Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
What the market will bear.
http://green.autoblog.com/2010/04/20/report-biodiesel-tax-credit-bill-expected-on-obamas-desk-by-en/
a 1$ per gallon tax credit for Bio Diesel could easily be paid for by adding a $1 per gallon tax on oil, or super sized slurpees, or any number of liquids that we really need people in this country to start consuming less of. Really. put a tax on McDonalds 32oz, 230cal sweet tea to pay for something that might actually be beneficial for us as a species. Really! Dare to Dream!
a 1$ per gallon tax credit for Bio Diesel could easily be paid for by adding a $1 per gallon tax on oil, or super sized slurpees, or any number of liquids that we really need people in this country to start consuming less of. Really. put a tax on McDonalds 32oz, 230cal sweet tea to pay for something that might actually be beneficial for us as a species. Really! Dare to Dream!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Making the Simple Complex for Over 10 years!
CDI (Commonrail Direct Injection) Diesel is what is bringing Diesels into the 20th century (yes 20th). Most modern cars with Diesels are either TDI and more and more commonly CDI. CDI allows Diesels to be much more efficient, cleaner with less soot (clean enough that these cars can now run catalytic converters), and quieter Then Diesels have ever been in the past. What's not to love? However where once you had a very simple system with no engine electrics needed, now you have this. The above is a simple schematic of just the aftermarket engine management that I'm planning to use. It doesn't have a bunch of stuff such as EGR and other emissions hardware that it would have if it was a production car. I drew the schematic out in Microsoft Visio over the last few days for visualization purposes, documentation and for trouble shooting. Imagine what the rest of it would look like when you add the complexity of all the other systems in a car. Now to actually wire the damn thing. FWIW I have no idea if this is actually correct. That's the next step. Visio doesn't have many of the symbols (Shapes) that I needed so notice that both the glow plugs and the fuel injectors are actually wingnuts, or wingbolts to be precise, and that all of the sensors are represented by hex bolts. One must make due sometimes.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
It's beginning
Ok it's been going for some time now, but I'm starting to see more and more references to Biofuels in the main stream. More importantly, they are echoing my point that, though possibly better for the environment there is a far greater benefit to bio fuels with regards to our security and economy. I even saw a well produced ad on Fox News for ethanol from these guys: http://www.growthenergy.org. Ethanol is not my first choice for Biofuels for a number of reasons. It isn't a drop in replacement for gasoline and it is more difficult to handle than gas, but it is a cleaner renewable fuel. Ethanol can be produced domestically with Americas massive grain and crop producing capability, and therefore has many of the same benefits as bio diesel. Anyway, getting to the point....People are beginning to see the logic. Especially the Navy: Navy Flies on Bean Juice
Monday, April 26, 2010
Functional But Rusty
This is exactly what I'm talking about. It's the oil feed line to the turbo and it's rusty. Fuctional but rusty. I sealed the ends, blasted the rust off and painted it but that still doesn't make me feel better. Onward throught the fog.
