[Wet Chicken]

Originally Posted by MSM Hobbes

no knobbies for hobbies.

...

[Stoner]

Afternoon Hobbes
Recalibrating a fuel and spark map is also a kindly thing to do to the family grocery getter.
$375 dollars to flash a GM computer to save $150 in gas(over it's lifetime) is 'good' logic( )and with loud mufflers makes you feel like 'King of the Road'.....or something.....

Saw a test review of the Magnuson supercharger (that's a $6000 kit ) on a Pontiac 5.7 GTO............slowed it up , but was said to be fun to drive anyway.
Nitrous was installed to bring the power back LOL!
Would have been cheaper to poke a hole in each of the mufflers

Personally, I never liked Borla systems on GM V8's. I went Flowmaster and never looked back

[MSM Hobbes]

Originally Posted by ComputerFix

Rail is a dying industry. Even with rail, trucks are still required. Accident rates are huge. While the industry is making huge strides towards efficiency as of late, I fear it is simply too late. IMO, take the same money and make point to point transport "better" (I say this in an all around better sense).

So, how does the RR system improve? Or, is it really too late?

For both passenger travel and movement of freight, it is a very fuel efficient method. Unfortunately, the ineffiency of management and related systems have led what was once a very proud industry into the dust.

[EvileYe]

Here in Perth, Australia, the current price of unleaded fuel is $1.04 per litre, which equates to AUD$3.91 per US Gallon or to convert to US dollars = $3.08 a Gallon, the tax on that Gallon for private use = $1.40 US.

Country prices (remote areas) can be 30 to 40% higher.

The price of petrol in Australia is based on import parity, which means that even though the petrol we buy may well have been sourced from our own Australian oil, it is priced on the product price in Singapore plus freight, wharfage, insurance and converted into Australian dollars.

Various alternative fuel schemes have been trialled, and currently there are a couple of City buses running on Hydrogen, which appears to be the most promising so far.

[ChrisJones]

Originally Posted by ComputerFix

Recently read an article in which cars with diesel engines (preferably the old Mercedes) can be run on used cooking oil, which restaurants pay to have taken away. Apparently when made into a special cocktail (or strait with a modification to the car) they run just fine. One guy interviewed is haulin around in a custom 280Z and is in the process of fitting a diesel into a vette in order to show that all enviro friendly options don't have you looking like a nerd at the light.

That is very true, the French have been running cars on Rape Seed Oil for years. You can put it in your tank in place of ordinary diesel, no modifications, no running problems. It's a straight substitue! Only problem is having enough land to grow all the rape! (BTW I do hope they call rape the same in the US or this is gonna look really dodgy!)

Likewise you can run a car on cooking oil too like you've said.
The only thing that needs doing is you need to add some methanol to it to make it less viscus.

The recipe for "Bio-Diesel"
This Guy has also made a device for producing lots of “Bio-Diesel”

I've not tried it personaly but some people I know have and they said it works a treat, there's no problems with running the car. In fact the only problem at all is the fact that now the police are wise to it and you have to pay fuel tax on the cooking oil as well. you can get the oil free from most fast food places but you're supposed to pay something like 32p (about 60 cents) a litre fuel tax!

And this is what happens if you don't pay!

Chris

[MSM Hobbes]

Chris Jones, why do I read that BBC link and visualize Monty Python's troupe?

[Gibble]

Originally Posted by Stoner

Hobbes.mornin'

More important today,IMHO, how fast is it?
If it's large and heavy, a bigger motor is obviously the cure
Speed sells
Lets face it.......a timely response from a machine is necessary in today's hustle and bustle society where achieving the instant gratification of mercurial acquisition while hunting at the local Mall.....is ....well....let's face it......good for the economy
So, a 6500 lb SUV needs that double overhead cam, 32 valve, 5.4 liter V8 with a Borla freeflow exhaust and a K&N airfilter kit.
You never know when you'll need that extra torque for jumping parking curbs in a quest for the closest parking space to the store's front door.......time is money

Low tire pressures and big knobby tires are also a "+" in low traction situations where the 4wheel drive just isn't enough in the parking lot....

Well not all of us with trucks/suv's live in the city...

[Gibble]

Originally Posted by ChrisJones

That is very true, the French have been running cars on Rape Seed Oil for years. You can put it in your tank in place of ordinary diesel, no modifications, no running problems. It's a straight substitue! Only problem is having enough land to grow all the rape! (BTW I do hope they call rape the same in the US or this is gonna look really dodgy!)

Likewise you can run a car on cooking oil too like you've said.
The only thing that needs doing is you need to add some methanol to it to make it less viscus.

The recipe for "Bio-Diesel"
This Guy has also made a device for producing lots of “Bio-Diesel”

I've not tried it personaly but some people I know have and they said it works a treat, there's no problems with running the car. In fact the only problem at all is the fact that now the police are wise to it and you have to pay fuel tax on the cooking oil as well. you can get the oil free from most fast food places but you're supposed to pay something like 32p (about 60 cents) a litre fuel tax!

And this is what happens if you don't pay!

