Posted on 07/06/2008 1:13:59 PM PDT by kms61
To find the future of the auto industry, Doug Pelmear looked to the past. He says he's perfected an engine developed by his grandfather 60 years ago. An engine that gives his 1987 mustang 110 miles to the gallon.
Doug Pelmear says "my grandfather had the idea back in the 40's that he can make a difference then. There was quite a need at that time also with the war going on and everything, there was quite the need then."
And quite the need now. So, Pelmear, a mechanic in Napoleon, has been tweaking this engine for the past 10 years, squeezing out the maximum amount of power for a minimum amount of gas.
Doug says "this'll bring back the automotive industry when they can sell trucks and suv's and the models that are almost dead at this time."
The designer says, this car is no slacker either. It goes well over 100-miles per hour.
Doug says "it's 400 horse and has 500 foot pounds of torque off the line, zero to 60 in three seconds."
Developer Mark Schnitkey says "even those of us who grew up in the muscle car age, this will pretty much blow your muscle car away."
Pelmear won't show us under the hood. Some of his gizmos are still awaiting patents. But the secret lies in making engines more efficient. And with a little more work, developers believe they'll be getting 500 miles to the gallon and revolutionizing the auto industry.
Mark says "I think it's time. I think it's time that we start telling the world what we're going to pay for a gallon of gas instead of the world telling us what we're going to pay for a gallon of gas.
Here comes the tax man.
This mechanic should study the laws of thermodynamics.
This reminds me of the claims of those who had the secret to cold fusion.
By the way, whatever happened to cold fusion research? We could all use a little cold fusion at this time.
y-y-y-y-a-a-A-A-AWW! Prove it!
HAHAHA - 0-60 in 3 seconds he claims!
What a joke. Is the press so ignorant that they can’t smell an obvious fraud?
There have been a bunch of shade tree mechanics claiming 100 MPG inventions lately. My BS detector is emitting a steady beeping.
I bet he also has a great deal for you on ocean front property in Kansas.
This guy is probably history already or didn’t exist never
0-60 in 3 seconds he claims
Yes, that one didn’t seem right either with 400hp / 500torque.
a Porsche and a Corvette can do 3.5 or 3.6 but there’s a big difference to 3.0 unless he was claiming “in the three’s”.
JMO but older cars/trucks were built to last. Now days, I wonder if they aren’t built to last just until right before you make the last payment.
Hell my wifes turbo diesel jetta gets 45 mph with the air running. Maybe he's coasting down the great divide and has to change brakes every hundred miles too.
I bet it also uses tap water for fuel.
Come on over folks, got this amazing snake oil elixir in a bottle to cure all your pains and ills
Whatever happened to Cold Fusion?
A quick google check led me to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMFvzohuVew
and to
“It is difficult to imagine a more profound reversal of scientific fortunes than what has been emerging in the “cold fusion” field. One of the most disputed anomalies in the history of science is inexorably heading toward acceptance by the scientific community.”
— Dr. Eugene Mallove
And the average American consumes 21 gallons of alochol and walks about 910 miles a year. Does that mean the average American gets 41 miles per gallon?
There’s probably nothing to this invention, but the person who eventually comes up with a retrofit to provide fuel efficiency to cars is probably going to be one heck of a wealthy man. It’s all about retrofitting.
The Porsches aren’t running 500 ft-lbs of torque.
The 0-60 record is in the range of 2.6 to 2.7 seconds, so 3.0 seconds is possible.
Consider this:
The SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) has recently tested the upcoming 2009 Cadillac CTS-V: 556 HP, 551 ft-lbs of torque.
0-60 in 3.9 sec. A BMW M5 is up in the 4.4 range, also with 500HP, but under 400 ft-lbs of torque.
Now, shave off a bunch of mass for the fact that this Mustang is quite a bit lighter than a Cadillac and I can’t call “BS” on 0-60’s in the 3.0 range. I’d have to see it tested.
