Pagoda Hillclimb

Looked at the pics Ed; good stuff! Hope you enjoyed the roast beef. Al

I watched it on fb. That looks like fun!

Your name rang out, Danny. Dave thought you might be a likely contestant. Need a full cage though.

Sounds like you were where the action was.  Thanks for the photos and story.   

I'll have to do some hillclimb research. That really does interest me. It's you against the clock......

http://pahillclimb.org/live-results/

 

Here's Bill going up. 

 

 

Here's a guy hitting the same turn I was on, the day before. 

 

They race again in August: same course, plus another mile of straighter, faster road up top.

 

I've read some of the regs. Looks like the same rollbar that PCA wants for DE might work for hillclimb. My car has an internal tube frame, plus rollbar/cage attachment points. I'm pretty sure I can fabricate a bar that will satisfy tech. A hoop, with diagonal, and two forward down diagonals to plates would seem to fit the bill. I would need a new harness and a suit. My helmet is fine. I should probably talk to Bill.

If you want to go fast:

 

1. No engine noise

 

2. No shifting

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMjsAMlXGBI#t=22

 

 ReV

Hillclimb is the perfect venue for electric cars. 11 minutes of fury, 12 hours to recharge.

 

Battery/electric is a good idea for devices that remain idle for a long time, then need good power for a short period of time. Weed whips are a perfect example. Lawn mowers too, assuming you have an "urban-sized" lawn. And hillclimb racers.

 

I'm not an electric hater so much as a battery hater. As simply as I can put it, there's just no practical way to put energy into a battery in less time than it takes to deplete it, unless the available power for charging is much greater than the motor it's driving. A high-horsepower car has a pretty big motor. That means 300 miles of charge can't happen in less than several hours, unless the charger is connected to a sub-station. Even then, you have to figure out how to get the batteries to absorb the energy without blowing up. Elon Musk's proclamations aside, it's going to be a while. Tesla's solution is to skirt the problem altogether, and set up battery-swapping stations. I suppose this is a good idea if you like the idea of Mr. Musk owning the propulsion system of your conveyance.

 

Petrochemicals pack a lot of energy punch in a fuel system that is able to be replenished in minutes (seconds, if you are are an F1 driver). They remain indispensable in our energy consumption matrix. 

 

Well, a Tesla may not be cost-effective but they reload very quickly on the free Tesla "superchargers"...roughly 45-50 minutes for another 200 miles.

 

A Leaf charges quickly as well but its only 70 miles or so...so not practical for longer trips.

 

  ReV

This is one my favorites...noise and all. Mr. Castellana is a fast shoe

 

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paClRcT39HY

 

I agree with Stan, the hillclimb is THE perfect event for an electric.

 

Even if your battery dies, you can always get back to the start.

 

 

 

That's pretty funny Mitch! Just coast back down.

 

Stan is right. It's not an electric car problem. It's a battery problem. 250 miles is no where near the 450 mile range I get in my daily driver. And I can refill in a couple minutes. Not 45 minutes.

 

With the 85kw Tesla, 40 minutes on a supercharger gets you to 80%, Tesla says that's enough to reach to the next station. But they don't say at what speed or ambient temperature they use to make that statement, nor do they say A/C on/off. All of that affects range.

 

A 100% charge takes 75 minutes. If I'm traveling a long distance, I don't consider a 45 to 75 minute stop, every 250 miles, to be "quick."

 

It'll be a long time before full electrics are fully viable outside an urban environment.

I think the extend range electric has the most near-term potential. Hybrids are too complicated and full electrics are too limited in range.

In and extended range electric, the gas engine is simply a generator & kicks in when needed to extend the range.

The Chevy Volt is the first step, but the normal IC engine is a poor choice. A small turbine engine running full tilt when on would be far more efficient.

