Engines...

[pballguy17]

I had a thought.. and someone tell me the flaw of y it hasn't happened...


Make a Car engine, useing Basic valve technolgy, such as a Spyder TL, striker hitting a valve-pin, and letting in the air... Obvouisly modified to take much more abuse, (4,000 hits per minute) The only things that would appear to me that might b problems are...

+Damage to valve pin from constant abuse.
+The popping of a 5000PSI steel balloon in a car accident
+The amount of Air required to take the place of a internal combustion engine.
+Air tank size

the good things!!

+ No more gas!
+ No pollution!
+ for about the size of half your trunk u can refil ur car anywhere in about 10minutes!
+ Last time i checked, u can find Air anywhere

Soooo what did i overlook? :D

Mickey

[bjjb99]

The energy density of high pressure air is much less than that of hydrocarbon fuels. You'd need a huge air tank to get the same number of miles you currently get out of a tank of gas.

BJJB

[SlartyBartFast]

Already being built.

http://www.theaircar.com/:D

[Slimm Jimm]

That thing is almost as ugly as Kerry. YIKES!!!:eek: :eek: :eek:

[personman]

A spring, like in a spyder, wouldn't be fast enough. A ram, like the intimidator, would be more feasible but still may not be fast enough.

[PyRo]

Compressing air isn't free :)

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by PyRo
Compressing air isn't free :)

But it's a lot cheaper than gasoline! :D

[CasingBill]

Originally posted by SlartyBartFast
Already being built.

http://www.theaircar.com/:D


figures its made out of hemp......only hippies would make a car like that;)

[CasingBill]

I wonder if it makes farting noises all day????:p

[PyRo]

Originally posted by SlartyBartFast


But it's a lot cheaper than gasoline! :D

Ok, I made the wrong point. Its not very efficant when you take into accout the amount of air it would take to move the car.

[deathstalker]

Originally posted by CasingBill
figures its made out of hemp......only hippies would make a car like that;)
Too bad most people don't realize you don't get high smoking hemp. ;) It's also unfortunate most people don't realize how valuable a resource hemp can be. It's easily renewable, provides several crops per year, contains almost no unusable parts, and hemp seed oil can be used in the manufacture of almost any petroleum-based product.

Plastics are one of the most prevalent petroleum-based products (some plastics are also made from coal or natural gas). It's not just our cars that keep us reliant on foreign oil. Think about how much plastic you come into contact with each day. It is impossible to escape it.

Sorry to go OT!Just a pet peeve of mine when people associate hemp with hippies. :) However, with the introduction of hemp soap, I'll need to find a new place to hide my money.

Any GWAR fans out there?

[CasingBill]

Originally posted by deathstalker

Too bad most people don't realize you don't get high smoking hemp. ;) It's also unfortunate most people don't realize how valuable a resource hemp can be. It's easily renewable, provides several crops per year, contains almost no unusable parts, and hemp seed oil can be used in the manufacture of almost any petroleum-based product.

Plastics are one of the most prevalent petroleum-based products (some plastics are also made from coal or natural gas). It's not just our cars that keep us reliant on foreign oil. Think about how much plastic you come into contact with each day. It is impossible to escape it.

Sorry to go OT!Just a pet peeve of mine when people associate hemp with hippies. :) However, with the introduction of hemp soap, I'll need to find a new place to hide my money.

Any GWAR fans out there?

Its so obvious you are an environmentalist wacko;) :p

[rehme]

all these new cars with weird engines look like $&!# there is like no styling involve in the car.

[RT pRo AuToMaG]

Originally posted by deathstalker


Any GWAR fans out there?

yep

[Python14]

I am all for alternative fuel sources and all, but if it means I have to drive some lame-*** sedan that hums, then no. One thing that's funny is alot of the gas-electric hybrid dealys get less milege than comparable sized turbo diesels. The VW lupo gets 75 mpg, yet still has the nice chug of a diesel. Plus, it can be umphed to get over 100 HP. There seriously are some really good cars out there, but the EPA is to tied up in their regulations to let them over in the United States.

[CoFFeY[NiTrO]]

Why do they make electric/air cars so ugly if they expect us to start using them instead of gas cars....lol

[cphilip]

Originally posted by PyRo


Ok, I made the wrong point. Its not very efficant when you take into accout the amount of air it would take to move the car.