When I saw this guys claims, the FIRST thing I looked for was his claim of torque. Once I saw that he was up in the 500 ft-lb range, then I found his claim of 3.0 sec for the 0-60 to be plausible. If he had mentioned that the torque was down in the range of all these idiotic high-rev’ing sports car engines (oh, they’ll generate 500HP — if you wind them up to 8,000+ RPM!), then I would have dropped a BS flag on the claim.
This is why electric vehicles (eg, some of the new hybrids) have such improved acceleration: the electric motor can create much higher starting torques off the line than a typical gas engine can.
Yea, that part of it sounds like USDA Grade A Snake Oil.
But 3.0 sec 0-60 times on a 500 ft-lb power plant is plausible. The 110 MPG thing I need to see tested, but it is within the realm of possibility from thinking of how to improve the thermal efficiency of a gas, Otto-cycle engine.
Just not with the coachwork on that ratty old Mustang.
He didn’t say zero to 60 what. Feet? Inches?
Yup, I smell an investor scam here.
This guy’s grandfather was smart 60 years ago.
A billion dollars PER YEAR for R&D for conventional motors in Formula 1 alone, and no one else thought of the ideas that this guy’s grandfather found in the 1940’s.
Mind you, every motor that Ford tried that ran this lean burned up quickly — even the ones made from ceramics. As it turns out, the motor needs “X” amount of liquid fuel to cool the pistons and valves. So, not only is this guy’s grandfather smarter than F1, he’s smarter than Ford and the rest of the auto manufacturers.
In some spots he claims 80 mpg, in other placed 110 mpg. He claims a 300 cid motor, but a weight that would only be obtainable with the interior removed, or at least some motor that’s not built of conventional materials.
His HP claims don’t match his claimed ET or top speed either, unless the HP claimed cuts out somewhere down the strip. 0-60 in 3 seconds is in Indy car territory as well.
Video here: http://video.stangtv.com/video_detail.php?mId=6328
You’ll note that the video doesn’t exactly make this guy seems like a rocket scientist.
If patents are pending, he certainly could show the motor. At least, that’s probably not the best reason why he won’t open the hood.
Bottom line — if you’re not gonna show the motor, then show the time sheets, the dyno sheets, etc. I mean, it’s not like drag racers have ever been known to lie, right?
Nothing but BS here.
The press loves these kinds of stories, even when they are obvious fakes. It gets clicks and generates revenue - which for all we know the press could be sharing with this guy.
..needless to say I did not even click on the link.
Yeah I’d want to know the weight of his vehicle, too.
Another reason for using older cars is that they are exempt from all the emmissions nonsense. A new car can not be modified if it means disabling any of the emissions devices.
Another possible factor would be that many of the older cars had higher compression ratios which gives them better torque and horsepower.
Oftentimes a high compression engine can be made to run on lower octant gasolene if the fuel air mixture can be completely and evenly mixed with all the gasoline atomized.
One of the causes of engine knock in a higher compression engine is the incomplete distribution of the fuel air mixture causing excessive leanness which increases the liklihood of detonation.
The leaner parts are more subject to causing detonation than the richer parts are. Indeed, the fule/air mixture has to be slightly richer to ensure that there are no lean spots to ingite prematurely.
A few years ago, someone patented a device which appeared to work similar to a turbocharger forcing a higher density fuel/air mixture into the cylinders. This particular device also whipped up the fuel/air mixture ensuring an even distribution without any lean spots.
LOOK!! Recycled news from the gas crunch of the 70s!! Great, we can continue to get all hepped up and heck, I KNEW it was conspiracy!!
“LOOK!! Recycled news from the gas crunch of the 70s!! Great, we can continue to get all hepped up and heck, I KNEW it was conspiracy!!”
But does this mean that the video of the hydrogen car guy — the one that died suddenly in a restaurant — might’ve been full of Bull Science as well? (ducking)
This should be interesting to watch...of course, there has to be a way to make engines more efficient in gas usage.
Yep. And it can also fly and hover and fire Hellfire missiles.
