The Future of Cars

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by Allch Chcar

Sorry I didn't mean to try to monopolize this thread.

Anybody want to talk about underpowered POS econoboxes as a serious alternative ?

Could you expand on what I posted on why Ethanol is the best biofuel for performance use?

But the negative side effect is that you need to make sure your fuel system can handle it because it's a bit corrosive?

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by iff2mastamatt

Ethanol is the worst! It vastly decreases fuel efficiency, and it raises the price of corn for no reason. We have it in our fuel because the commodity traders can manipulate the price of corn with sleazy government deals. 30% of all corn in the US goes towards ethanol, which is an amazing amount considering that it is only 10% of our fuel.

No it doesn't decrease fuel efficiency. It has lower energy density but permits more thermally efficient engine operation. If you could convert gasoline to ethanol with no chemical energy loss, you'd be using less.

It's not that hard to upgrade the fuel system for ethanol, but it is a cost that isn't necessary if the car is never going to see ethanol fuel.

@ Allch Chcar I think POS econoboxes ARE the solution. You can only go so far with technology and whatever. In poorer countries people don't even really care about performance, they just want something that moves, and doesn't break. For the majority of drivers around the world even in rich countries this is how it is. People want some degree of comfort, reliability, and utility. Which is why I think car companies should start cutting down engine size and implementing something like what the Geo Metro had, a fuel efficient cam with lower intake duration. Less cost, less weight, less power. Can't have everything. Besides with the green movement, less and less people are asking for power and instead are being careful with the gas pedal. Those people certainly won't notice a difference from cutting max torque by like 20%. While it's good to see stuff like GM and Ford moving to smaller displacement + turbo, cutting power on everything that really doesn't need it is necessary for fuel efficiency gains that don't hurt the wallet at purchase.

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

No it doesn't decrease fuel efficiency. It has lower energy density but permits more thermally efficient engine operation. If you could convert gasoline to ethanol with no chemical energy loss, you'd be using less.

It's not that hard to upgrade the fuel system for ethanol, but it is a cost that isn't necessary if the car is never going to see ethanol fuel.

@ Allch Chcar I think POS econoboxes ARE the solution. You can only go so far with technology and whatever. In poorer countries people don't even really care about performance, they just want something that moves, and doesn't break. For the majority of drivers around the world even in rich countries this is how it is. People want some degree of comfort, reliability, and utility. Which is why I think car companies should start cutting down engine size and implementing something like what the Geo Metro had, a fuel efficient cam with lower intake duration. Less cost, less weight, less power. Can't have everything. Besides with the green movement, less and less people are asking for power and instead are being careful with the gas pedal. Those people certainly won't notice a difference from cutting max torque by like 20%.

I have a Car & Driver mag with a review between the new gen Prius and Insight. For shits and giggles they added in an old 3 door Geo Metro. The Prius had the better mileage between it and the Insight.

But the Geo matched the Prius!

[WingsofWar]

Small Nuclear Fusion Reactor

or











Pickles

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by iff2mastamatt

Ethanol is the worst! It vastly decreases fuel efficiency, and it raises the price of corn for no reason. We have it in our fuel because the commodity traders can manipulate the price of corn with sleazy government deals. 30% of all corn in the US goes towards ethanol, which is an amazing amount considering that it is only 10% of our fuel.

, cool story bro! I'm going to guess you're trolling and therefore pulling my leg, so I'll try to be nice. Back in 2001 the media was obsessed with the studies saying that Corn Ethanol could only provide 10% of our Fuel if 100% of our farmed land(at the time) was converted to Corn for Ethanol. 2011, so much for that idea!

The price of corn has been artificially low since the 80's thanks to Government subsidies. Now that Corn is at it's proper market driven level many Corn Farmers are taking less subsidies for growing corn and buying new equipment! This is revitalizing the rural communities!

Blaming speculators for high corn prices? Most Corn farmers don't sell at the speculator price which is for open market corn contracts, most of them(90% I believe) sign contracts with big companies. And remember Raw Corn is sold in 56lb bushels, $4 is 7 pennies per pound! That doesn't put anyone out of business but is sure pisses off the bean counters at big corps when a raw products doubles in price.

Infact, Kraft participated in a major anti-Corn Ethanol "smear" compaign. Because they are a big cheese. And they were cheesed off . Maybe they'll start feeding their cows grass instead of corn! Oh wait, that's serious business :|.

