False economy
 

You guys trying to go beltless, what you save on fuel you spend on the 110-volt battery charger in your garage. Plus you can't do roadtrips, and if you can't enjoy your car, then why own one? Then again, how can you enjoy anything under 200 HP?
Likewise, you guys trying block heaters, what you save on fuel you spend on 110V in your garage.
If you're using a good synthetic oil, then the block heater doesn't actually help reduce cold start friction.

.

Wrong...



Belt can be re-installed for trips... ;)



Really... :rolleyes:


The counter argument is... How can you enjoy anything over 200hp without breaking laws and or endangering others...???




Wrong...




False... A block heater among other things, allows a engine to reach normal operating temp faster. Thus reducing wear within the engine.



Electricity is very cheap per kilowatt hour as compared to petroleum.

Charging a battery or using a block heater uses less than 10 cents per day.





>

I enjoy my 300+ HP car and my 60 HP cars. Actually, although I prefer the former, the later has many perks over it. I can beat the Insight as hard as I want, and I am still getting 60 MPG.

owned

I think my knee jerk reaction was to agree with redneck, but then I was thinking that block heaters were close to even money. If a gallon of gas is worth 33.7kwh, and avg cost per kWh in the U.S. is $0.12, then it's like paying $4.04 for a gallon of electricity. So I figured the savings were in how inefficiently cars turn gas into electricity, but I don't know what the numbers are for that. can anyone fill in on the rest of the math?

Who works on their own vehicles, lawn tractor, ATV and such and does not already own some kind of battery charger?

Few people have been brave enough to completely remove the alternator, those that have made it pretty clear their vehicle is the dedicated short trip commuter vehicle.

My VW has about a 150hp engine and can do 120mph no problem. I do not push it faster than 120mph because it only has H speed rated tires.
200hp+ would just be a waste.

Oh, where to start?

"if you can't enjoy your car, then why own one?": Cars are a means of transportation, and that is the reason to own one. Everything else we attach to them is human stupidity stemming from our anthropomorphizing inanimate objects, including the very idea that a car must be "enjoyed". If you can't enjoy your toilet, why own one?

"Then again, how can you enjoy anything under 200 HP?" Because the rest of us don't labor under the erroneous assumption that only the things we find enjoyable are possible to be enjoyed, that's how.

"If you're using a good synthetic oil, then the block heater doesn't actually help reduce cold start friction." The point of a block heater is not to reduce cold-start friction. The point of the block heater is to get the engine close to operating temperature before you turn it on, so it isn't wasting fuel warming itself up.

Signed,
The person who enjoys his 134-hp Prius much more than the 450-hp Viper or 505-hp Ram SRT-10 he used to own

Some where on dieselplace.com I spelled it out pretty clearly.
As long as you don't leave your block heater plugged in all the time it will save you money. If you are on call or something to that effect and leave your block heater plugged in all the time it will cost more, but will save you time defrosting or warming up your car during the winter.
Being able to schedule your block heater use somewhat during winter to help deice your car it can cost you about half as much as burning fuel to warm the engine or deice it so you don't crash into things or run over people.
Then if you can avoid crashing into things or running people over just 1 time its totally worth it all.

Coolant heater for impatient people - Diesel Place : Chevrolet and GMC Diesel Truck Forums
(this isn't the post where I go into great detail about electrical cost versus buring diesel to warm the engine, but gives you an idea)

Getting caught at 100+mph in my State is a felony. My danged Tempo is capable of 100+. I have enough trouble in my life without adding felonies to it. Not fun.

A gallon of gas may deliver 33.7 kWh worth of energy, but most of that is transferred to heat and goes out of the tailpipe. More heat is lost through the radiator.
So only about 8 kWh is available to power the alternator belt - assuming 75% efficiency in that; only 6 kWh of electricity can be had from that gallon.

If you remove the belt and obtain 6 kWh worth of electricity (over time, at 200/300 W per hour) to power the 12V system from the battery and you lose 50% in charging that, you'd still need just 12 kWh from the mains.
That's a gallon saved for, what's your rate, a dollar and a half at 12.5 cents per kWh?
Well worth it!

So for every gallon of gas a car tries to turn into electricity, it puts out around 3kwh? So you replace buying a gallon of gas with 35 - 40 cents from your outlet. Sounds like it works out pretty well then.
Or saying you need 12kwh? Or more like $1.50/gal break even?

trolling?
 

