes enormously long and detailed posts with many images taking zillions of GB of computer storage, which in turn require zillions on MW of electricity at a mere 30% of the total thermal input to the power station generating the energy..... that you must be iTulip's greatest contributor to Global Warming? Yes?

[big67]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

I drove a methane converted Alfa Romeo Giulietta in Italy for five years. They are totally standard gear in Italy and I understand also in other EU meditteranean countries. Fantastic fuel mileage - cheap as all get out to run - I mean really, really cheap. Hardly noticed any power degradation on the vehicle, and I lived at 1000 meters and commuted up and down the mountain daily.

Methane conversion in Italy is regulated, but with a real minimum of red tape. The mechanic shops licensed to convert a car to methane are everywhere, and the methane refueling stations were entirely common - at least in Tuscany and Umbria, where I lived and worked. In the countryside the methane converted car is almost de rigeur, everyone has one.

We are being so royally scammed in America as regards our driving options. Many types of vehicles in the EU are far more fuel efficient than we see over here - they have to be - their fuel taxes are far higher than ours so the vehicles have adapted to this constraint. If we were to import EU style driving and fuel options here to the US overnight, IMO we'd instantly chop a massive portion off our energy budget.

It's good to know the options are out there.

BTW - the Alfa was an older car. Interesting anecdote. A year before leaving Italy, in 1997, I was lunching with some friends at a restaurant high up on a mountaintop near where I lived. I guess we were at 1000 meters. My car's old electrical systems caught fire, and the fire was too far along to put out when I discovered it. The entire restaurant's clientele went outside to watch the spectacle in this semi deserted parking lot right at the peak of the mountain.

Flames leapt from the hood of the car, as the engine grew into a massive bonfire. I had four brand new, incredibly expensive thermal snow tires on the car, and they blew out one by one as we awaited the fire department truck that was weaving it's way up the mountain. There was an oversize (I think it was a 20 gallon) methane tank in the trunk of the car, with the methane lines running up to the engine at the front? Nothing. The blaze wound up with flames reaching 15 feet into the air, and the tank never blew.

I do not believe the statistics in Italy for accidents using such converted vehicles are exceptional to the general vehicle accident rate. Fiat has some car models which are actually designed to run on gasoline or methane (dual tanks designed in). There may be a significant issue with direct rear end impact, but I had not heard anything about that. Methan conversions work really well. Huge fuel savings for long distance commuters.

I drive one of those bifuel methane + regular gasoline car.
It has around 270 Miles range on metane, and still features a full regular gasoline tank, that extends the range to approx 500 Miles. You can switch from metane to gasoline and back any time.

CNG is extremely safe also in case of fire, for some phisics reasons and also because of the tank design. Among other safety features, basically there is a valve on top of each tank that is kept closed by a glass pipe filled with mercury. Above a designed breaking temperature (around 100 °C, that is there is obviously a fire burning the car) the fuel goes out rapidly because of its pressure and burns safely in a "combustor" placed right in front of the tank.

Maybe this justifies why you witnessed such a high fire but without explosion.

Yes we are off topic indeed.

[sgominator]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Hydrinos. :eek:

No, Midi-chlorians, an may the MPG be with you.

[charliebrown]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

If we spend some money on crash protetion perhaps we can make a small car safer. I assume the major causes of death in an auto accident are g'forces, impact trauma, lacerations, impalement, etc.

Yes a big car has a larger crumple zone, reducing g's. More steel makes the passenger compartment more resistant to penetration. Can composites take the place of some steel? Kevlar for example is tougher than steel (I use toughness in the technical sense here). I can't remember the precise definition, but basically it referes to the materials ability to absorb energy without failing. Now kevelar is no good in a fire, and is not strong, so it can't be used as a structural member.

If we can keep the cockpit intact, remove sharp things, or things that change into sharp things in a collision, and reduce maximum g forces we can make crashes more survivable. this can be done on a small car.

Look at indy cars, I've seen them crash to bits at 200 MPH and have the driver walk away. I'm not sure if such modifications can be done to a 20K little car without making it 30K, 40K etc.