> On Jul 1, 2015, at 6:40 PM, SpeedsterOwners.com <alerts@hoop.la> wrote:
>

Well, that's some serious thread drift. I'll bite: Musk's proclamations for the Tesla's range and charging speed aside, an electric can be or is already practical for most Americans most of the time. I drive 18 miles or so to and from work each day, and some days I'm tooling around the city in between. An electric car with 70 miles' range would work for me on about 98 days out of 100. For the long haul up to see the folks in Buffalo or CT I could rent a car or take public transportation or--because I am me--drive one of the gas-guzzlers I would probably still feel compelled to own alongside the electric. My wife and I right now each have two cars (though one is going to be sold off within a few months). 

 

Given my example, Paul, could it not be said that you are the perfect candidate for electric car ownership? You've got--what?--4 or 5 cars of your own right now? 

Bingo.

 

Why this has not been executed is a mystery to me. A turbine big enough to charge batteries would be about as big as a bread-box, and an order of magnitude more simple than a hybrid drive system. Add the capability to get the first 100 mi "free" from plug-in (250 is a pipe-dream in the real-world), and it starts to look a lot more realistic.

 

Capacitors are potentially a better solution than batteries, if controlling the discharge rate could be figured out. Smarter guys than me are trying. It'd be a cool job to have.

 

To Ed's point... well, maybe. 75 mi of range on a 70* day, with the windows up and no heat or A/C is a lot different than sitting in 5 mph traffic in rust-belt urban traffic when the wind is howling and the temp is -15*. Under those conditions, unless I've got some "range-extending" guarantee, I'm not risking even an 18 mi commute.

You got it Ed. Actually six at the moment. But one will be for sale shortly.

 

Electric viable? Well, there is my 86 mile (one way) commute. I wouldn't even trust a Tesla to get me back and forth.

I think the real reason electrics are getting so much attention and research (at the expense of far more viable solutions) is that the real rush is towards autonomous cars. Fuel burning engines have no place in the dystopian future, and certainly no place in your grandson's iCar.

There's a company in Tokyo that is making all-electric speedster replicas, converted from ones manufactured in Missouri apparently (looks like a VS, though). Made their debut at the Tokyo Motor show a couple of years ago. Very, very limited numbers, and for 9million yen (!), which I reckon is about 80,000 USD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

 

 

Whatever the hard, practical arguments for or against, I'm seeing a lot of Tesla's on the road.

 

Admittedly, this is northern California, home of the Tesla plant, and geographical center of the Green universe. It's much more important here to give the appearance that you're saving the planet than it is to actually be doing that.

 

There seem to be more faithful here who believe in the sanctity of anything 'electric' than believe in immaculate conception, although both beliefs appear to be held with the same fervor.

 

 

 

A few years ago I noticed maybe one or two a year.  Head east toward Chicago or into yuppyville(North Chicago Subs) and they are popping up everywhere. Pretty car for sure.  

Instead of Teslas, we need to concentrate more on steam power for cars.  Bring back the Stanley Steamer.

 

http://www.extremetech.com/ext...for-an-epic-comeback

 

Isn't the point of driving an old sport car is to hear the the awesome sounds they make as your go through the long gears?  Maybe its an emissions thing over there.

I had a 2013 US built Leaf for 1 year and about 8500 miles. The bright side is that it cost me exactly $ 67., or .0078 cents a mile in operating cost

 

But it went back to Nissan because it had severe brake related issues and I did not get another. The major downside is that it cost $ 35K and 13 months later it was worth $ 12K and now maybe $ 10K.

 

Additionally the cabin details are real cheapo…with tiny knobs, a 1960s quality radio etc.

 

Nissan had so much tied up in propulsion and batteries and controls that there was little $s left for anything else…and that’s too bad

 

But if you can get a used one for $ 10K and use it around town…you will likely get a vehicle which will have 0 or very low maintenance cost for at least 5 years.

 

  ReV

I guess you were tree leafs to the wind when you bought that one. 

