Project, the Third - Now contains collabsible boat tails (1971 VW SuperBeetle)

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Aerohead -- Thanks—that's a good suggestion. Do you have the ISBN (number) or the publishing house? I suspect a librarian would want to know.

Metromizer -- I admire Dick Beith's car. My thinking is evolving away from what is shown in my profile picture. I'm going to be Away From The Keyboard for a few days. When I'm back I'll try to document an Edison inspired Very Light Volkswagen (VLVW).

The side windows are an aero-problem. The flush-mounted Lexan looks good; and I'm thinking a user applied coating like Nanoclear
(today) or Spray-on Glass (tomorrow) would make it easier to live with.

I was thinking a shop sized vacuum gauge mounted right under the backlight where I could monitor it in the rear view mirror. But then I also want a boat-tail that covers the backlight with a 20" LCD screen for the rear view webcam that I could see in the rear view mirror—in Infra-red!

I'll check for that and have it tomorrow.It may already be listed in the stickys but I'll grab it.

[freebeard]

I made it back from Seattle. While I was there we visited the Auto Museum in Tacoma. They had (on loan) Harry Miller's 1940 mid-engined 4WD Indianapolis race car.

I'll follow up some other issues in a future post but for now, let me address this:

I've used one of those speedometer cable gear boxes on a Nissan truck years ago. They are ok, but you need someone to initially set them up for you, someone who has several gears to choose from. I did it before GPS, the automotive speedo calibration shop i took it to had an in-ground roller set up. An inexpensive Garmin GPS can double as a speedometer, I do it when playing with VW's. There is a dashboard setting that shows MPH in real time, that I've used on rallys and racing at Bonneville. If nothing else, borrowing a GPS could help you cross calibrate your speedometer, masking tape arrows on the glass noting 25, 40, and 55, and 65mph.

I now know what the car will have for a stereo. The Parrot Asteroid is a single-DIN 4x55W stereo with a GPS receiver, Android Operating System and a 3.2" color screen. If I was building a car from scratch I could make it the entire dashboard. As it is I will have to cut the pre-DIN opening in the stock dashboard, but just the metal, the vinyl padding has an adequate opening. I expect to find an Android software forum where people code software to display temp and electrical gauges, turn by turn navigation, etc. It's less than $300 from Amazon.

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Aerohead -- Thanks—that's a good suggestion. Do you have the ISBN (number) or the publishing house? I suspect a librarian would want to know.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35866801/Hoerner-Fluid-Dynamic-Drag-1965


.

[some_other_dave]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I expect to find an Android software forum where people code software to display temp and electrical gauges, turn by turn navigation, etc. It's less than $300 from Amazon.

I don't think you'll find free SW for all of that. Chances are a good bit of it will have to be DIY, because most of the car-type apps will be built to plug into modern cars with OBD2 ports to read the various information from. Your car will have separate analog signals for whatever instrumentation it has (except the tach, which uses the sort-of-digital signal from the points but is still separate) and you'll have to find a way to hook into those signals and then display them.

See if you can find a forum dedicated to the Parrot thing to see if people have plugged other inputs into it.

-soD

[freebeard]

slowmover -- That's awesome. I should hit the Thanks button 3 times.

There is an area I'm procrastinating from by hanging out here that I would define as 'low-cost energy efficient and aerodynamic housing'. So the parts on hemispheres on ground plane and ship superstructures is, as they say, 'relevant to my interests'.

It even has the aero drag of a 5' 9" male figure in various postures.

some other dave -- Maybe I'm optimistic, but so far it seems like if it exists there is software for it.

I don't think you'll find free SW for all of that. Chances are a good bit of it will have to be DIY, because most of the car-type apps will be built to plug into modern cars with OBD2 ports to read the various information from. Your car will have separate analog signals for whatever instrumentation it has (except the tach, which uses the sort-of-digital signal from the points but is still separate) and you'll have to find a way to hook into those signals and then display them.

"whatever instrumentation it has" See, there's the trick. What it has is a mechanical cable drive to the speedometer, and an electrical float in the gas tank.

See if you can find a forum dedicated to the Parrot thing to see if people have plugged other inputs into it.

Precisely. No doubt someone, who knows enough about how, want an OBD2 input to one of the 4 USB ports on the Parrot Asteriod. Then thanks to Internet we all can have and try to improve it. So everybody can have that. There's going to be a hardware dongle of some kind in the middle.

In any case when I write "I now know what the car will have for a stereo" that means it's going in the budget. I was really close to getting 2ea 20-liter gas cans, as a range extending measure. But now it has to contend with the Inflight Entertainment System. I should do it before I lose the courage to take a Sawz-All to my dashboard.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by aerohead

I'll check for that and have it tomorrow.It may already be listed in the stickys but I'll grab it.

I found the book and it has no ISBN.I posted the info on it with KamperBob's 'Database' thread.Hope that's okay!

[freebeard]

I found the book and it has no ISBN.

Thanks for checking, slowmover covered it.

Today I checked in at Autopia, and found that Parrot will have a double-DIN head-end unit:
Hands-On With Parrot's Latest (And Maybe Greatest) Android-Powered Head Unit | Autopia | Wired.com



I'm definitely not cutting up my dashboard for that.

[freebeard]

I sold a car recently and intended to use the proceeds to replace the stock bumper brackets with a custom built class-1 trailer hitch on my 1971 SuperBeetle, to pull a Westphalia utility trailer. This would incorporate heavy-duty sockets for the bike rack that could double as mounting points for a single wheel trailer and tabs to mount the rear bumper. This would give me three options in back. Unfortunately, I had to come down $1550 from my asking price to sell, so the custom hitch isn't happening.

We now have two data points that show how slowly my thought process works. In an earlier thread, I posted this pic after staying up all night to model the idea for a retractable boat-tail for the Type II panel van.

Today I used some random parts to mock it up in full scale on the Gold Bug. So, 2 months to go from a model of an immobile vehicle to mock-up in full scale on the weekly driver. I used a tow bar that normally mounts to the lower torsion bar housing in the front of a Standard Beetle (it won't fit a Super with its Macpherson struts), as an single-wheel trailer A-frame. The [hinged, castoring, heavy] trailer wheel might be optional. If it's not used for cargo it could hang from straps from the bicycle rack, be stopped by a block below the hinge line and/or sprung with the fiberglass rods that would form the aero shape.

I haven't said much yet about my gas mileage. With the previous car [same year, make and model] I took it from 17mpg, as received. to a best of 30mpg. While I had both I did some coast-down testing, and where the older car shed 20mph in 24 seconds, the new car only needed 21 seconds. Recently I gassed up. drove 106 miles and refilled. 6 miles at freeway speeds and 100 miles in convoy with the VW club at 55mph. When the car was new 95,000 miles ago it got 26mpg. At 55mph I got 21mpg. And that's with the electronic ignition that made ~4mpg difference on the other car. I'm going to have to dig myself out of a hole.

[Cd]

That's a clever idea !

[arcosine]

I use to get 35 mpg constantly with my 68 bug "Beetle bomb". It was stock except for the variable main jet and HR78-15 tires. I ran it lean. It would have trouble keeping 60 against a big head wind.