No I think you were right Pyro.... I think it would take more energy to compress the air need than it would take to just put it directly into making the car move directly. Many things are like that. Its not just a matter of compressed air not costing anything to covert. In that case it might be cheaper to use same energy to charge batteries or something than it would be to compress enough air to move the thing for any reasonable length of time. Plus then you got to move the humongeous tank it takes to store it all along with the car. I suspect it would be a net loss to do that.

[Mateo]

See if they put a hybrid motor say in a sexy body like a C3 Corvette or a 3rd gen RX7 at a good price THEN I might think about buying one.

[PyRo]

Originally posted by Mateo
See if they put a hybrid motor say in a sexy body like a C3 Corvette

Thats the day I shoot whoever came up with the idea.

[pballguy17]

damn, u guys sure wnat ur cake and eat it too!! (i just like to look at cake)

It seems to me, that 90% of the people wouldn't drive a pollution free, cost effciant car.. b/c it farts and looks like a POS. That's envirmental care right there...

I'm sure with all the technolgy out there.. it's possible to work thru the bugs.. the only downside to that would be the cost of it all... what is the approxmite PSI of say the wind on ur windshield? would it be possible to use intake holes? I'm sure people will drive formula 1 like lookin cars.. :P

But there are quite a few problems.... anyone know anything to bypass those?

+Amount of air needed to propel the car.
+Size of the Air tank needed to do the above
+size of the air compressor to do the aboce
+The "un-coolness" that the above would cause
+How to get read of the people who think the above.

Also ideally, i think anyone who's trying to do this is trying to make a car thta works... b4 they make a car that works... that looks good.... i mean.. think of the Model-T! :P

Mickey

Thanx guys

[TransMan]

Seriously what we need to do is start making Steam powered cars they make A LOT more power then Gasoline cars and they would run off Water and Propane. The only down side to a steam engine is that you have to wait for the boiler tank to warm u before you can drive but with todays technology you could start it warming before you even got there. Another good thing would be that there is no need for a transmission and it would pretty much last forever which is probably why no one will manufacture them. :(

[Python14]

Originally posted by pballguy17
It seems to me, that 90% of the people wouldn't drive a pollution free, cost effciant car.. b/c it farts and looks like a POS. That's envirmental care right there...

Eh, that describes me pretty good. If I'm gonna spend $50,000 on a car to save the sea mammals or whatever, it better not look like one.

[PyRo]

I wouldn't drive anything that looked like a forumla one car, unless it was a formula one car. Rice baby, rice.
Strange on the camaro board I go to, the word rice shows up as **** :)

[Jeffy-CanCon]

Originally posted by CoFFeY[NiTrO]
Why do they make electric/air cars so ugly if they expect us to start using them instead of gas cars....lol

That annoys me, too. I almost think it is a conspiracy by the auto & oil companies to keep us buying the more-expensive & profitable cars. But I expect it's just a coincidence or unintended consequence from using efficiency engineers on the hybrids, and style-minded designers on marquee products.

[PyRo]

Steam powered stuff also tends to explode more than gas powered stuff. The stupid things some people do with gas cars I would love to see what they would do with steam cars, there would be explosions left and right.

Hey arn't forklifts propane powered? :)

[TransMan]

They woulndt blow up that often if they are built well and not pushed extremely hard you forget most steam engines are used on trains where they are pulling tons of cargo. And yes propane is used on forklifts because most forklifts are run inside and propane has almost 0 emissions so it wont kill peopel working inside.

[mcveighr]

Yeah, some people make propane cars too.

[PyRo]

Originally posted by TransMan
They woulndt blow up that often if they are built well and not pushed extremely hard you forget most steam engines are used on trains where they are pulling tons of cargo. And yes propane is used on forklifts because most forklifts are run inside and propane has almost 0 emissions so it wont kill peopel working inside.
How are you going to keep people from pushing them hard, beaing on them, deciding they can do there own work etc. Now the worst that happens is a car will catch fire, and you have plenty of time to get away from it. An explosion is a little differant.

"Hold on mr explosion while I get out of the way ok?"

