SweetRide45

iTrader: (2)

Has anyone tried adapting an electric motor system to our cars? Just thinking that gas won't be around forever, and all this money that would be put into a new engine setup/etc. etc...is it worth it?

I'm watching a show right now on Discovery w/ some guys building a ride and are going to race a Viper at the end...They propose 600hp w/ 3 electric motors.

Interesting proposition...

TekViper

where are you going to put 20 batteries in a thirdgen??

i saw the show too, it was pretty cool. shame that it kept breaking stuff though.

SweetRide45

iTrader: (2)

If you think about it...no engine and a little electric motor in the middle...there's room for a ton of stuff....but anyways...

Yeah, it broke the axle, belts, etc...guess it needs some refinement. I don't know...there are a lot of things coming it for electric motors, from what the show showed. I'm still wondering if it's wise to spend Thousands on "regular" engines now...seems electric has a long long way to go however...

ShiftyCapone

iTrader: (7)

it would be much cheaper to buy an electric car to begin with. A 3rd gen is much to heavy to support electric power. It could be made to work but your battery life between changes would be very short. Not to mention cost. Heck, it is hard enough for manufactuers to create a street friendly practical electric car. They have almost said the heck with it and moved on the gas hybrids and alternative fuels.

SweetRide45

iTrader: (2)

I hear ya...I don't know if it'd be worth putting tons of cash into a beffier gas engine, or if I should wait....heck, it might be 10-15 years before things start switching over to an alternate fuel...I should just say, heck w/ it, and put a 383 in

ME Leigh

One word Ultra-Capacitors. Batterys suck.

Check this out this is the engineering project i'm working on at the University of Idaho.

Idaho Future Truck

Air_Adam

When gas is gone (that will be ALOT farther away than people say) just use alcohol.

TA5LiterHO

If you use electric then you'll have to play a recording of good sounding exhaust.

Air_Adam

Tie a tape deck behind were your rad was and play nasty V8 sounds

2.73's Suck

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

speaking of running out of gas check out that link, very scary stuff, I think the guy is a little paranoid but it makes you think.

SweetRide45

iTrader: (2)

Man, that'll make you think

Air_Adam

Scary ****!

restoRS

I don't like it!! i think im going to get a metro, maybe paint some flames on it, a camaro frontend, dual exhaust? maybe? think it will be the same?

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

I'd take it all with a grain of salt. He's trying to use scare tactics to sell his damn book

I think I read somewhere that sometime within the next ten years or so, hydrogen will also be a viable source of power. We also have natural gas and petroleum to use as well. While the last two are petrol distolates as well, they aren't used in the massive quantities that gasoline is, and price should be much lower should gas prices skyrocket.

There is also methanol, which is a corn dirivative. Most gasoline currently contains 10% of this, and with some minor modifications to compression ratio, head design, and injection design, they should be able to run on 100% methanol.

Also as a side note, a diesel engine will run on pretty much anything. They even have conversions that will allow them to run on used vegetable oil from grease vats.

SweetRide45

iTrader: (2)

Interesting info onebinky...Seems as though it still wouldn't be a bad idea to invest lots of money on a big engine, as, it still may be converted to something else later in the road (granted, we are talking like 10 year span here)...

Air_Adam

If we run outta oil here, then we'd have a good reason to 'visit' Mars

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

Love it... Oil wars over in the middle east even though the largest oil supplier at this time to the US is, well, Canada... Guy sure looks like he has an agenda to push, namely selling lots of copies of his book.

camaro05

iTrader: (1)

I worked for a comapny( Solomon Technologies) that developed an electric wheel for cars. but haven't perfected it yet. Now they are working in the boat industry to gain resources to keep working on it. Here is an interesting fact though. The gas/electric Hybrid Prius by toyota is an infringment on This companys pattent and now Toyota has to pay Solomon Technologies money for every car the sell. Link to thier sight

I have also seen a few shows about the normal engines runing on methonal. Souds cool. I can't wate untill they have a conversion kit for our cars and fill stations are readily available.

