Bugatti v16

for you motor heads....

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Reply to
Gunner Asch
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Ah yes, the Volkswagen

Reply to
RB

What ever happened to turbine engines for cars? Or, Wankles? I had a RX-7 and LOVED it!...all 8 mpg.

Reply to
Buerste

Fuel efficiency sucks. My driving instructor (who drove for Chrysler in the Carrera Panamericana, and got on their list of 200 who got to temporarily own one of the 50 cars) had one of the 1963 Chrysler Turbines. He said he loved it except that you couldn't idle for long on asphalt (it melted the asphalt ) and it was hell on fuel.

More recent engineering reports suggest that the fuel economy can be made much better, but then it puts out huge amounts of NOx.

You just answered your question. They finally got the seal-life problem solved, but they never really solved the economy problem.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

If a turbine ever makes it in a car, it will probably be in a hybrid, turning a generator/alternator to power the wheels directly, and to charge the battery.

Dave

Reply to
spamTHISbrp

Even the latest rotary engines have the economy problem. The apex seals are still not a long term item but they are much better than the earlier ones. Turbines likely won't be in consumer vehicles. Far to much maintenance for the normal public.

I'm thinking that a small diesel mated to a generator system to power individual wheel motors. Could make terrain adaptable vehicles interesting.

Reply to
Steve W.

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Reply to
Scott

Well, I wouldn't try to calculate the losses, but conceptually it sounds pretty good.

Did you ever see Volkswagen's "1-liter" car? They aren't referring to engine size. They're referring to the amount of fuel it takes to go 100 km (that's

235 miles per US gallon). It's at the opposite end of the scale from their Bugatti thingy:

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-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Same thing with Gas Turbine Electric Locomotives - the "Big Blow" engines had power to spare and walked up the steepest grades without helper engines, but they were rather thirsty as compared to a regular Diesel Electric. Union Pacific had a small fleet of them in active service - they had one for testing in 1949, bought 10) 4,500 HP units in 1952, 15) 4,500 HP in 1954, and 30) 8,500HP units in 1958. They ran until 1970.

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They only got used between Ogden UT and Council Bluffs IA - they tried to run them between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles and got tons of complaints about the noise.

They were economical to operate when they could buy "waste" Bunker C oil cheap, because they only needed one or two turbine locomotives per train rather than a half dozen regular diesels. When the plastics industry started buying up the heavier oil fractions they got too expensive to run, and besides they were having turbine blade problems with all the crap in the low quality fuel oil eroding them.

And there were a few incidents where they stopped on a siding under a concrete highway bridge with the engine idling, and boiled the asphalt road surface clean off the bridge deck. Oops.

Bingo! A surprisingly small turbine running at a constant speed and load charging the batteries. Series electric only, no "transmission" direct connection - electric motors at each wheel. Lots of air path treatment to muffle the noise, and special attention to exhaust temperature and direction.

It's not restricted to gasoline or diesel fuel - a gas turbine can run on lots of different fuels. Ethanol, Methanol, LNG or CNG, treated vegetable oils, you name it.

And you can use the waste heat for adsorption to run the air conditioning.

You want to push the idea of "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday"? Make NASCAR change over to them - use two turbines for the racers, where you only need one in a passenger car, that way they can limp into the pits on one...

That'll get the research money spent on developing them into a viable power source NOW. Detroit doesn't want Toyota embarassing them in public - again...

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

But it ran like a scalded dog!

Reply to
Buerste

Yes, and you ever saw the old factory-backed Z&W Mazdas, which were tested on a road near my home in Princeton, NJ, they were unbelievable.

Ray Walle of Z&W drove this RX-3 at Daytona and Mid-Ohio, which he used to test on the same empty back road I drove to work. I had to be ready to head for the ditch at all times.

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If you ported those things -- and it was like squaring the ports on a two-stroke -- they turned into wild and crazy little beasts, with a two-stroke type power curve that made the throttle sort of an on/off switch. But they could go like hell.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I think I'm in that photo...the guy in the chase lounge with the cooler full of beer!

The guy I bought the '82 RX-7 from in '85 raced it nationally and did well. I sold it back to him in 1999 for what I paid. He modified a bunch of stuff, thus the 8mpg using Sunoco Ultra. Damn, that car was quick! I out-ran cops on 2 occasions at over 130 mph. It had ground effects and a wing, over 70 it would suck down about 2" and ride like a truck. The newer ones are WAY out of my price range.

Reply to
Buerste

certainly puts the gauntlet down for the american car industry doesnt it, and the australian one, and the japanese one.

Volkswagen were taken from the brink of dissappearing by the guys doing this engineering. just think. used worldwide these cars could give us a future with unlimited fuel again.

If I can ever buy one I will.

Stealth Pilot

Reply to
Stealth Pilot

It's impressive, isn't it? The last I heard, which was last year, they were still planning to put it into limited production in 2010. The plan is to make a two-cylinder version, which won't match the mileage of the prototype, but it will be revolutionary if it gets even half the mileage.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Yeah, they're a pricey car now.

Here's a funny story about Mazda racing: Ray Walle drove a Mazda Cosmo (predecessor to the RX-7) from his dealership in Princeton to Daytona Beach in '76; drove it in the Daytona 24 Hours and won his class, finishing 18th overall; and then drove it home to Princeton.

They don't build them like that anymore.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

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