Holy Smoke a Delorean that runs on beer cans..
Conventional engines waste a lot of energy (1) in converting atmospheric pressure air into lower-pressure air by running it through a throttle valve, and (2) having residual pressure in the cylinder at the end of the power stroke. In both of those cases, the waste of energy is greater than the amount of energy that could be, but isn't, harnessed. In the former case, the throttle valve converts energy into heat, making the fuel hotter in a part of the system were a higher temperature will increase the work required to compress the fuel more than it will increase the work that can be obtained when the fuel bunrs. In the latter case, leftover pressure at the end of the power stroke will not only not help drive the engine--it will increase the amount of work required to evacuate the cylinder during the exhaust stroke.
Another freeper posted a white paper some time back about modifying an in-line four-cylinder engine to switch between 4-cylinder four-stroke and 2+2-cylinder five-stroke operation. Five-stroke engines are nothing new (a typical one from IIRC the 1930's would have two low-volume cylinders and one high-volume cylinder that's twice as big). This idea would use the two inner cylinders together in place of the high-volume cylinder.
Compound engines are generally not used in cars because they offer inferior power-to-weight ratios compared with four-stroke engines. A compounding engine of a particular displacement would weigh almost twice as much as a non-compounding one, for only a modest increase in power. On the other hand, if an engine could operate as a four-stroke when peak power was required and as a five-stroke when it wasn't, that would offer the power-density advantage of the four-stroke with the efficiency of a five-stroke.
I wonder why I've never heard of anyone exploring such an idea? The extra cost would consist of (1) computer-controlling the valves, and (2) adding a third valve for each cylinder (input for the inner two cylinders, and output for the outer two); and (3) adding a manifold which connects to the third valve on each cylinder and nothing else. I would think the efficiency improvement from such a design would be substantial, while the cost adder would be much less than that of a hybrid.
You can only wish just one of these claims would pan out.
Just one.
Do a search on FR. Some Japanese guy now says he can do it again.. and it is replicable.
I googled this guy, and all I get are basically the same articles, almost verbatim, just at different sources.
Its like one person talked to this guy and that one story he wrote got spread around.
Now, I know that’s how wire services basically work, but could nobody send an actual reporter with a brain to follow up on this story and get a little bit more info?
I drove a lot of the older ones nice to think about but the newer stuff beats the heck out of the older stuff.
The down side is I can work on them any more the last one I felt I could work on was my 1968 chevelle. But by 1978 it was rusted junk not worth driving any more.
This just in: Mechanic’s dead, bullet-ridden body found on side of road.
Cheap rolling chassis. Really, what is an '87 worth, even in good shape?
If you go even older you escape computer interlinked transmissions, and computer systems altogether. Anything you need you can install without having to pull out all the onboard systems.
We have found that the most problems we run into is from loaning or giving them to the grown kids. They are real good at blowing up engines and wearing out transmissions. I think they expect just to get in and go whereas my husband and I know how to "baby" them.
Depends on where you are. Most of North Dakota uses no road salt, so rust is at a minimum. I have a '90 and a '92 without any rust. As for even older, I have a bunch of those, too, with little rust except for the ones which end up out on drilling locations where there is a lot of salt.
Yep. I have an older granddaughter who has killed more vehicles than I have owned.
Use the ideas in your last paragraph, couple them with a blower, and you get a Miller or Aktinson Cycle engine, which are more efficient than a Otto cycle.
And just such engines are used in the Prius, which is part of what lends efficiency to their overall design.
Ha! Not likely, even if they achieved 100% efficiency.
-ccm
The Miller Cycle engine delays intake valve closure to effectively make the expansion ratio higher than the compression ratio. This improves efficiency, but generally at the expense of power. Using variable valve timing tied to the accelerator can improve things, but if the space above the cylinder is large enough to accept a whole cylinder full of fuel/air mixture without detonation, it will be larger than ideal when using delayed valve closure.
Maybe a box undercarriage where you can hide another gas tank.
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