Aren't you kinda...

http://bitsocialmedia.com/wp-content...rnet-Troll.jpg

... trolling. I love my 106 hp, 17-year-old car.

I meant the latter. About $1.50 cost of electricity for saving a gallon of gas.

At traditional gasoline engine is about 25% effective in turning gas into mechanical power, max.
Now most of the time it is on partial load, that's less than 25% effective, but I assume the extra load of running the alternator makes the engine work slightly harder, so slightly more efficient; the difference between both may well work out to 25%, a tad over 8 kWh.

The 75% belt and alternator efficiency for turning motion to electricity is a bit on the high side maybe, just to be sure. -> 6 kWh
50% efficiency on charging the battery from the mains is probably way low, again to prevent pro bias on the alternator delete side.
You need 12 kWh from the mains then to get those same 6 kWh of battery power.

The fact stands that charging the battery from the mains rather than the alternator is much cheaper.
Imagine how it works out with our ridiculously high European fuel prices :)

The OP may have been trolling, never mind we'll turn it into an exercise of getting the math right.
There are lots of reasons why it can be impractical to do an alternator delete, but energy efficiency is not one of them.

The 2.5 in my fusion has over 200hp im sure but the things still drives like a Buick lesabre.

It's not about horse power it's about being content with what you drive. My 2011 fusion is boring and Un interesting and highly irrelevant when it comes to talking about cars.

My camaro makes 388whp on stock heads ls1. It's fun but not daily driver fun

My civic I can hop in and go anywhere and not worry about scrapes and dents

I enjoy riding my bicycle!

I will keep my 0 HP toilet, thank you very much!

I'm still trying to digest this one:

Which is sort of like saying: If you use birth control pills, you don't actually need condoms to prevent STDs.

Uh...

My 250 hp AWD turbo was fun. Great in the snow and the twisties, great at blasting down the straight. Cruising at 70 and want to make a quick pass? No problem!

My 117 hp econobox is fun. Great in the snow and the twisties and goes down the straight just as fast as my old turbo did. How? I commute. Rush hour traffic sucks, and a couple brilliant passes gets me... two car lengths ahead when we get to the next bottleneck. And that only if everything else goes well. Now even in the worst traffic I'm still doing high performance driving.

And that barge that was rudely and dangerously riding my a... courteously filling my wake for me back on the straight? I don't need 250 horses when we get into the hilly curves- he can't keep up with the 117 I do have even though I keep to the same speed.

So by outside performance metrics, it was a move up. I leave home at the same time I always did and get to work at the same time I always did. I still leave people behind in the twisties and pass Jeeps in blizzards. Gas mileage? My worst tank ever, in winter while I was still learning the car and wasn't the driver for half the tank was almost 2 mpg better than my best ever Subaru tank in August under ideal conditions.

You know what the most fun thing about the performance I'm getting is? It's mine. I got it. No 16 year old with the ink still drying on his license can swing by a dealership and come out duplicating my performance because I'm the one turning out these numbers. I bought a pretty efficient car and made a few tweaks to it, but the real numbers come from my driving. That's fun as hell.

My 1.0L Insight has 66HP on tap (72 incl the electric motor) and will go over 110mph no problem.

Getting caught over 100 gets you "reckless endangerment" here.

It's more than enough car to have fun it (nimble traffic jockey), and gives you the option of something you haven't even considered: challenging yourself to get high MPG is its own fun.


QED

Lol

I miss my Integra-swapped Del Sol sometimes, but there's a reason I replaced it with my Insight.

If I could have the economy and utility of the Insight in a targa/convertible, and the grip/handling of sticky tires with the economy of LRR tires, I definitely would. Priorities though.

There is a reason I spend most of my forum time here instead of Diesel Truck Resource. The people here are generally brighter, and emphasize facts, mathematics, and science rather than repeating old dogma.

It's the car/truck enthusiast forums that warehouse those who can't think for themselves and make claims like "a cold air intake will improve MPG", or "my MPG improved 20% by installing a K&N filter".

Make a comment on other forums based on science, that opposes the flat-earth commenters, and you will get flamed because you don't have 20,000 posts on that forum, and don't hold the title of ASE Certified Master Mechanic.