[ExI] Electric cars without batteries

[Keith Henson]

On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 5:14 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>> ...On Behalf Of Keith Henson
>> ...
>> >>
>> >> ...What I was thinking was a very small turbine, 20kw (roughly 30
>> horsepower...
>>
>> There is really no need for gears.  The power takeoff turbine
>> can spin at whatever speed you want...
>
> Well OK Keith, I need to do some more work on this idea then.  I just can't
> imagine a gas turbine spinning slowly enough to have any kind of generator
> hold together.

Steam is a gas, virtually all of the large steam and gas turbines turn
at 3600 RPM.

Next time you have the hood on a vehicle up, take a look at the
diameter of the alternator and the driving pulley on the engine.
Typically the ratio is from 4 to about 7.  So if the engine red lines
at 4500 RPM, the alternator speed would be 18,000 to 31,500 RPM.

> In the mean time, here's a description of late night comedian Jay Leno's gas
> turbine motorcycle:
>
> http://wizbangpop.com/2009/07/16/jay-lenos-200mph-60000rpm-jet-turbine-motor
> cycle.php
>
> He did a comedy routine about riding this thing up around Mulholland, and
> some sap came up behind him when he was stopped.  He looked in his mirror
> and saw the guy's bumber start to crinkle like a styrofoam cup in the
> campfire.  {8^D
>
>> Conceptually, you could replace the engine in a Prius with a turbine...
>
> Jay also did a more serious interview regarding the bike.  The 150k price
> tag wasn't the only thing stopping that bike, but rather that for all it's
> 300+ horsepower, it felt gutless, because it didn't accelerate all that
> hard.  Reason: it takes a while to spool up the turbine to sixty thousand
> RPM.  Imagine that.  {8^D  He also mentioned that it goes thru gasoline like
> Senator Kennedy guzzling whiskey (his words, not mine.)
>
>>
>> ...Big Detroit iron was just
>> plain fun in the days before electronic ignition.  I fondly
>> remember my second car, a 57 Pontiac with 347 cubic inches of
>> engine, 10.5 to 1 compression ratio and a carburetor you
>> could drop a half dollar through and it wouldn't hit
>> anything...
>
> Ja I had a mid 60s vintage V8 in a pickup truck.  You had to drop half
> dollar coins thru the carburetor on a regular basis, in the form of
> gasoline, lots of it.
>
>> It took 100 plus octane leaded gasoline would do
>> more than 120 mph, how much more I don't know...
>
> Good thing you didn't try it.  The tires of those days were generally not up
> to the task.  I had a second cousin who learned that the hard way (Gary
> Jones, perished violently in a 1962 Buick Wildcat, age 19 years.)
>
>> ...Now who among us would know how to set the ignition points dwell or
>> timing?...
>
> I still know how to do that.  {8-]  I had a '65 British bike with ignition
> points until four years ago and did all the maintenance on it myself.  I
> still had a timing light until about 3 yrs ago.  But new cars haven't had
> ignition points for thirty years now, and I don't even know when external
> timing belts went away.

Big iron used internal steel ink belts running on fiber gears to half
the speed for the cam shaft.  The distributor sat on a 90 degree
distributor shaft that was geared to the cam shaft.  When they went to
overhead cams they switched to long internal belts.

I can't think of an engine that had the timing belt exposed.  Setting
the timing on those things involved loosening the distributor and
twisting it to get the light flash from the spark off the number one
cylinder to line up the crank case pulley with a pointer attached to
the block.

If it was a big engine and the distributor was located toward the back
of the engine, two people were needed.

snip

Keith