Gas-Electric propulsion system for 3.5 ton conversion van

[debit.servus]

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Can your van be flat towed? If so it's often at low speed and short distances. A vacuum pump is a fairly easy thing to add, power steer less off the genset less so.

Frankly, a Prius ($5k) and DIY camper trailer ($2k) is going to cost you a lot less than this project, once you factor in the fuel savings. Servicing a Prius at the local dealer costs $140, at a time when most charge $350-400, generally rock solid reliability and super easy to work on too. If you know when the EMP is coming you could just sell before then. 50+ MPG (vs 10-15) buys a lot of servicing and parts.

I'm not convinced that using a genset to make electricity to power motors will make your van efficient. How will the vehicle accelerate? It's all well and good to calculate 18Kw needed to cruise at 55, but you'll need probably double that to have any acceleration let alone dealing with hills. Will the controller be able to run directly off the unfiltered genset? Will you actually need batteries so that the slightest incline or acceleration doesn't trip the safety systems? At the very least you'll need a ~40kwh genset to handle hills and headwinds. If you build the system just for flat road 55mph cruising you'll only be getting that theoretical 24mpg for a smaller amount of time.

Start with getting what you have now working efficiently, with an eye for future possible hybridisation. That's why I'd start with power steer, power brakes and making the thing capable of EOC, you'll need that stuff down the line anyway. Same with other tried and tested aeromods, E-Fans etc. You'll still benefit from them down the line.

The van has been flat towed, and I've rolled down Cajon pass with the engine off no problem. Could a clutch be added post-transmission to prevent the need for the trans fluid to circulate?

How many of those Prius dealers are around the country who will service for $140? What happens when the Prius needs servicing in Deadhorse, AK? Or in St. Johns, Newfoundland? Or Eastern Montana? Hellow thousand dollar tow bill! The rig I have can at least be jerry rigged to make it back to civilization, modern cars cant. I think a decent Prius would cost waaay more than 5K, and likely needs major servicing in one year for less than 5K.

Nobody knows when the inevitable EMP will hit and fry all modern electronics, the power grid, and all modern cars. Even if the Prius was faradayed, one would have to basically carry a Prius behind their Prius to keep it operational well into the post-EMP world. Due to the hyperspecialized parts and plastic composite body (I wouldn't be surprised if they're working on making car chassies out of plastic composites, if not already in the newest cars), new cars depend more on manufacturing and society working than ever! Most of the parts on older cars can be fabricated in a machine shop if need be.

I thought electric motors have max torque at 0 RPM? Yes; the van would accelerate like a freight train at 22kw, doesn't rapid accelaration and high speed take more energy than gradual acceleration and lower speeeds?

So what I am reading here is swap the carb, tune up the engine, fit aero mods to more than double the mileage?

P.S.: The van can't pass California smog.

Originally Posted by freebeard

No.

Out of tune is not detuned. There goes half the budget right there. The low-cost stuff is hypermiling and aerodynamics. With those three you can surely double the mileage.

To triple it would require every trick in the book—alternator delete, LED lights, aerospace coatings and lubricants on all moving parts, low rolling resistance tires — and a full boat tail.

Quadruple? 30mpg? You tell us, we'd all love to hear the plan.

The cost to triple the fuel economy will take 100,000+ miles to make up for in fuel savings.

[debit.servus]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

Any Dodge over a 1968 will be taken out by an emp anyway. You need points, condensor, ballast resistor and old style voltage regulator. 1968 was a great year.

Really? If so I need to faraday those parts!!!!

Originally Posted by elhigh

"When," not "if?" You're losing me. At this point I'm beginning to fear you may be a nut. The mention of "underunity" engines makes me fear even more that you may be a nut, because it suggests you might hold out belief that there can be such a thing as "overunity" engines.

It ain't so. Not with physics as we know it.

Not going to argue here or debate it, but despite what everybody says; Overunity (more energy out than in) IS possible and that is how advanced alien civilizations get around. It will be very hard for Humans to go anywhere of distance in the universe using primitive propulsion technology, think of all the energy required to get to Mars! All those alien invasion movies don't make sense as they would require unlimited amounts of energy to get to Earth, and if your species has unlimited amounts of energy you don't need to invade Earth! With unlimited amounts of energy aliens have no need for our spines or resources. Using our level of smelting technology and their overunity tech, they could melt down asteroids for all the resources they ever need!

You came with a practical problem and proposed a couple of wildly impractical solutions. Others - some with experience almost directly in line with your paradigm - proposed highly practical solutions with reasonably achievable goals.

Right now I am weighing all my options for cheap over-the-road & self sufficient travel.

