I've seen some amazing documentaries that uncover some really nasty things the oil industry did and still does. I'll try to be as brief as possible. It started with J.D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil Co. Henry Ford was on his second line of cars, the Model A. The A, like the T, was also originally designed to run on alcohol as well as gasoline. J.D. did not approve of this alcohol business, so he bought all the proper politicians he needed to make the production of alcohol illegal. This law was famously known as Prohibition and was made to look like it was to stop American's from drinking too much. And during the great depression, when they needed a toot more than ever. Well poor ole' Henry kept making his cars capable of running on alcohol for another 13 years before finally giving up. You may not be surprised to know that Prohibition lasted 13 years and ended, "coincidentally", as soon as Ford changed his engines. I've also seen interviews with people who worked on a carburetor than got up to 100 MPG in a car as heavy as a full size Hummer. The inventor was mysteriously found in the middle of the desert, dead of a drug overdose. Another man had death threats against himself and his family, so he stopped his research instantly, and the 3rd just flew back home to England and washed his hands of the whole thing. They called the drug overdose a suicide. Right. This genius inventor was young, good looking, and now fairly well off, as the oil company bought the patent to his carburetor. Not exactly your average suicide profile. Part of the contract when Standard bought the carburetor was that he never work on it again. Shortly after all this, all the relevant documentation of the carburetor and it's patent were stolen from The Library of Congress, never to be seen again. I could go on, but this isn't really the proper place for it. If you would like to know more, see if you can access www.hulu.com It's free, I just don't know if it's available across the pond. I have the titles of the documentaries in my desk. I will dig them up if you're interested.
youve probably just killed this thread you knobs I couldnt give a fish just now about electric shopping trolleys and hydrogen cells. I'm discussing alternative engines and trying to gain an insight into what will, or wont work. I knew I should have put this on tech. Help Frank!!!!!!
Well you did say alternative motors and an electric motor is an alternative even Volkswagen themselves experimented with the idea and a turbine engine which isn't seen as a good alternative as they are not the most economical.
don't get sucked in by reliability claims - scooby engines are far from bullet proof, and if you source one from an impreza you can almost guarantee its spent every day of its life thrashed to within an inch of its life. If you're mechanically minded RJES can provide the complete conversion kit for around £1700 which will allow a scooby to be bolted straight in. Looking at legacy prices you can get a very good one for around £500 - £700. Foresters are coming down in price too. With a cam belt change and a good engine service you could get all you need from a scooby for less than £1k. You really do need to know its history though and ensure its been regularly serviced - look out for towbars too as as well as being thrashed on b roads it may have spent its life lugging horse boxes around. They're a good choice though, take the engine and ancillary parts you need and you could still sell the rest of the car for a couple of hundred pounds. So from anywhere around £2.5k you could do this yourself. The scoop you saw at VF is being developed so RJES will provide the complete cooling kit, pipework and all including the rads and the scoop - they didn't have a price oin this but i'm guessing around the £500 mark, so, well worth waiting for them to bring this to market. I've seen home brew scooby installations using RJES kits and i'd say a professional looking installation can easily be achieved at home with a bag of spanners. As with all of the engine building/conversions you take your chances on quality etc, if I were shelling out close to the cost of a new small KIA i'd expect to see the same level of warranty and servicing over a long period, I don't think anyone offers anything beyond 12 months, which, when you factor your outlay and the profit they're turning, is an absolute joke. If you can get a £3k annual fuel bill down to £2k then you'll see a return on this after just 3 years. Assuming you stay off the throttle - the problem with bigger faster engines is they encourage you to drive faster - I don't care what anyone says, 90% of us would up the cruising speed to 80 on the m'way given the choice, you offset this against your costs and i'm guessing the fuel consumption will ultimately work out about the same - you just get there quicker. My next change will be to scooby power - I just missed out on a rear end smash genuine 95k mileage legacy for £100 with full service history, so they are out there
Ive got a set of blueprints to build a pulse jet engine. It runs on LPG and is similar to that used on the doodlebug. So its an appropriate engine for a VW. Put two on like nacelles and hey presto its the Enterprise.
Im getting a 1Y from a '93 golf fitted into my '73 Westy. No Turbo and no ECU to worry about. Got the radiator from the guys who, I believe, are doing BayDreams' scooby conversion. Im hoping for a real improvement in mpg from the 1641 with 32/36 carb we used to have fitted. Cost is going to be in the region of £2k.
I'm hoping a set of 40 twin webers and a CSP exhaust system on my 1600tp will be enough. I only want a bit more oomph, not much just a wee bit. My engine seems very sound.
a battery powerd splittie....................... http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/09/1964_vw_bus_get.php
Bootsam. good luck with the CSP. I had a full stainless supercomp on my Karmann Ghia and it was sh1t. Full of holes. Had it welded up and pressure tested and it still leaked like an expensive metal leaky thing. Had no choice but to get a refund.
How about 700lb of torque, and no moving parts to go wrong! Jim's Valveless Pulsejet Engine Major down side is driving something German, making that noise, might not be the trip down memory lane all may enjoy.