Cam and High Pressure Drive
Just a few pictures of the cam and High Pressure pump drive. The more I get into this engine the more tempted I am to tear it apart, blast all the corosion off it and rebuild it. The rust and aluminum oxide that is all over this motor keep trying to fall inside it when ever I take a cove or seal off. Guess I should stop taking covers and seals off.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
The Beginning of the front Wheels assembly. for the sake of the lowest possible front profile I want the smallest and narrowest wheel I can find. I also need to take into consideration the tires available for any rim I choose. the tire needs to have a speed rating high enough to handle the speeds I hope the bike will see on the salt. all other things are secondary, however modern sport bike rubber (which will handle the speeds) is usually made in a 130 width tire. Keeping the front tire narrow helps with not only the frontal area and thus air resistance, but also rolling resistance which, with a wider tire, is the greater concern at the speeds I'm shooting for. The other limiting factor is that High performance rubber is only made for sport bikes which these days all have 17 inch front rims. I have decided to make the steering mechanism a hub center type because of the advantages in being able to keep a very low profile with no steering neck or stem. This means that aside for clearances for the riders line of forward sight the height of the front of the bike needs to only be as tall as the front wheel. Luckily for me Honda decided to build their revolutionary CBR900RR with a 16" front wheel from its introduction in the early 90's till they went to a 17" rim in 2001. This means that there are tires that are rated to 175+mph available for 16" rims and with a relatively small profile this saves on the overall height. Also I remember from back in the 90's a neighbor who had a Kawasaki Ninja 250 which had a rather large hollow hub and was also 16". Thanks to EBay and $35+ shipping I had one to mess about with a week later. Here it is and me using a sawzall to cut out the center of the hub. With all that room, it should make bearing selection easier and cheaper, as well as making it easier to design and build the Hub Center mechanism. The Hub is a symmetrical with respect to the centerline of the rim with Disk mounting holes on only one side. This may present a problem but I don't think at this point that it will make the rim useless for my application. FWIW a quick calculation shows that at 200mph with a 110 profile tire this wheel will be spinning at about 2715RPM. This is well within the speed range of most regular bearings. See Pictures Below and Stay tuned.
Monday, February 1, 2010
The future of the front Hub Center steering. Is there anything a Sawz-all can’t do? A marital aid, and Kitchen utensil, a....
From here it's on to the mill. I don't have the exact Hub dimensions worked out, and the mill is tied up with paying work so I may not get to that for a while, but as soon as I do there will be pics.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Taking the engine apart part 1
The water pump off the engine block. I'm seriously toying the idea of taking it apart so that I can blast the corrosion off the parts.
I don't know what this is. The 1mm bolt that holds it into the bottom of the engine block was so rusted that it snapped off when I was trying to take this piece out. I think It may be some sort of block heater for winter time. If that's the case then I won;t have to go through the hassle of extracting the broken bolt and and heilicoiling the hole so that i can secure this thin back in the block. Lets hope.
Take everything you know about Gasoline car and motorcycle motors and forget it.Diesels are a completely different animal.the oil sump is not only made from very heavy steel it is also cemented to the lower engine block with polyurethane that is stronger than.... It is there to not only form a tight seal but to also integrate the sump into the engine block for vibration damping and thus quieter running. The sump is on there so well that it is not a user serviceable item. In fact there is no drain plug so the way you change the oil is bu inserting a hose into the dipstick tube and sucking the oil out. the sump is never meant to come off the motor for the life of the car. Yet here I am. Not only do I need to take it off to clean and inspect everything in the lower end of the motor, but I will also be replacing the pan altogether with one I'll make out of aluminum. I need to do this because in the car this engine was designed to run tilted over on almost a 45 deg angle. I'll be running it with the cylinders almost straight up and down in order to make it as narrow as possible.
Used Diesel oil is BLACK. It's still quite thick and I don't think it's all that old,but boy is it Dark. Oh, and for what it's worth when the trucking company or the sender tells you that they are shipping the motor dry, don't believe them. The amount of coolant and oil that came out of this engine was actually surprising.
There is corrosion and rust all over this motor. It cam from Alberta so I assume that not only was it stored outside before I bought it but also it's brief life was spent in the salty sea air of a coastal city.
for a motor that allegedly has only 18K km on it there is a surprising amount of corrosion. Aluminum oxide even inside gasket and seal surfaces. Now it seems I have to take this motor apart if for no other reason than to make sure everything inside is all right and not filled with corrosion and who knows what?
Saturday, January 9, 2010
This is my new motor. I'm actually very excited because this is something I've been looking forward to for a long time now. It is in a way the continuation of a dream mostly enthused by a very close friend who is no longer with us, and thus never fulfilled in his lifetime. As much as this is for me it is also in memory of him. May the long road begin and May world records fall!
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