Originally Posted by Dimman

Could you expand on what I posted on why Ethanol is the best biofuel for performance use?

But the negative side effect is that you need to make sure your fuel system can handle it because it's a bit corrosive?

That corrosion is from the best part of all Alcohols, oxygen. Oxygen is used by all fuels in an Internal Combustion Engine where it is pulled into the intake. Alcohols bring some of their own oxygen which cools the intake and the combustion chamber with an effect called "latent heat of evaporation" but Alcohols take up more space for an equivalent amount of energy as a negative. The bonus is that they can run more efficiently and generate more power. They also tolerate higher dynamic compression either from turbocharging or high static compression.

I've heard that the PH balance is not really that acidic for E85 from the pump, 6.4 was what I heard with 7.4 being neutral. Ethanol is mixed with Gasoline at the pump and they are bound, albeit weakly, so it's not as bad as running straight Ethanol.

There are plenty of books and websites on E85 conversions. And I think E85 conversions would be better in a separate thread or a separate forum . I don't want to cause any trouble. There are other forums for stuff like that. Like E85performance.net they're mostly Muscle/Pony cars but there are some other guys. I actually only signed up at Hondatech to read/comment on E85 builds besides visiting the CR-Z subforum that is.

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

No it doesn't decrease fuel efficiency. It has lower energy density but permits more thermally efficient engine operation. If you could convert gasoline to ethanol with no chemical energy loss, you'd be using less.

It's not that hard to upgrade the fuel system for ethanol, but it is a cost that isn't necessary if the car is never going to see ethanol fuel.

@ Allch Chcar I think POS econoboxes ARE the solution. You can only go so far with technology and whatever. In poorer countries people don't even really care about performance, they just want something that moves, and doesn't break. For the majority of drivers around the world even in rich countries this is how it is. People want some degree of comfort, reliability, and utility. Which is why I think car companies should start cutting down engine size and implementing something like what the Geo Metro had, a fuel efficient cam with lower intake duration. Less cost, less weight, less power. Can't have everything. Besides with the green movement, less and less people are asking for power and instead are being careful with the gas pedal. Those people certainly won't notice a difference from cutting max torque by like 20%. While it's good to see stuff like GM and Ford moving to smaller displacement + turbo, cutting power on everything that really doesn't need it is necessary for fuel efficiency gains that don't hurt the wallet at purchase.

I agree with you on the econoboxes.

Upgrading the fuel system is only if your serious about running E85. It's pretty safe to say you could run it stock, many people do that, but I wouldn't do it out of a heap of caution. And because I'm pretty serious about running my car on E85 without a proper setup, the only problem is I don't have the money to do it right! Argh!

And don't expect to save any money with E85. Local prices are $3.39 for E85 vs $3.67 for Gasoline, gouging!

Originally Posted by Dimman

I have a Car & Driver mag with a review between the new gen Prius and Insight. For shits and giggles they added in an old 3 door Geo Metro. The Prius had the better mileage between it and the Insight.

But the Geo matched the Prius!

Of course! And at half the price!

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by Dimman

I have a Car & Driver mag with a review between the new gen Prius and Insight. For shits and giggles they added in an old 3 door Geo Metro. The Prius had the better mileage between it and the Insight.

But the Geo matched the Prius!

To the Prius' credit, the Geo is quite a bit smaller. However the Geo with the fuel efficient cam does something like what the Prius does: expand more than compress = more efficiency! I really wonder if consumers actually would be bothered by the loss of power as fuel prices go up. To me it's a no brainer: you want a cheap car that's great on gas? forget performance completely! Whatever happened to accepting compromises?

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

To the Prius' credit, the Geo is quite a bit smaller. However the Geo with the fuel efficient cam does something like what the Prius does: expand more than compress = more efficiency! I really wonder if consumers actually would be bothered by the loss of power as fuel prices go up. To me it's a no brainer: you want a cheap car that's great on gas? forget performance completely! Whatever happened to accepting compromises?

Are you really saying that on a sports car forum where people complain about 200BHP being insufficient?

suit on.