[Guest]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Charliebrown -

Another point is when we dial this picture out to 30 years from now when hydrocarbons are getting really scarce, presumably all vehicles will have migrated to much smaller and lighter to compensate.

Then it is no longer the case, that a small light vehicle is "more vulnerable" to the big behemoths on the road, as except for the trucks and buses, presumably all of the vehicles will have scaled down to one's own size.

In that scenario you get two feather light vehicles in a high speed impact, and there is no "greater mass" to wreak havoc on the "lighter vehicle".

Throw in inertial navigation systems standard on all vehicles, with faster reflexes than the human brain, synchronized with electronically guided traffic, and much of these concerns become a moot point, don't they?

Of course it takes all the fun out of driving, but whoever said peak oil was going to afford us any fun?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Count me in with the sceptics...:p



Every first-year mechanical engineering student knows that the single most important factor determining the efficiency of an Otto-cycle or Diesel engine is compression ratio. The idea that someone has suddenly "discovered" this fact and is producing engines with four times the efficiency of anyone else by increasing the compression ratio is patently absurd.

In addition, the very best current generation Otto-cycle engines in service today can convert well over 20% of the heat energy contained in the gasoline into mechanical energy.

I'll second that . There is a tradeoff between ever greater compression and friction that creates an optimum point. Compression ratio is the piston upstroke, expansion ratio is the piston downstroke. Efficiency grows with ever greater expansion, but those tight piston rings really drag on the cylinder walls causing friction losses. There is a point where the diminishing efficiency gains from additional expansion get overwhelmed by the extra ring drag. For today's materials the optimum is about 12:1 - coincidentally the compression ratio of the expensive large diesel engines built by DDC and Cummins and M.A.N. It's almost magical how those world-class engineering teams find the right answer every time.;) For spark-ignited engines the alcohol fuels offer great octane ratings to fight knock so running at racecar compression ratios is easier. For daily driving most folks want a rugged and reliable plowhorse, not a fragile racehorse. Those high-compression, high RPM racing engines tend to have emissions problems -they emit fragments of engine components! I'm told the old steam engine designers created extreme high-expasion designs to try to get the last drop of energy -extra pistons, compound pistons, real wild gizmos.

I haven't looked up efficiency numbers for a few years now, but you won't be far wrong if you say a modern car engine sends one-third of the fuel energy to the wheels, one third out the exhaust pipe, and one third out the radiator.

Your other point is what scam victims miss. People somehow believe a fella in an Ohio garage has managed to out-think all the engineers in the world who have spent a hundred years developing engines (and carburettors, and fuel additives..). A legitimate 2% efficiency gain will get you a big promotion and make you a featured speaker at technical conferences for SAE and DOE.

And thanks to one and all for the blast warnings about our eco-frustrated friend.

[Guest]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Hi Chris -

Always ready willing and able, to take a poke in the ribs from you with a grin.

I take your point about clogging up the storage capacity with a long list of Alfa Romeo newsclips. I yielded to the temptation to post it only because I've read elsewhere here one or two of our colleagues refer to Italian engineering as "borrowed from the Swiss and the Germans". This is genuinely believed to be engineering products sold to the world, with an engineering quality akin to that of the donkey tail, that's pinned onto the rest of their exports, namely pasta, olive oil, cheeses and tomatoes and maybe Gucci and Benetton. :rolleyes: I think particularly in America, a lot of people conserve some fairly "generic" notions of the various EU countries, where a handy stereotype helps to cement the geographic / GDP parts of the EU together. Italy gets it's engineering capacity by ripping it off from the Swiss and the Germans apparently. That was my point. Evidently there are some cars in this line up that can give a BMW 540i a run for it's money. Sorry for clogging up the thread with a commercial consideration while evolutionary cars were in fact the topic.

As for the UK, well you know that I dote upon all of you fellas, right?

