Honest Engines

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theholycow
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Re: Honest Engines

Post by theholycow »

Rope-Pusher wrote:
theholycow wrote:Interesting. I wonder if it would make sense to combine chocolate with peanut butter instead of using Nutella to pressurize/aerosolize the fuel.
Fickset
Sounds like a resounding "YES" to me.

How appropriate that a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial came on the TV while posting this reply.
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Re: Honest Engines

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Main advantage of diesel in my opinion is that a crash will not have near the likelihood of a fire and if it does have a fire it should not be as severe. I used to have a Ford engineer for a neighbor and he was working on the Crown Vic police cruiser fire problem. They were trying all kinds of complex fire suppression systems. I said why not run diesel engines for far less volitility? He said they don't have enough of the kind of power to move out fast for pursuit. I said Banks Engineering has made diesel Rams that equal Corvettes on the drag strip. He would not buy it. I figure it was a case of "Not Developed by Ford."

Any of you auto industry insiders (Rope in particular) want to comment on that?
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Re: Honest Engines

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InlinePaul wrote:Main advantage of diesel in my opinion is that a crash will not have near the likelihood of a fire and if it does have a fire it should not be as severe. I used to have a Ford engineer for a neighbor and he was working on the Crown Vic police cruiser fire problem. They were trying all kinds of complex fire suppression systems. I said why not run diesel engines for far less volitility? He said they don't have enough of the kind of power to move out fast for pursuit. I said Banks Engineering has made diesel Rams that equal Corvettes on the drag strip. He would not buy it. I figure it was a case of "Not Developed by Ford."

Any of you auto industry insiders (Rope in particular) want to comment on that?
A racing fuel cell is a less expensive way to avoid fires due to high-speed rear impact collisions than converting to a diesel powerplant.

Also, a race-prepped engine, no matter if it is diesel or gas, is probably not a good choice for duty in a police car. They do a lot of idling . A LOT of idling. With high electrical loads. Fuel consumption and dependability are very important. Actually, they also need a lot of cabin heating capacity, and diesels don't make much heat at idle.
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Re: Honest Engines

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Rope-Pusher wrote:A racing fuel cell is a less expensive way to avoid fires due to high-speed rear impact collisions than converting to a diesel powerplant.

Also, a race-prepped engine, no matter if it is diesel or gas, is probably not a good choice for duty in a police car. They do a lot of idling . A LOT of idling. With high electrical loads. Fuel consumption and dependability are very important. Actually, they also need a lot of cabin heating capacity, and diesels don't make much heat at idle.
Thanks. Well I used the race prepped diesel as an illustration, but figured there must be an intermediate level of performance mods that would be suitable to a police cruiser. I thought diesels were good idlers as you often see them idling. At any rate, they were sticking with gasoline engines which did not seem all that innovative.
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Re: Honest Engines

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InlinePaul wrote:
Rope-Pusher wrote:A racing fuel cell is a less expensive way to avoid fires due to high-speed rear impact collisions than converting to a diesel powerplant.

Also, a race-prepped engine, no matter if it is diesel or gas, is probably not a good choice for duty in a police car. They do a lot of idling . A LOT of idling. With high electrical loads. Fuel consumption and dependability are very important. Actually, they also need a lot of cabin heating capacity, and diesels don't make much heat at idle.
Thanks. Well I used the race prepped diesel as an illustration, but figured there must be an intermediate level of performance mods that would be suitable to a police cruiser. I thought diesels were good idlers as you often see them idling. At any rate, they were sticking with gasoline engines which did not seem all that innovative.
Idle quality is usually not a priority for race motors. Setting that aside, diesels themselves tend not to use much fuel at idle, the quantity of fuel injected determining the idle speed, not a throttle plate, so they don't have throttling losses. They are also burning so little fuel that they don't reject much heat to the cooling system and often need electrical resistance heating elements to assist in meeting windshield deicing requirements. Auxiliary, diesel-fueled coolant heaters are often part of cold-weather packages for diesel vehicles. Kind of ironic that fuel efficiency at idle often begets fuel inefficiency in winter climates.