StealthElephant

Yea, I went on Tour de Sol last yera as a senior with my high school. We had an electric pickup truck, 24 12v batteries. At 60lbs a piece, they took the entire engine bay up and weighed a ton.

There was a diesel car from another school that ran off of used veg oil from the schools cafeteria. Smelled terrible, but it ran fine.

Hydrogen was the neatest thing on the tour though, GM was showing it's Hy-Wire off and there was a guy with a Mercury (can't remember model) with a hydrogen fuel cell setup in the trunk.

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

The only real problem is that there is less power in methanol/ethanol, etc. then there is in gasoline so you wont make as much power per unit of fuel consumed, plus I think the motors have to run richer to with those fuels so to be attractive they would have to be cheaper then gas.

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

IIRC it's like a 20-30% loss in power over gasoline.

Stealth Elephant, how well did the hydrogen car run? I wasn't aware that they had any cars actually up and running on the stuff yet Did it seem to have decent power to it?

MrDude_1

gas comes from crude oil


oil comes from organic remains.


unless there was ALOT of life billions of years ago on Mars, and it was covered, compressed, and heated, theres no oil on Mars.

vampiroc

lol, I am amazed that there are people here who DIDN'T know this
simple solution: Biodiesel. makes the same power as petrol diesel, 95% cleaner, no unwanted side effects and has the same fuel economy as a petrol diesel (which is pretty good). to top this off it comes from soy so you can grow it... this is the reasonable, cost effective and foreseeable future for cars.

that electric car was slow and broke things too easily. even if it was running 100% right it'd only run 14s

MrDude_1

14s is faster then half the cars here. most of the cars here are early carbed 305s, L03s, or V6s... even some TPI cars arnt in the 14s yet.


biodiesel is cool, athough it isnt persued that much in the US since its not "clean"... by clean of course im reffering to the pollution being transfered to our electric plants instead of out our tailpipes...
its not 95% cleaner, but it is a big improvement.


in the US, i say we make McDonalds keep their SuperSize fries, but force them to recycle their oil into fuel... then we could have diesels that smell like french fries. :lala:

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

They really have run diesels on used vegie oil, and the reports say that it smells like fast food when its burned. One problem with bio based diesel is that it cant be used in all climates because it hardens when cold. Fuel pumps dont run too well in butter.

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

Then were going to have all those clowns suing refineries for making them obese. "The smell of the car's exhaust forced me to overeat at mcdonalds for all 3 meals and made me 640lbs" :lala:

MrDude_1

solution is to lipo suction everyone over 500lbs and use that to run diesel trucks carrying food to McDonalds..... see, its the circle of fats....

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

aww, nasty. Imagine the smell of that exhaust

MrDude_1

catasmellic converters

pasky

Im pretty sure todays engineers can figure out a heated gas tank.

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

They commented on that in the article I read on it. Problem is that youd need to heat the block as well as a hundred or so gallons of fuel. Takes alot of energy to do that. Also have the problem of transporting it in cold climates. A whole tanker full of it would go solid up near the cold portons of the country. If you think about it its sort of a moot point, though since with computer control the diesel engines of today run very clean. The only advantage now is that it doesnt require oil to make the fuel. Also heard somewhere that Dupont(?) has been working on trying to synthetically produce gasoline from vegitable oil. Havnt had much luck, though.

Edmonchuck

Given the US and Canada's HUGE reliance on the internal combustion engine and burning of SOMETHING to create energy, it is extremely alarmist of this book to even suggest such a crisis. I would even go on to say irresponsible. If people out there don't think that people haven't come up with usable concepts to replace gasoline and are just refining them, they are seriously misguided. There are farms out my way that grow grains and other crops specifically for fuel production - today!