No, but it did cross my mind that you might like to consider that your, sometimes enormously long and detailed posts with many images taking zillions of GB of computer storage, which in turn require zillions on MW of electricity at a mere 30% of the total thermal input to the power station generating the energy..... that you must be iTulip's greatest contributor to Global Warming? Yes?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lukester Am I gonna get shot for saying that by one of our resident Brits going berserker with national pride here? :eek:

[Chris Coles]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Hi Chris -

Always ready willing and able, to take a poke in the ribs from you with a grin.

As for the UK, well you know that I dote upon all of you fellas, right?

Awe Shucks!! Too much in one day..... :eek:

[santafe2]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

A legitimate 2% efficiency gain will get you a big promotion and make you a featured speaker at technical conferences for SAE and DOE.

Same in our industry. Every increase is a tiny increment. One of our vendors sent us a press release last month and they were just gushing about a 1/2% energy output increase that would be available in a solar panel maybe next year.

I was complaining to the iTulip site managers this morning because one of the ads that came up, (push from google I think), was for a company called power4home.com. It's a total solar scam. My favorite item in the offer was a book called "How to easily build your own super efficient solar panels". Yeah folks, it's just like baking cookies.

This is a classic problem in an economic downturn. People really want to find a way to save money and/or make money and the scammers are always one or two steps ahead stealing the dream.

[metalman]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Same in our industry. Every increase is a tiny increment. One of our vendors sent us a press release last month and they were just gushing about a 1/2% energy output increase that would be available in a solar panel maybe next year.

I was complaining to the iTulip site managers this morning because one of the ads that came up, (push from google I think), was for a company called power4home.com. It's a total solar scam. My favorite item in the offer was a book called "How to easily build your own super efficient solar panels". Yeah folks, it's just like baking cookies.

This is a classic problem in an economic downturn. People really want to find a way to save money and/or make money and the scammers are always one or two steps ahead stealing the dream.

yeh, that's why itulip's got Report Non-Compliant Ad

google... when it's not serving up 'refi your house and buy a flat panel tv, ya fire econ media moron' serves up... 'build yer own solar panels and survive the economic nuclear melt down, ya fire econ media moron...'

[cakins]

Re: 400hp, 500ft/lbs...and 110+ MPG?!

Engine design explained!


HP2g™ 110mpg Driven to SEMA 2009 NBC video

Douglas Pelmear | MySpace Video

http://tinyurl.com/y8a38kx


Pelmear explains how 110 mpg motor works
BY KIRK DOUGAL

Times Bulletin Editor

kdougal@timesbulletin.com

LAS VEGAS - A year after Doug Pelmear and his Hp2g motor burst upon the automotive scene with claims of a car that could get 110 mpg, he is back.

Last year Pelmear made news when he drove his 1985 Ford Mustang to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas and averaged over 100 mpg for the round trip. Now, after a year of applying for patents and continuing testing, he is back at SEMA and this time he was there to tell how his Hp2g engine works.

On Tuesday of this week, he told an audience that the car contains the marriage of an electric motor and a V-8 internal combustion engine, according to a press release based upon his presentation in Las Vegas. While that idea has been around for a while, the type of electric engine and how the V-8 works are new ideas. First, the motor which has eight cylinders, can run on any variable down to only one. The automotive industry refers to this as variable displacement. Excessive wear and carbon buildup is avoided by cycling the cylinders in use through all eight chambers.

The second change is the electric motor. Unlike other electric motors today which use what is called full saturation, Pelmear's electric motors operate on a pulse basis, meaning they cycle on and off in rapid succession. It is powered by two spiral core gel batteries. These are common in the racing world and Pelmear has placed them on each side of the car, recharging them from existing technology such as regenerative braking. Also, unlike other cars that use both an electric and gas motors, Pelmear's design allows him to use both at the same time if necessary to achieve a massive 500 ft. lbs. of torque. The variable number of cylinders in use also mean he can go from 400 horsepower all the way down to 15 while cruising.

The dual setup allowed him to pass an EPA test in May of this year, without a catalytic converter, and falls well beneath the new standards established for automakers.

Over the past 18 months, Pelmear claims to have put over 22,000 miles on the Mustang and motors going to different shows and talks about his inventions. During that time he has documented an average fuel mileage of 109.7 mpg on E85 fuel.