Ford took efforts at preventing or reducing fuel leakage from high-speed rear impacts, which might be a good thing to do whether the fuel was gasoline or diesel. That diesel fuel is slippery and someone could fall on their head if they walked through a puddle of it.
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Re: Honest Engines

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Rope-Pusher wrote:Kind of ironic that fuel efficiency at idle often begets fuel inefficiency in winter climates.
Not at all...burn more stuff, make more heat. Waste more energy, there's more to recover in a heating system. When it's 0F and I want my car to warm up faster, I drive less efficiently...if I drive as efficiently as I can it'll take FOREVER to warm up.
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Re: Honest Engines

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theholycow wrote:
Rope-Pusher wrote:Kind of ironic that fuel efficiency at idle often begets fuel inefficiency in winter climates.
Not at all...burn more stuff, make more heat. Waste more energy, there's more to recover in a heating system. When it's 0F and I want my car to warm up faster, I drive less efficiently...if I drive as efficiently as I can it'll take FOREVER to warm up.
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Re: Honest Engines

Post by tankinbeans »

A friend asked me the other day if using heat was as detrimental to fuel mileage as AC.

The only thing I could think to tell her was that heat in a car is primarily working from waste heat that the engine needs to get rid of so the effects wouldn't be as noticeable. She observed that fuel economy was reduced in winter when heat is running (incorrect attribution?) I told her that most of that is due to the slightly different energy content in winter blend fuel.

Finally, on net I said AC had more of an impact because it's running a whole different set of bits and if making the car do something it wouldn't normally be doing.

Am I on the right track? Would be great if Zen were still active and could go into the physics.
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Re: Honest Engines

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tankinbeans wrote:A friend asked me the other day if using heat was as detrimental to fuel mileage as AC.

The only thing I could think to tell her was that heat in a car is primarily working from waste heat that the engine needs to get rid of so the effects wouldn't be as noticeable. She observed that fuel economy was reduced in winter when heat is running (incorrect attribution?) I told her that most of that is due to the slightly different energy content in winter blend fuel.

Finally, on net I said AC had more of an impact because it's running a whole different set of bits and if making the car do something it wouldn't normally be doing.

Am I on the right track? Would be great if Zen were still active and could go into the physics.
Well, running the HVAC blower motor consumes energy, no matter what temp air you are blowing around. Let's say that's the same for heat or AC: "That's the same for heat or AC!"

Running the AC compressor uses energy to engage the electromagnetic clutch. It also uses energy to run the compressor.

Sucking away excess heat, if it truly is excess, prolly doesn't impact the engine's efficiency. It might actually keep the radiator fan from running, which would save some energy.

Running the AC might cause the radiator fan to run, so that would use more energy.

If the engine was running cold, letting it keep the "Non-Excess" heat might increase its efficiency (there are all sorts of ways that a "Cold" engine can be less efficient than a warm engine - cylinder walls out of round add friction and allow more blowby of combustion gasses, cold cylinder walls and cylinder head surfaces quench the combustion, creating more unburned hydrocarbons, cold cylinder walls and cylinder head surfaces absorb heat from combustion gasses, reducing temperature, which reduces expansion, which reduces pressure, which pushes a bit less on the piston,.....cold oil is more viscous, causing more drag in bearings, cylinder walls, cam lobes, etc., yadda, yadda, yadda.....), it all sounds bad, but prolly the effects just from heating the interior are much smaller than all those extra energy-consuming effects of running AC previously noted.

You can't wash something without getting something else dirty.
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Re: Honest Engines

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Rope-Pusher wrote:You can't wash something without getting something else dirty.
...unless you're using the dirt from the something else as pumice for washing the something. (Yes, yes, strained metaphor, there's gonna be something else still.)

Anyway, the short version of Rope's post is that A/C definitely drags, the fan uses energy regardless of the temperature of air that it's pushing, and extracting heat can vary -- with a warmed-up engine it might be a very slight help, though on the other hand a cold engine is inefficient and might stay cold longer if you're sinking away its heat before it warms up.

As for the cause of winter fuel economy reduction, there are dozens of contributing factors. Winter blend fuel, increased drag in oil/air/tires, more fuel required to start and idle richer, increased accessory usage (wipers, headlights, defoggers, etc), traffic messed up by weather, just as a start. Also, don't discount the nut behind the wheel...I know I'm less patient when I'm shivering.
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Re: Honest Engines

Post by Rope-Pusher »

theholycow wrote:
Rope-Pusher wrote:You can't wash something without getting something else dirty.
...unless you're using the dirt from the something else as pumice for washing the something. (Yes, yes, strained metaphor, there's gonna be something else still.)