[mcveighr]

Don't you watch the movies PyRo? gasoline cars are bombs with wheels, the slightest bump will cause them to explode with a mushroom cloud of smoke and flames 50 feet high.

I think I saw a movie once where a shopping cart hit a car right by the gas tank and it blew.

[Mateo]

Originally posted by PyRo


Thats the day I shoot whoever came up with the idea.


What I shoulda said was styling like in curves, sexy, low stance and not boxy or wedge, tall and ugly like the Prius or Insight. I did't really mean actually putting a hybrid motor in a C3 Corvette, thats just madness!

[TransMan]

Originally posted by PyRo

How are you going to keep people from pushing them hard, beaing on them, deciding they can do there own work etc. Now the worst that happens is a car will catch fire, and you have plenty of time to get away from it. An explosion is a little differant.

"Hold on mr explosion while I get out of the way ok?"


Well you could have safty features like a presure release valve so it the presure of the steam got to a critical point it would just vent out. Also if someone pushed one hard enough to blow it up they would be going WELL over 100mph and most people dont want to go that fast. Just to prove a point back in the early 1900's the stanley brother built a two cylinder steam car that went over 100 mph which was about 3 times as fast as any gasoline car would go. :D

[Python14]

Transman....you don't drive very often do you? First of all, imagine a hot summer day, 106* in the shade, stuck in a traffic jam on a black asphalt interstate with 1500 steam engines chugging away. I hope there is a frozen wasteland nearby because in about 10 minutes time, 1500 steam engines would be venting excess pressure in the form of BOILING HOT STEAM. Now imagine ONE blow-off valve malfunctioning and a 1000 lb steam pressure vessal exploding, sending boiling water, scalding hot steel, and a propane gas explosion the size of a small blimp 360*. Now imagine this happening a couple times in a major city like Atlanta or Dallas.
Steam may have been super neato 100 years ago....but do remember, there is a reason the railroad industry puts steam engines on display in HISTORY museums.


I still stand behind diesel. Not as a permenant fix, but something that we can use until another resource comes up that makes alternative fuels a good idea. Hydrogen cells, battery powered cars, and nuclear fission cars are cool and all, and I'm sure with lots of work, they could all be atlease viable....but they simply are not within reach economically. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robins can tell me how eco-friendly the Prius is, but until it can haul 2 cords of firewood and tow a boat, it's not on my list of cars to buy. It's one thing to be expensive. It's another to simply be fiscally not possible.

[PyRo]

How much more efficant are electric cars? That electricity does have to come from somewhere you know.

[SGTKennedy]

screw all that hybrid/electric/air/hydro stuff, we need to work on telekinesis.

the electricity has to be generated somehow,
If the electricity is produced using a STEAM TURBINE in a Nuclear power plant its not burning fossil fuels. and eventually we will just start blasting the radio-waste into space.

Also what is a more effecient way to do things? using the pressure of exploding fossil fuels to push a piston, and needing cooling mechanisims to remove unwanted heat or using teh heat from a less explosive fuel to boil water to turn steam turbine.

Or the electricity could have come from an alternative source such as wind generators or the hoover dam.

my hs chemistry teacher was an EcoNut and he went on and on about how ineffecient internal combustion engines are. He couldnt naysay though because we dont have any real alternatives yet.

[PyRo]

If we blast radio waste into space eventually we are going to kill a bunch of aliens who will retaliate :)

[Python14]

how can they retaliate if we've killed em all?

[PyRo]

I said a bunch, not all :)

[SGTKennedy]

if they die from our radio waste, then they will also die from our nukes. problem solved. kinda like the russians. its called MAD.

[PyRo]

But do we have nukes capable of hitting worlds millions of miles away :)

[SlartyBartFast]

Originally posted by cphilip
No I think you were right Pyro.... I think it would take more energy to compress the air need than it would take to just put it directly into making the car move directly.