A different carb would give you a level of tunability you do not currently have. You could come close to a lean burn operating regime, at which point your vehicle would cruise with previously unheard of economy. These carbs are not hard to find.

Find me a carb or point to makes and models of cars with this carb that is interchangable with the 318 engine I have in the low hundreds and I'll consider it.

A TBI or MPFI setup would give you a much, much more reliable setup than the current carb, which by your own admission is not getting the job done.

Unless the posters know of a fuel injection conversion kit in the low hundreds, it wouldn't be worth it. Why spend 5 grand on a fuel injection conversion kit when another used good-to-great condition van with fuel injection can be had for less.

Another poster even suggested - and I thought this was sheer genius - that you retain a carb as the throttle for your injection setup. This would provide you with a side-of-the-road conversion capacity in the event of an EMP.

Sounds liken a great idea.

Another poster pointed out that your electronic ignition is likely just as vulnerable to EMP as the ECU of an injection system, so worrying about EMP without installing a points system is, ha-ha, pointless.

Really? What replacement parts do I need to replace or at least hotwire the electronic ignition?

You have mentioned your budget more than once when denying the feasibility of a different vehicle, even as you return to the idea of making a cobbled-together hybrid system or, God help us, wood gas system. Another poster already pointed out, and let me restate, that the greatest return on any investment would be to optimize the vehicle you already have. You won't be adding equipment to it, you will be eliminating faults.

It certainly sound the cheapest.

You have pointed out that reliability is important to you, even while switching back and forth on your possible alternative fuel ideas. I fear that you may not have the expertise or perseverance to design and implement an alternative system that is as reliable even as the engine you now have.
...

Can somebody do some back-of-the-envelope calculations as to the initial cost and fuel economy of a pusher trailer with an ultraefficient engine/trans/drivetrain that pushes the van 100%?

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by debit.servus

Find me a carb or point to makes and models of cars with this carb that is interchangable with the 318 engine I have in the low hundreds and I'll consider it.

I already did.
Edelbrock 650, advanced tuning kit and air fuel mixture meter.
I have used this setup on a smog 5.0L and 7.4L smog years motors, I know it works.

If you did what I said, spend lets say $500 on a carb, tune kit and air fuel meter and doubled your fuel economy, even with $2/gal gas the mods would pay for them selves in about 3,500 miles.
At $3.50/gal it would pay for its self every 2,000 miles.

Even if I am half right, then it pays for its self every 7,000 miles with $2/gal gas.
When gas prices go back up to $3.50/gal I don't see how you can afford not to.

[freebeard]

The cost to triple the fuel economy will take 100,000+ miles to make up for in fuel savings.

'By George, I believe he's got it!'

[Ecky]

Could a clutch be added post-transmission to prevent the need for the trans fluid to circulate?

Potentially, but the fabrication required to do so would almost certainly exceed the value of the van.

How many of those Prius dealers are around the country who will service for $140? What happens when the Prius needs servicing in Deadhorse, AK? Or in St. Johns, Newfoundland? Or Eastern Montana? Hellow thousand dollar tow bill! The rig I have can at least be jerry rigged to make it back to civilization, modern cars cant. I think a decent Prius would cost waaay more than 5K, and likely needs major servicing in one year for less than 5K.

You sound quite certain about this, but you're mistaken. You can get a decent Prius for 5K, and it's not likely to need major servicing in less than one year. Priuses (Prii?) are among the most reliable vehicles on the road today. You'd save more than the cost of any potential servicing in fuel costs alone, anyway.

I picked up my 50-70mpg Honda Civic Hybrid for 3K, and it has low miles and the drivetrain will likely continue running with nothing but oil changes for at least another 150,000 miles, and probably much longer.

Nobody knows when the inevitable EMP will hit and fry all modern electronics, the power grid, and all modern cars. Even if the Prius was faradayed, one would have to basically carry a Prius behind their Prius to keep it operational well into the post-EMP world. Due to the hyperspecialized parts and plastic composite body (I wouldn't be surprised if they're working on making car chassies out of plastic composites, if not already in the newest cars), new cars depend more on manufacturing and society working than ever! Most of the parts on older cars can be fabricated in a machine shop if need be.

How certain are you that an EMP will fry modern cars?

Prius uses a steel unibody.

I'd rather be left in a post-apocalyptic world with my Insight than any old American van, because I'm far more certain of its reliability. Aside from a few small electronic bits which I could potentially stockpile, the drivetrain is not very different from that of your van, it's just far more precisely made. It has a traditional 5 speed manual transmission, a rack and pinion steering rack, a piston engine that uses a butterfly valve to control throttle, and a fuel pump much like the one in your van (which is equally likely or unlikely to be fried by said EMP).