 It was a Lease...and I even got my down payment back

 

    ReV

When you look at some technologies you really have to swallow the coolaid to drive it or adopt it. At least you get to choose your illusion or delusion and that is the most important factor.  

Two things to note, a Stanley Steamer engine produces power on every stroke and has fantastic torque that will dust 3/4 of the current production cars manufactured today. Secondly battery weight has always been an issue, light batteries in a light carbon fiber vehicle with regenerative braking and free wheeling trans when off the throttle would be a step in the right direction. 

Someone said turbine...here's an example from 1952...low maintenance

We live in an age where people create their own reality.

 

The "inconvenient truth" is that a Tesla will not go 200 miles on a 40 minute charge in real-world situations. It might go a legitimate 200 miles in the real world if it had 2x the battery array, but then it would need 2x as long to charge. All the research has been in batteries, and we still haven't arrived at an "ah ha" moment. I don't think we will, because the nature of batteries is not consistent with the requirements of an over-the-road vehicle.

 

Regardless, we're nearing the leafy end of the lithium-ion branch of the energy evolution tree anyhow. There's not a lot left to squeeze out of it. Even if we want to believe the hype, nobody is stubbing their toes on rare earth minerals and lithium, and China is working hard to corner the market.

 

There are places that batteries make sense. In my LED flashlight, my cellphone, perhaps even a weed-whip: these are logical and sensible uses for electric energy that takes a long time to store and where a lot of stand-by time and short bursts of power are needed. A car is not like that.

 

The variable speed nature of a car is also part of the riddle. Turbines run best at a constant speed, which makes them a great solution for aircraft and a horrible solution for direct-drive applications in road-going vehicles. A 4-cycle IC engine runs best at a certain RPM as well, but engineers have worked out a lot of crafty solutions to make them work more efficiently across a wide band of RPM and throttle positions (VVT, variable intake runner length, cam-phasing, etc.). A DC electric motor is a thing of beauty in this regard: infinitely variable, 100% of it's torque available at 0 RPM, and very easy to cool. These things make a DC motor a compelling locomotion source for a vehicle.

 

As I keep saying, it's the way we are trying to power electric motors that stinks. A battery makes great sense to power accessories if the car is not in motion, but as a primary energy storage device it is awful. Using a battery or capacitor as a short-term storage device, the solution auto-engineer Tom was proposing allows us to charge the battery with something burning a fuel that IS operating in it's non-variable speed sweet-spot. The reason a turbine is so compelling is that if it were only used to charge a battery (or better yet: slow discharge capacitor) array, it could be made to run at maximum efficiency anytime it was on. When it wasn't need to charge the battery (or capacitor) it'd be free-wheeling or shut off. There are engineering hurdles to overcome, but almost nobody is even running in this race. Regardless, a fuel/electric propulsion system would be really cool, and would be innovative if diesel/electric locomotives hadn't been doing the same thing for about 80 years.

 

Allan is also right- steam is another variable speed wonder: more pressure equals more speed. A burner can be kept in a very efficient state throttled back to almost nothing. A burner is tiny and has about 1/1000th as many moving parts as an IC engine, and about 1/10,000 as much need for electronics as a hybrid. The steam engine is nearly 100% efficient as well. As odd as it sounds- steam may be the ultimate solution to getting big, fast vehicles over 100 mpg.

 

All this stuff skirts around what is supposedly the central point: efficiency. People like to point out that an IC engine is only about 20% efficient in converting potential energy in fuel to propulsion, but that a battery/electric car is about 60% efficient in converting electricity from the grid into propulsion. What's not to like? Well... how about the fact that a natural gas power generation plant is about 33-40% efficient, and that about 6% of that power is lost in the grid. That makes a plain-Jane IC engine look a WHOLE lot more competitive than an electric car charged off a gas-fired power-plant.