And yes the Metro xfi had fewer piston rings and a lower profile cam and taller gearing to improve efficiency. No Atkinson cycle with lots of intake overlap though. I've seen examples on Wikipedia of cars in Europe and Japan with Atkinson cycle on econoboxes. The Mazda Demio has a 1.3L with Atkinson Cycle. Honda being Honda they have DiSi instead of vtec on the Fit and City in both Europe and Japan.

[serialk11r]

I think they had reduced duration, which has basically the same effect. I guess I just wasn't paying attention then, I thought Atkinson cycle wasn't really used lol, guess it's just America then. Wikipedia article on Atkinson cycle only lists hybrids :shrug:

lol power can be had, you just need more money obviously!
One exciting thing about continuously variable lift is turbos have the potential to have lower impact on fuel economy, since at low load the turbo doesn't have to push/suck (i don't know how turbos are set up sorry ) through the throttle, which requires it to sap energy from the exhaust stroke with backpressure. Toyota please PLEASE stick valvematic in the FT86, use good gearing, and change people's perceptions about sports car=gas guzzler! In the future I see the potential for a sports car comeback. Afterall sports cars are some of the lightest and lowest cars, they require less energy to move!

[Matador]

Until they can figure out a better way to make ethanol than by fucking with a food source I will never be in support of it.

[serialk11r]

Originally Posted by MatadorRacing_F1

Until they can figure out a better way to make ethanol than by fucking with a food source I will never be in support of it.

Problem with that reasoning is, you're not even close to being short on food, neither am I, neither is anyone else in the US. We clearly have excess production capacity for food. Nevermind poor countries that can't afford to import, they need to ramp up production, not receive more aid. The beauty of using food crop to make ethanol is the crop is easy to grow and cheap. That said the process is still pretty inefficient and everyone would love to see some improvement in yield, especially from corn.

[Allch Chcar]

Originally Posted by serialk11r

I think they had reduced duration, which has basically the same effect. I guess I just wasn't paying attention then, I thought Atkinson cycle wasn't really used lol, guess it's just America then. Wikipedia article on Atkinson cycle only lists hybrids :shrug:

lol power can be had, you just need more money obviously!
One exciting thing about continuously variable lift is turbos have the potential to have lower impact on fuel economy, since at low load there isn't as much leftover pressure for the turbo and the turbo doesn't have to push/suck (i don't know how turbos are set up sorry ) through the throttle. Toyota please PLEASE stick valvematic in the FT86, use good gearing, and change people's perceptions about sports car=gas guzzler! In the future I see the potential for a sports car comeback. Afterall sports cars are some of the lightest and lowest cars, they require less energy to move!

The XFI cam is the opposite of Atkinson cycle. It has less duration whereas the Atkinson cycle has more duration.

I only found the non-hybrid Atkinson engines looking through Mazda's foreign engines. I knew they existed in the past but I didn't know they were making them like that.

Originally Posted by MatadorRacing_F1

Until they can figure out a better way to make ethanol than by fucking with a food source I will never be in support of it.

Wow, Matador, you get pretty angry sometimes.

Corn Ethanol is made from feed corn, it's about as edible as grass. If you were paying attention to the US Agriculture news you would know that we're getting food and fuel without any shortages. We've had record corn crops and improved yields the last few years.

Success? You decide.

[Allch Chcar]

gah! you all post too fast for me!

[Ryephile]

Allch Chcar: Do you have an actual reason behind your distaste for Diesel [or Bio-Diesel] as an efficient fuel? In terms of fuel volumetric efficiency, Diesel is better than Gasoline is better than Ethanol.

So far I can only gather that your preference towards Ethanol is based solely on the USA's ability to produce a surplus of feed corn. I'm sure you already know about Ethanol's stoichiometric ratio and energy content. As a replacement for Gasoline, it will always have greater fuel consumption and greater power output in an Ethanol-optimized engine.

Ethanol may be great for fuel-economy-be-damned sports cars, but that isn't the direction the industry is heading. Ethanol may be a decent fuel source for the mid-term while the push to get off foreign oil is strong and we refuse to tap our own oil reserves, but in the long term when we need efficient fuels and engines I can't foresee Ethanol being a key player.

What we need in the short and mid-term is a fuel that's exactly the same as Diesel but labelled something else so people will get over their 1970's Oldsmobile misconceptions of it.

In the long term, IC engines will need far greater efficiency than the couple percent they have now to be viable.