This guy is just trying to sell books. Eco-***** are trying to scare you into their granola eating world by saying high gas prices are the undoing, so run out of your cars and start smoking weed and levitate yourself to work.

The car is here to stay. Too much money has been invested in the civil infrastructure surrounding the car for anyone with a third of a brain cell to let it blow up. The source of the propulsion of the car may change, but the car is here to stay.

Z28guy83

well you could always go visit the local hillbillie's and get some moonshine since thats almost gas anyway

Air_Adam

I know... I have a feeling that was their "hidden agenda" on mars... they are looking for signs of life, because if there was life, there might now be useable oil

Edmonchuck

Oil, no. Silicates and other minerals, OK.

91Bird305

LoL, I seen that same show and laughed my *** off the whole time.

"An RPM Tach on the right? Have u ever drag raced before?"

LoL, like it matters if the tach is on the right or left.

And I am sorry, that electric car was dog slow off the line. He said "It took off real hard in 1st but by 2nd it had broke a belt from all the torque". LoL. I saw the way it took off from the line, it was slow and deffiently wasn't gonna beat no viper.

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

There are electric cars that can toast a viper. Saw one on a show one time that had an A/C induction motor in it that was powered by NiMH battery banks. Didnt do anything when the power was on while stopped but once the motor got moving and built up some back emf it took off like a rocket. Something like 0-60 in 3.2 seconds or somethign rediculous like that.

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

That kind of linear torque from an electric motor must feel very strange and unnatural. I wanna ride

91Bird305

Discovery needed to do a documentary on that guys car then instead of the goofball they had on there.

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

I dont remember where I saw it. I think it was on tech tv or something. Pretty cool but with 800 some odd pounds of NiMH (might have even been LiMH) batteries and not much protection I wouldnt want to be in a car accident. Thing was all composites with nothing but battery banks on either side of the car

25THRSS

Did you guys know that all those trains you see hauling thousands and thousands of tons are powered by electric motors? They produce so much torque that sand is used a lot of times to keep the wheels from spinning on the rails.

dimented24x7

iTrader: (2)

Yep.. much more effiecent to have diesels driving generators at one speed and having electric motors handle the actual propulsion.

MrDude_1

yup.. the engine just powers a generator, and the train is actually moved by a electric motor.


athough the sand on the rails is to "solve" another problem. the fact that they have a metal rail and a metal wheel....
you would think that after all this time, they would have made some kind of grippier wheel.

25THRSS

Electric motors, not motor I think the wheel issue probably has a lot to do with all the weight that sits atop them. But anyways, electric has a come a long way and we will probably see it take over for automobiles within our lifetime.

srdynamics1

iTrader: (10)

We won't be running out of petro for a long long time, if ever.
Who controls its extraction/refining also determines its distribution and price.
If you want to drive your 3rd gen forever then you'll have to pay the going rate where ever you are.

Even in the future if elec. vehicle are the standard, there still will be 69 SS big blocks and Irocs around, it will be just too expensive to drive them.

I want my daily driver, or camaro, to have 0 emmisions, run on urine with an inside fill up hose, and have at least 273.5 lbs of torque.
Get on it nasa nerds.

MrDude_1

273?? i want atleast 450

onebinky

iTrader: (1)

If the current rate of consumption continues, I think they have it earmarked at about 50 years. But who knows, could be more scare tactics

I'm not up for **** smelling exhaust any more than the human body fat exhaust either

scottland

I was at the strip about a month ago, and there was an electric dragster running mid-11's.

I didn't get upclose to it, or find out any of the details, but still,

11's + electric engine = WOW

SweetRide45

iTrader: (2)

Well, I didn't drop 10+K on my new drivetrain yet, so, I just want to think gas will be around for a LONG time, to justify suping it up more...lol

Got the appearance and interior/audio and suspension the way I want it...NOW for the POWER...and if electric is the thing 10+ years down, then, looks like I'll be swapping that in her as well...lol