 

Another bit of Kool-Aid I'm supposed to drink is that a renewable energy grid is right around the corner. After decades of pushing it, and billions in incentives (I live in the Saudia Arabia of wind generation in the US), renewables constitute about 10-13% of the electricity generated in this country, and that includes biomass (methane) generation from landfill waste and hydro-electric. If you are only counting on the current darlings (wind and solar) it's only about 18% of that 13%. Coal is 39% of the power in the grid. Natural gas provides 25-35% of the electric in the grid, and fracking (for good or bad) has made gas almost free. Power made from burning stuff is available instantly 365 days a year. Even if it's dark outside or rainy. That's why I keep buying energy stocks, even though I've been creamed on them this year. We really have no other choice unless we are willing to go nuclear in a bigger way. We're not. 

 

If we could keep the existing energy infrastructure and yet have vehicles that got 100+ mpg, the entire problem (CO2, energy scarcity, etc.) would take care of itself. The electrical grid could be dedicated to powering industry and homes, rather than trying to power hundreds of millions of cars. We could give up on pipe-dream generation solutions like wind and solar, and turn subsidies to better use (like making nuclear safer).

 

I love the old otto-cycle 4-stroke IC engine precisely because they have adapted and shifted to be so amazingly much better than they have a right to be. But I know that there are some better solutions out there.

 

Elon Musk's billions aside, I'll bet the farm that batteries are not what we are looking for. The emperor isn't wearing any clothes. 

You should get that published in the mainstrem media Stan! Nicely written!

Yes very well written and right on the money Stan. Tesla will do better(for now)supplying battery systems for home use in a Solar array as a vehicle(pun intended) for energy storage. For those interested here is an article that hits home...

http://theconversation.com/tes...un-the-country-42859

Let’s keep in mind that we had a planet with 1.8 Billion souls 100 years ago and what… almost 7 Billion today…does anyone really think that this is sustainable no matter what the economic system or the energy source(s)?

 

You would need a steady source of asteroids to strip mine…and I don’t see that anywhere on the horizon!

 

 ReV

ReV;

 

That's about 722,800,000,000 pounds of increased weight.  How does that effect the speed and orbit of the earth?

 

 

Art

I don't know Art,

 

 2 days ago I was on the Hungaria/Serbian border where a fence is planned to keep out people fleeing the destruction of their world in the Middle East and other places.

 

 Perhaps human movement on a grand scale will tip the Earth's rotation

 

  ReV

Overpopulation is a myth, and while that ideology continues it has no scientific basis. Unfortunately, few people are able to do enough research to investigate the arguments fully and so choose an opinion not always based on all the information.  

 

Regarding the CO2 issue the facts again are that all animals produce C02 and all plants take it in and SPIT out O2, which is Oxygen... 

 

Hey Stan I was wondering if the cure for the CO2 issue means I have to give up all things carbonated with CO2?  Beer, pop, Perrier,

Battery Tech. It continues.

 

http://news.stanford.edu/news/...-battery-033115.html

 

http://qz.com/433131/the-story...nufacturing-as-well/

 

There are a lot of very smart people currently wasting their brains inventing new phone apps and ways to exploit labor, or deep in the bowels of banks and hedge funds devising new ways to conjure money out of scams that would be felonious if not so ingeniously disguised. 

 

Stan is right about a lot of what he wrote about, including the way solar and "wind" energy are counted on the power grid. There is a whole swaps and derivatives market for the incentives paid to produce power this way, and the smart boys I reference above are absolutely scamming it.

 

That said, wind and solar power are real and growing, and with better storage--better batteries--plus more efficient fixtures (which we're also getting) we might yet avoid a total meltdown of Antarctica. (Greenland is already toast).

 

And there are still a few very good minds messing around with polymers, metallurgy, and chemistry and physics, applying these disciplines to things that actually matter. 

WTF happened to this thread? Pagoda Hillclimb?

 

Battery shmattery. Start your own battery/electric thread. Harumph!