bye bye Civic type R and now Focus ST!!!

[big ben 10]

update

 

http://www.autocar.co.uk/News/NewsArtic ... rs/252432/

 

not that im that bothered what ford get up to :lol:

[Corrado_Addict 0]

I honestly hope the government never ever make the choice to bring new rules into play that would basically outlaw old cars.

 

What about the REAL classic cars from days gone by let alone ours? Electric motors are all fine and well for being torquey but come on, would you really wanna hear a whine over a vr6 on full chat? I know what id go for :wink:

[Kevin Bacon 5]

I honestly hope the government never ever make the choice to bring new rules into play that would basically outlaw old cars.

 

What about the REAL classic cars from days gone by let alone ours?

 

Indeed. Human rights will inevitably become an issue. You can't stop someone from owning a car, but they'll just make a law that states a 'vehicle' that emits X amount of CO2 cannot be driven on the public highways, so VEHICLE encompasses anything with an engine basically, and the only place you'd be able to legally drive it would be on a track.

 

We just have to get smart and beat them at their own game. It's possible to make our Corrados super clean by running them on E85, but will the oil companies let that happen?

[8vMatt 1]

We just have to get smart and beat them at their own game. It's possible to make our Corrados super clean by running them on E85, but will the oil companies let that happen?

 

Kev, could you expand on this bit please as my limited knowledge is letting me down again!

[Kevin Bacon 5]

E85 is Bioethanol, a blend of 85% crop derived ethanol (hence it's name) and 15% petrol. The 15% petrol is needed for cold starts because ethanol on it's own isn't calorific enough to start a cold engine.....but that's still an 85% reduction in burnt fossil fuel emissions :D

 

Bioethanol unlike normal methanol isn't harmful to untreated alloys and rubber, so practically all cars with fuel injection can run it, with a few caveats....

 

... Injector size. You need MUCH bigger ones and in some cases, turbo cars especially, a more powerful and higher flowing fuel pump. But both are off the shelf and cheap from Americanland.

 

... Remapping. Some old cars with non-programmable ECUs will need a management upgrade. K Jet 16Vs etc can probably be reworked mechanically, so not a problem.

 

That's the eco bit and science bit done. Now the fun bit, POWER :D

 

E85 is approximately 108 Octane and word on the street it's very hard to detonate. It also runs extremely cool too, so exhaust gas temperatures will drop significantly.

 

The only 2 downsides that I can see, well, 3 actually.... the aforementioned political issue with oil companies, the cost of converting older cars to run it and the fact you need to burn more of it to do the same job as petrol, but if it's priced sensibly, it balances out.

 

Currently only 2 or 3 Morrisons nationwide sell it, one of which is down the road from me, so I will start using it full time soon, once a few bits and peices have arrived from USAland :D

[dr_mat 0]

I like the diesel-electric combo idea.. I've said that before as a far more efficient way of turning oil into propulsion.. Maybe we're at the point where the necessary hardware can be made small enough and light enough to be worthwhile in a passenger car, not just the huge trains where it's been so effective for the last 50+ years.

Yes I'd miss the VR6 noise, but hey, it's a bit pointless (not even thinking of environmentals) to lose a few hundred lbft torque AND spend ten times as much on fuel just to hear that noise ...

 

As for bioethanol .. I remain sceptical about the viability of sourcing the necessary quantities without impacting food supply in this world. We've already seen that farmers will sow the crops that make them the most money regardless.. (Unless the government basically steps in and pays them the price difference, which is what the EU farming subsidies are all about.)

[Kevin Bacon 5]

E85 is already used full time in some states of America, parts of Norway and Finland, so I'm sure that will be sorted in time. Americanland allocated vast areas of land for Bioethanol cultivation years ago, but they are also undergoing massive lithium scavenging, so battery and alternative fuelled cars will develop side by side I suspect.

[dr_mat 0]

Yeah, and look what happened to the price of bread and rice already, and it's only really impacting a tiny proportion of cars on the road at the moment.

The best solution is some sort of hybrid - hydrocarbons are the single best method of getting the energy to the car in the first place, but once it's there you should burn it only to generate electricity to a) charge your short-range batteries and/or b) propel the car directly using its electric traction motor.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Eh? Bread prices have risen due to the Russian weather problems pushing wheat prices up. Rice I wasn't aware had gone up and I buy it frequently.

The best solution is the one that causes the least impact and change. People are used to getting in their cars in the morning and refilling it once a fortnight. Anything that causes an undesirable change to that routine will be rejected and currently, E85 is the cheapest and easiest solution to both reduce emissions AND keep existing cars and technology.

[dr_mat 0]

Petrol (and/or E85 and/or some other hydrocarbon-based fuel) is, as I said, the right way to get energy to the vehicle, I agree. How you use it once it's there is another matter and making the car more efficient really means it should be burning fuel only to generate electricity which is then stored in batteries and drives traction motors. This is one of the few ways that might improve the still-pathetic 40% energy efficiency of a modern petrol engine. I agree that switching to hybrid petrol/diesel-electric systems and traction motors isn't viable for all the existing cars on the road, but new cars really should be going that way.

 

Bread prices have risen in the last five years because of the increasing use of land for biofuel instead of wheat, aswell as the more immediate recent Russian problems. Rice is suffering the same consequences. We don't notice cos it's 10p on the price of a kilo, but in poorer economies these small fractions make a huge difference to the affordability. e.g. http://www.irri.org/publications/today/ ... /36-37.pdf