How to build a muscle car for better fuel economy?

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by freebeard

If you have the time you could go back and reread the thread. It was created by and for you. Your Overton Window has been moved.

Here's a rabbit hole to dive down:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=anti-reversionary+header

Big overlap at low ripp'ems.

I can't tell if this a joke or not. Then again, I attract them.

[freebeard]

Your Overton Window has been moved.

You seem willing to entertain concepts others are promoting, that you previously scoffed at.

Big overlap at low ripp'ems.

One can choose a cam profile with larger overlap without suffering reversion at low RPMs. Better?

Edit:
The anti-reversionary header was invented (it says here) by Jim Feuling.

He developed the center-mount fan and a four-valve head for the VW engine, a W3 Harely Davidson and developed the Quad-4 racing engine:

In 1988 he received the "Outstanding Technical Achievement Award" from the National Engineering Societies for his "clean sheet" design, development and manufacture of the 2.0L Oldsmobile "BE" Quad-4 racing engine used in the Oldsmobile Aerotech Research Vehicle (267.339 mph International Record, driven by A. J. Foyt). His radical design for the Oldsmobile BE 4-cylinder engine developed the highest specific power output of any automotive engine in history (over 1,270 hp from 121 cubic inches).

Feuling Parts



Anti-Reversion Headers - Speed Talk

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by freebeard

You seem willing to entertain concepts others are promoting, that you previously scoffed at.

The start/stop technology would have made my stop-and-go experience unpleasant to say the least. Furthermore, even if I overhauled my engine block with reduced friction ceramic coating and ceramic coated parts designed to handle stop/start equipped cars, I can't help but consider the unnecessary wear and tear that is still occurring. Plus, I fail to see the savings when I learned that you needed more fuel to get a car started than just letting the car continue to idle. Yes, the car is already hot when restarting but you still needed more fuel than what is being used at idle, hence, you negate any gains as I see it.

Moving on, I wasn't scoffing hybrid technology. I just have a different idea of how it should be used, which is all the time. For all the times that hybrid technology is needed to assist a gasoline engine, I fail to see why you don't just use the electric assist all the time! If it is truly hybrid, half-electric car and half gasoline car, why not have the electric assist on all the time? However, if these systems can't be designed to charge themselves which I have a hard time wrapping my head around given how a car electrical system works, then I have to accept it for what it is. I want to increase my city mileage and hybrid technology will do that. I want to help my engine out when it starts to lose vacuum, here electric assist will help.

I just need a company or specialists to set this system up to do as I expect, I don't know nearly enough to be able to tap into my car's PCM and have an electric hybrid kit perform as expected. Furthermore, I would rather have AWD ability for winter driving conditions with a hub mounted kit versus an inline drive kit that uses my rear wheel drive. So, I lose the benefits of professional installation that come with the inline drive kit.

Originally Posted by freebeard

One can choose a cam profile with larger overlap without suffering reversion at low RPMs. Better?

A little. I should have gone to college to pursue a career in the automotive field granted this passion I have. Regardless, I am trying to learn what I need to make a more informed decision about the modifications I wish to make to my car to get it to behave the way I am expecting. With this said, I thought more overlap was bad for fuel economy? Too much overlap and the car idles so choppy that I couldn't tolerate the daily drive!

Originally Posted by freebeard

Edit:
The anti-reversionary header was invented (it says here) by Jim Feuling.

He developed the center-mount fan and a four-valve head for the VW engine, a W3 Harely Davidson and developed the Quad-4 racing engine:



Feuling Parts



Anti-Reversion Headers - Speed Talk

Yeah, but if such headers don't exist for my car, especially in a form that permits me to equip catalytic converters and use my factory emissions devices, it is of no use to me. I was given the advice to use long tube headers on my car that are optimized for the powerband I am focusing on, but I run into issues with optimal catalytic converter operation along with how to use my emissions devices with such headers, requiring custom work! (Sigh)

I am not sure if my shorty headers are hurting my car's performance or not. I have the weirdest sense that maybe my stock exhaust manifold was actually better...

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

The start/stop technology would have made my stop-and-go experience unpleasant to say the least. Furthermore, even if I overhauled my engine block with reduced friction ceramic coating and ceramic coated parts designed to handle stop/start equipped cars, I can't help but consider the unnecessary wear and tear that is still occurring. Plus, I fail to see the savings when I learned that you needed more fuel to get a car started than just letting the car continue to idle. Yes, the car is already hot when restarting but you still needed more fuel than what is being used at idle, hence, you negate any gains as I see it.

The video you linked for us essentially debunked all of your points here.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

Moving on, I wasn't scoffing hybrid technology. I just have a different idea of how it should be used, which is all the time. For all the times that hybrid technology is needed to assist a gasoline engine, I fail to see why you don't just use the electric assist all the time! If it is truly hybrid, half-electric car and half gasoline car, why not have the electric assist on all the time? However, if these systems can't be designed to charge themselves which I have a hard time wrapping my head around given how a car electrical system works, then I have to accept it for it is. I want to increase my city mileage and hybrid technology will do that. I want to help my engine out when it starts to lose vacuum, here electric assist will help.

The answer as to why it can't work all the time is this: Creating electricity is done by using electric motors to brake the car. You don't want to drive around with regenerative braking on all the time, it will ruin your fuel economy because your engine is fighting the motors trying to slow you down. The only way you could use electricity constantly is if you had a source of it that was entirely free - such as plugging in your car at one of the free charging stations.

EDIT: Plug-in hybrids really do get assisted all the time. They do this by having huge batteries that you fill up at home, and run down as you drive.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by Ecky

The answer as to why it can't work all the time is this: Creating electricity is done by using electric motors to brake the car. You don't want to drive around with regenerative braking on all the time, it will ruin your fuel economy because your engine is fighting the motors trying to slow you down.

