Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
It doesn't tell us that. Besides, carb'd engines are a different animal than injected.
That squiggly glass thing above the carb is their "gas tank". It is a laboratory heat exchanger. No doubt coolant goes through it.
Orange is right- no trans and the typical gear losses, just a clutch with outboard support bearings and a chain. May have reduced driveline losses 5 or 10%. However, if there was no free-wheel for the back sprocket that would suck a little bit for gliding.
It does have small frontal area. However the Cd is probably in pickup truck territory, unless the bottom is very smooth. My WAG for that is .40- .45. At the speeds they competed with it probably wasn't a deal killer.
There are many pics of this car online. The pics in this thread are post-"restoration". Originally the engine was covered in insulation too. Well, no doubt it was hardly ever running in competition. It needed all the heat it could get to stir up the volatiles in the crankcase so it could burn 'em. For sure it was burning more "energy input" than what came from the "gas tank".
It's totally not legal for the street anyway so fed/state regs/laws have nothing to do with it. Perhaps the Ralley rulebook said it had to have 4 wheels? Otherwise I'm sure they'd have used a single out back.
McMullen, owner, says the car was owned by Shell and modded by Shell engineers... then says this achievement was done "in someone's spare time in their garage". Which is it? 
He asks why it's impossible to achieve something like that today. Perhaps he should look at today's Shell economy competitions?
He also says the Model T got 20 and we are hard pressed to do much better than that today. I would like to know what a "T" would get if run through the EPA test cycle. Or to make the comparison fair, what modern cars get at a steady 40 mph.
He says it weighs 2500 lbs- well, he did have an awful lot of trouble with numbers ('73 was 15? 25? 35? years ago?). That does not seem possible to me. That car is smaller (especially narrower and lighter, stock) than my Tempo and it's gutted besides. My Tempo weighs 2500. My WAG for the Opel's weight would be more like 1500, maybe even close to 1000 lbs. (deleted link)
So, yeah, "2500 lbs" my ***.
At least he admits the performance is NOT suitable for the street.
I'd like to see what fe "Tiny" McMullen would get in there!
P.S. No, wait, here's what McMullen says here:
More trouble with numbers! 1973 was NOT 20 years from 1959. And again with the homies in their garage.  |
I don't know the owner, but having visited that store, and seen what he's got in stock... talked to the sales guys... and now hearing him yak on this vid, I tend to believe that there's a touch of hot air coming from places other than the engine compartment of his car.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
I doubt there's a hidden gas tank in the sump. It is evident to me they burned volatiles from the crankcase "oil", which could be regular motor oil spiked with gas or two-stroke mix.
(big snip)
|
Not so evident to me. How hot does oil run in a car engine? In the 200's of degrees. How hot is the discharge air from that radiator gonna' run? If the coolant temp is 200-225°, the air isn't going to come out hotter than that.
I'm thinking that what we're seeing is more like a 'mega PCV system'. Designed to get EVERY scrap of HC that blows past the rings.
BTW, how well is this engine going to maintain fuel mixture control as you start out with a crankcase full of gasoline vapors that depletes through the run? You might want to find a way of adding other fuel (pull the choke...
)
Quote:
Originally Posted by hu_man
I still can not figure it my Morris is almost 50 years old had 5 wires going to the engine, good heavy sheet metal and still got 44mpg at 55mph. And today with multi valves, aluminum, plastic, computers, engineers....on and on and we are still hovering around 30mpg on a good day.
Hugh
|
Funny, some of that old tech wasn't so bad. Little Stude Champs and Plymouths with overdrive 3 speeds would crack 25 MPG on the highway (but not much more, and certainly not in town). These are '50's coupes that weighed about 3000#, running bias ply tires, carbs, point ignition, and 7.5-8.0:1 CR flathead sixes.
Of course, they didn't have to deal w/ 5 mph bumpers, crash bars in the doors, blah blah blah. Take one of those old cars and retrofit it w/ all the crap that it'd have today, and you'd knock some of the performance and mileage out of it for sure.
OTOH, adapting a later 5 speed, header, 9+:1 CR, and fuel injection would be interesting... still not as inherently efficient as a more modern engine, but pretty cool to see what could be teased out of one of those old lumps.
-Bill