Frankly, I'd be most concerned about driving around a gasoline vehicle in a world that has no working refineries. After a few months, when all of the gasoline starts to go bad, you're going to be stranded on the side of the road. A diesel can burn practically anything (used french fry oil, kerosene/expired gasoline, etc.). A modern diesel will also be able to safely burn alcohol blended with these other things, without the alcohol destroying the gaskets and seals.

I thought electric motors have max torque at 0 RPM? Yes; the van would accelerate like a freight train at 22kw, doesn't rapid accelaration and high speed take more energy than gradual acceleration and lower speeeds?

This makes me wonder if you've ever seen a freight train accelerate.

My Insight weighs in at about 1850lbs, and has a 9kw electric motor in addition to the gasoline engine. Even in a vehicle this light, 9kw is not very much power.

Unless the posters know of a fuel injection conversion kit in the low hundreds, it wouldn't be worth it. Why spend 5 grand on a fuel injection conversion kit when another used good-to-great condition van with fuel injection can be had for less.

fuel injection conversion | eBay

I'm getting the idea that you have no idea how much most of these things cost. You're coming in and saying, "I know that X is too expensive, so I'd rather do Y", when Y is almost certainly more expensive.


How would you plan to drive the wheels with your electric drive-train idea, anyway? There is going to be some serious fabrication involved, and anything that requires fabrication is going to cost more than off-the-shelf bolt-on components.

~

The last bit I'll add is, there are plenty of things I'm more concerned with than an EMP at this point. As a person with some basic training in both geology and physics, I can say that a mega-tsunami is likely to happen before an EMP.

An EMP won't necessarily destroy all electronics, either. EMP generate charge differentials over an area, and so long conductors (e.g. power lines) and anything connected to them are what would be most likely damaged, and a simple fuse can probably protect anything connected to these. The smaller the conductor, the less it would be affected by an EMP, and the (very robust) computers in our (already quite shielded) cars are very small indeed. Pocket calculators and wrist watches would almost certainly be completely unaffected, regardless of how big said EMP is.

If you know the EMP is coming, unplug the computer in your car (which will save you thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands in fuel costs over the years while you're waiting for this EMP), and it will almost certainly not be affected, because it's the lengths of wire that dangerous.

Even if I were worried about an EMP, I probably wouldn't live in a van. Instead, I'd get some land and work on making myself secure - things like solar panels/wind turbines, a well, tools and implements, seeds, extra wood, the implements needed to can and preserve food, etc..

You're obsessing over all the wrong things. Get yourself financially secure, build yourself a safety net.

[bhazard]

Oh man, this guy...

[JRMichler]

Originally Posted by bhazard

Oh man, this guy...

Oh, I dunno. He kind of reminds me of me. Back about 1975, I had a BMW R75/5 motorcycle and got the idea of putting fuel injection on it. So I went to the junkyard and bought the complete fuel injection system from a 1968(?) VW Squareback, set it up on a breadboard, built a Heathkit oscilloscope, and traced out the computer. I started to weld up an intake manifold.

Then I finally got smart. The fuel injection system filled up a cardboard box. Computer, wiring harness, two temperature sensors, MAP sensor, fuel pump, injectors,... There was no space on my bike for all that stuff. OOPS. So I changed direction and got a commercial pilot license instead.

[freebeard]

If EMP was going to happen, it would have already. Someone is watching over us. We can squabble amongst ourselves all we want, but we can't take it to cis-Lunar space.

[Hersbird]

In all seriousness, this is a great electronic distributor with built in ignition for the 318. You probably need a different coil as well but this thing is a vast improvement over the factory setup. I actually converted my 68 with points, condenser, ballast resistor to this and it ran great. Much hotter spark and simplified wiring. For the price you could actually buy and extra for the EMP and keep it in a Faraday bag in the trunk, then you have it as a spare part either way. The other problem with your van is all the alternator voltage is run through the harness to a ammeter in the dash (at least I think they still had that in 86). The bulkhead connector on the firewall is prone to failure.
Small Block Mopar Dodge Chrysler 318 340 360 Complete Electronic Distributor Hei | eBay

PS, I used to keep the old setup for my 68 (which was a fastback Barracuda) for after the EMP as well. I wanted to cruise the zombie apocalypse in more the desert running "Vanishing point" style. A few years back there was a TV show set post EMP called "Jerico". The guy had an old Mopar there as well, the glaring problem was it was a 1969 which was the first year of electronic ignition! Oh well, Hollywood.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Frankly, I'd be most concerned about driving around a gasoline vehicle in a world that has no working refineries.

Isn't homebrewing ethanol an option?