Anyway, the short version of Rope's post is that A/C definitely drags, the fan uses energy regardless of the temperature of air that it's pushing, and extracting heat can vary -- with a warmed-up engine it might be a very slight help, though on the other hand a cold engine is inefficient and might stay cold longer if you're sinking away its heat before it warms up.

As for the cause of winter fuel economy reduction, there are dozens of contributing factors. Winter blend fuel, increased drag in oil/air/tires, more fuel required to start and idle richer, increased accessory usage (wipers, headlights, defoggers, etc), traffic messed up by weather, just as a start. Also, don't discount the nut behind the wheel...I know I'm less patient when I'm shivering.
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Re: Honest Engines

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Why they made him boss.
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Behind the NSX's debut, 25 years later

"As the public relations department went over its lines, Tadashi Kume, then-president of Honda and an instrumental figure in Honda's Formula One efforts, presided. The people from Honda America were acutely aware that the Big Boss from Japan, Kume, rarely made a stateside appearance unless it was for something serious. Next door, Ford was in the middle of a full-on press conference. Honda kept its rehearsal respectfully quiet.

While the executives busied themselves with the presentation, Kume sauntered over to the red-and-black prototype on the stage. He climbed in.

Either the keys were already in the car, for one reason or another, or he put them in.

He cranked the ignition.

The engine sparked to life, then it roared as Kume proceeded to rev to redline -- right in the middle of the Ford conference. Everyone was shocked. "Mr. Kume, stop it!" yelled Kurt Antonius, Honda's spokesman emeritus, gesticulating wildly. "They're gonna hear this!"

The bombshell dropped the next day, the eve of the Chicago Auto Show. Journalists packed the same cramped, low-ceilinged room wall-to-wall, their bulky cameras primed for the moment. Kume described one engineering achievement after another: forged pistons…titanium connecting rods… all-aluminum monocoque…and an 8,000 RPM redline, which he had tested the day before…"

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/2014050 ... z30eOt5OPu
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Re: Honest Engines

Post by Squint »

That is an awesome story. I've never had anything against Acuras other than their sometimes odd looks - I like them a little bit more, now.
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Re: Honest Engines

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Pornstar Gets Buff for upcoming marriage to VTEC

Arguably the most compelling enhancement is two-step VVL. The system is designed to remain mostly in low-lift mode until the customer demands more power; then it responds by switching to high-lift mode for improved combustion.

The result is less overall pumping work, which on its own, accounts for a fuel-economy improvement of up to 2.7 percent, compared with the 3.6-liter Pentastar’s previous iteration, named three times to the prestigious annual list of Ward’s 10 Best Engines.

The addition of cooled EGR firmly establishes the redesigned Pentastar among the V-6 elite. In addition to the obvious emissions-reduction benefits, the system further cuts pumping losses and enables knock-free operation at higher, real-world loads.

This translates to a fuel-economy improvement, on its own, of up to 0.8 percent.

Pumping losses are again targeted with the engine’s upgraded Variable Valve Timing (VVT) system. For 2016, it moves to torque-driven cam-phasing, which reduces oil demand.

The new VVT system also increases its range of authority to 70 degrees, from 50 degrees. This helps mitigate knock during hot starts and expands the operating envelope of Engine Stop Start (ESS), a fuel-saving feature that is carried over from the previous-generation 3.6-liter Pentastar.

ESS is driven by a high-speed/high-durability starter that reduces crank time for quicker restarts.

The system is regulated by algorithms, which act on the vehicle’s powertrain and chassis components.

As a result, acceleration is always aligned with driver inputs. Passive accelerator application is met with measured throttle response; hard inputs trigger aggressive starts. And there’s no waiting for either.

The same can be said for torque. More torque is delivered more quickly by recalibrating the VVT system to leverage the benefits of the new intake manifold’s longer runners.

The result is a torque boost of more than 14.9 percent, depending on the vehicle application. And this occurs between 1,000 and 3,000 rpm – engine speeds most customers see very frequently.

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Re: Honest Engines

Post by watkins »

Oh great, more sh*t to go wrong. We have enough valvetrain issues as it is between phasers, rockers, and lifters failing in the existing Pentastar
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