That's true of every energy source. But, gasoline is incredibly inefficient. The energy required to drill, transport, refine, store, deliver, then inefficiencies of how the gasoline is used ...
In the short term, I’d love to see more diesels on the road. You save over 20% of the energy required to refine the fuel as well as the better mileage of diesel engines. (and you can use things like used cooking oil instead of diesel.)However, good diesel engines are costly and have to be well maintained or they create a lot of particulate pollution (or, if using cooking oil, the exhaust smells of french fries. :) ).
And as far a batteries go, there’s a huge problem about energy density. Even the most expensive batteries get VERY heavy and have poor energy storage for the likes of moving a large vehicle about.
The air car website claims 1.5 euros for a fill that can take the car 200 to 300 km. That’s 2 $US to go 125 to 186 miles. A gas powered vehicle would have to go over a 100 miles a gallon to beat that cost.
Of course the other thing that’s very important about alternate energy is indeed how it is generated. Cradle to grave of all components of the production and use of the energy really have to be analysed to get a complete picture of whether the alternate fuel is a plus or a minus. (But given the costs above for the air vehicle, I think it would be a no-brainer. And really, there are few fuel sources that would be worse for the environment than individual vehicles using gasoline.) Electric vehicles may be a good idea, but where is the electricity coming from? But even in the case of ‘dirty’ sources of electricity, the increased efficiency of central generation and off-peak use coupled with efficient use of the energy (less losses in an electric vehicle AND you can recover the braking energy).
What REALLY interests me about the air car though is the possible technology application to paintball. What technology you ask? Look at how the tanks are filled! The on-board compressor can fill 90 cubic meters to 300 bar in 5 1/2 hours! That would be hundreds of 88 cu in tanks to 4350psi every minute! And it plugs into 230Vac with a 120Vac model available.

[Ironmag]

Originally posted by SlartyBartFast

What REALLY interests me about the air car though is the possible technology application to paintball. What technology you ask? Look at how the tanks are filled! The on-board compressor can fill 90 cubic meters to 300 bar in 5 1/2 hours! That would be hundreds of 88 cu in tanks to 4350psi every minute! And it plugs into 230Vac with a 120Vac model available.

It would be interesting if you could hook up your car to you PB marker and have near infinite shots per tank. Oh what a thought. Just picture parking you car next to the field and towing a 300 ft air line, might be rediculous but who cares, no worries about running out of air.

[Maksimus54]

You don't need a steam engine to use propane in a car. Propane conversion kits have been around for a long time. My dad used to drive a 454 suburban with a propane conversion, it let him switch between gas and propane so when he was just driving he could use the super efficient propane and when he needed to haul a lot of stuff he would use gas. Propane as an energy source is very feasable, and also cheaper than gas. In california I believe most of their public transportation is natural gas powered.

[Python14]

I've seen some pretty cool propane trucks before. The problem is, since it's a pressurized gas and requires pressure rated equipment, it's asking for trouble. How many times have you gone to the paintball field and someone's gun/tank/hose/whatever is leaking? And that's with like 3 different fittings that only need loctite(and some don't even need that). Imagine an engine with 300 HP fittings, each one requiring a corrosion resistent seal and probably some little EPA cover....and then imagine your redneck neighbor taking the engine apart and forgetting two fittings. KABOOM!

Moral of the story: Until people are smart enough to operate loctite, a powerplant with pressure fittings is an accident waiting to happen. That doesn't mean I don't like the idea though. Next to Diesel, Propane is my favorite fuel(that's why I mix em :) )

[mcveighr]

Assuming the electric car was charged from a coal plant, its less efficient than a gas/diesel engine.

I think gas's efficiency is around 50% , diesel is like 55-60% and coal is 40%ish.

[SlartyBartFast]

Assuming the electric car was charged from a coal plant, its less efficient than a gas/diesel engine.

I think gas's efficiency is around 50% , diesel is like 55-60% and coal is 40%ish.

Electric cars powered by dirty generation may also have a greater effect on the environment too.

However, generation palnts can have smokestack scrubbers installed. Thousands of individual vehicles can't.

Discussing efficiency is pointless. If a process is only 2% efficient, but cheaper to run than a process that's 90% efficient, efficiency certainly won't be your deciding factor.

And as far as alternative fueled cars go... Well, in university I was a member of the student SAE association. Our group won honours and prizes in two modification projects. On was making a corsica run on Methanol, the other was making a GMC Sierra run on propane.

In both cases, once the team was finished with them neither could run on regular gasoline any more. However, both were more powerful than their gasoline powered original state.

Can accomplish a lot with turbos, compressors, and shaved blocks and heads. :D