Well, then I can't use regenerative braking all the time to recharge the system that is constantly on. So, then I have to resort to using an altermotor to provide the constant recharge, assuming the resistance from the altermotor does not hurt fuel mileage as much as using two hub motors on constant regeneration.

I will state this again, because I feel it is important for a new evolution of hybrid technology. The resistance on the gasoline engine to fight the two hub regenerators should be offset by the use of the two hub motors that too will be fighting the resistance of their own recharging components. From this, engine fuel economy should not suffer that much, so goes the hypothesis in my mind.

Originally Posted by Ecky

The only way you could use electricity constantly is if you had a source of it that was entirely free - such as plugging in your car at one of the free charging stations.

EDIT: Plug-in hybrids really do get assisted all the time. They do this by having huge batteries that you fill up at home, and run down as you drive.

I would be willing to recharge my car to make up for the difference after driving an entire day. I am going to have to anyways even with a hybrid kit that is only used up to 45 mph speeds. I just wonder if I can hack the system to enable it's use for highway speeds and under conditions where the gasoline engine is losing vacuum. Here I run into problems, this could result in prolonged use, so how best to recharge the system? I suppose the altermotor is ideal.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

Well, then I can't use regenerative braking all the time to recharge the system that is constantly on. So, then I have to resort to using an altermotor to provide the constant recharge, assuming the resistance from the altermotor does not hurt fuel mileage as much as using two hub motors on constant regeneration.

That's exactly what an alternator or altermotor do when they make electricity. Your alternator "regenerative brakes" your car more when you turn up the radio or turn your headlights on. Your gas mileage drops correspondingly as the load on your engine increases. Electricity is not "free".

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

The resistance on the gasoline engine to fight the two hub regenerators should be offset by the use of the two hub motors that too will be fighting the resistance of their own recharging components. From this, engine fuel economy should not suffer that much, so goes the hypothesis in my mind.

Let's say you have front and rear hub motors. You want the front to push the car, and the rear to generate electricity.

Because of losses in the system, the rears will always drag on the car more than the push you'll get from the front. So, this system does not assist your engine in pushing your car down the road, it drags on it!

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by Ecky

That's exactly what an alternator or altermotor do when they make electricity. Your alternator "regenerative brakes" your car more when you turn up the radio or turn your headlights on. Your gas mileage drops correspondingly as the load on your engine increases. Electricity is not "free".

No, electricity is not free, unless you build a network of Tesla's Wardenclyffe Towers!

I am trying to figure out how to give my gasoline engine the constant electric assist that I would like for it to have, beyond the energy neutral task of stopping and then using the saved energy to move the car at the same momentum that it had prior to stopping.

If I am anal about fuel consumption, going pure battery pack and having to charge it up after driving is what I will need to do. So, how big of a battery pack would I need then if recharging is out of the question? There is no way to slowly charge the system with minimal fuel economy loss and hence the owner is responsible for charging the battery back up after the car is no longer in use?

There has to be a way to solve this problem or satisfy it enough to make it practical.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

No, electricity is not free, unless you build a network of Tesla's Wardenclyffe Towers!

I am trying to figure out how to give my gasoline engine the constant electric assist that I would like for it to have, beyond the energy neutral task of stopping and then using the saved energy to move the car at the same momentum that it had prior to stopping.

If I am anal about fuel consumption, going pure battery pack and having to charge it up after driving is what I will need to do. So, how big of a battery pack would I need then if recharging is out of the question? There is no way to slowly charge the system with minimal fuel economy loss and hence the owner is responsible for charging the battery back up after the car is no longer in use?

There has to be a way to solve this problem or satisfy it enough to make it practical.

The Wardenclyffe towers needed huge engines turning generators to make that electricity too.

The devices that captured the field essentially put a load onto the towers, which in turn loaded the generators. There's no such thing as a free lunch. The problem with these towers was that it was impossible to make people pay for the energy they were using, so the cost of running the tower fell entirely on someone else.

~

You have a limited number of places to take energy from to propel your car down the road, and all of it has to come from outside of your car. Either you put more gasoline in it (lower gas mileage, fill up more often) or you have a battery pack, which is effectively a second gas tank. You can choose to fill your battery pack from your gasoline tank, but you're not helping by doing that.

There are two kinds of hybrids that work:

1) Non plug-in hybrids, like the Prius and Insight. These have systems that basically only capture energy lost when you slow down, and use it to accelerate you again. With this in place, a gen4 Prius can get more than 50mpg city, whereas an equivalent car without the system would probably only get about 30mpg city. Don't underestimate how much energy is needed to accelerate the entire mass of your car.

These cars have lithium batteries which could fit inside a lunchbox, because they really only need to store enough energy for a couple of "launches", usually between 0.8kwh and 1.5kwh.

2) Plug-in hybrids, which have large packs designed to continuously provide assist (or even entirely electric propulsion) for many miles and hours at a time. Depending on how large your portion of electricity you use, your gas mileage can actually be infinite - if you never start the gas engine. Battery packs for these vary; the Chevy Volt's is about 19kwh and the size of a large suitcase. It's capable of pushing the car down the highway at highway speeds entirely on its own for over 50 miles. The Prius Prime has a ~9kwh battery capable of about 25 miles. Both of these cars also capture energy when you slow down, but their programming is designed so that they're assisting basically all the time, and you really only need to start the gas engine if you want to drive past what the battery's range is.

EDIT: I would like to stress that with both systems, you get the added acceleration of the electric motors. The plug-in just uses electricity longer, and displaces more of the gasoline you have to burn.