Chris

LOL, I know what you are referring to when you say rape. And so will most farmers, as for the rest of the Americans...we'll see if they know what rape seed is...or not

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Gibble

LOL, I know what you are referring to when you say rape. And so will most farmers, as for the rest of the Americans...we'll see if they know what rape seed is...or not

Mmm canola oil, my diesel runs occasionally on China Buffet Lard, I only use it in the summer, tank fudge for dual fuel tanks and kerosene. (PS Why is kerosene cheaper than diesel fuel around here???? My truck runs on it but I need to add motor oil to balance it out, also the attendant gets pissed if I fill my truck with it, I've burned about 10 tankfuls, now when does my truck die?)

I am also getting much happier with the fact that I burn old moldy but dry corn as heat. (not kidding either) Its pretty much free.

Cheers

[MSM Hobbes]

Ok, since we are talking about alternative fuels, such as rape seed [yea, this Ozark hillbilly knows what that is, thank you very much... ], now the fun can begin:

Hemp Oil Fuels & How to Make Them
http://website.lineone.net/~supersno...onsoilFuel.htm

http://www.hempcar.org/
Click continue to go further... If their numbers are accurate, the car got ~22.7 mpg. Not bad.

http://www.taima.org/en/fibre.htm

Flexible and environmentally friendly
Hemp is one of the most versatile plants known to mankind. Its fibres can be used for textiles and ropes or made into paper. Its seeds are a valuable food rich in unsaturated oils, which can also be used as fuel. Hemp requires few pesticides as it quickly outgrows any weeds. It leaves the soil clean for other crops. When hemp stalks are dew-retted in the fields most nutrients are returned to the soil for the next crop.

Hemp oil is so versatile that it can be used instead of diesel fuel or you can fry tempura in it. Before petroleum and electric lightbulbs, lamps burning hemp seed oil illuminated homes around the world. One ha of seed hemp produces about 1000-1500 litres of hemp oil plus several thousand kg of cellulose-rich fibre. One ha of fibre hemp produces about 8000-11000 kg of dry biomass.

As a renewable resource from living plants hemp does not contribute to the greenhouse effect. The growing plants absorb as much CO2 as will later be released when oil or other plant matter is burnt. Unlike fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas) or nuclear fuels hemp could supply us with raw materials for thousands of years, without ever changing our climate and without producing waste that remains radioactive for millions of years.

http://www.rockhawk.com/gasoline_and_hemp.htm

Joel Miller's Random Fire
Put hemp in your tank

Joel Miller, WorldNetDaily.com (US Web)

While George Bush Sr. didn’t face the same sort of energy crisis that George Bush Jr. now faces -- with OPEC scrooging the oil supply and Venezuela getting uppity with its share of the black-gold mine -- he did more than rattle sabers on the pretext of stopping one. The Gulf War, so preached by pundits galore, was all about oil; got to keep the lifeblood of American commerce pumping, right?

Sort of.

Before smart-bombing the daylights out of Iraq, Bush had a smart plan to wean America off of oil, at least partially (can’t let all those family oil wells go bust, now can we?). On June 12, 1989, the self-proclaimed “environmental president,” unveiled a plan to cut down on air pollution caused by petrol fuels.

"Too many Americans continue to breathe dirty air,” said the elder Bush, “and political paralysis has plagued further progress against air pollution. We've seen enough of this stalemate. It's time to clear the air."

How? Why switching to methanol, of course -- what Bush tagged, "home-grown energy for America." Gives you kind of a warm, patriotic feeling, doesn’t it? Turning our own trees to fuel (methanol being alcohol made from wood) makes more sense than relying on fickle foreign cartels like OPEC and even more fickle domestic cartels like the U.S. Department of Energy. Unfortunately, like so many other things in the Bush presidency, what started out good, spoiled in the end. Along with bombing Iraq, Bush also bombed his energy policy. Despite all his gallant (and probably disingenuous) efforts, alternative non-petrol fuels remained on the drawing board, far from the gas tanks of Americans.

Pity. It’s true, while most of us don’t enjoy huffing sulfur dioxide, most of us don’t really want to mess around with alternative fuels like methanol, either. And then there are those who, to paraphrase the famous Monte Python ditty, think, “Every tree is sacred. Every tree is great. If a tree is wasted, God gets quite irate.” So, that puts the axe to methanol.

But now, at the start of the Bush Jr. presidency, there might be some serious economic incentive to look for something other than petrol. With the current crimp in energy, looking for an alternative would be -- in the catchword of the Bush Sr. presidency -- “prudent.”

Surprising to some, no doubt, a very good possibility is hemp. Granted, putting a reefer in your tank hardly seems like a sensible idea. What if the Chrysler gets stoned and starts weaving between lanes? Not going to happen. Hemp fuel is about as intoxicating as a jug of Mazola.

And hemp has a lot going for it as a fuel.

Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp; he actually ran the thing on peanut oil for the 1900 World's Fair. Henry Ford used hemp to not only construct cars but also fuel them.

As an alternative to methanol, hemp has at least one glowing report: the plant produces up to four times more cellulose per acre than trees. And a hemp crop grows a little quicker than a forest.

As for an alternative to petroleum,

• Hemp grows like mad from border to border in America; so shortages are unlikely. And, unlike petrol, unless we run out of soil, hemp is renewable.

• Growing and harvesting the stuff has much less environmental impact than procuring oil.

• Hemp fuel is biodegradable; so oil spills become fertilizer not eco-catastrophes.

• Hemp fuel does not contribute to sulfur dioxide air poisoning.

• Other noxious emissions like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are radically slashed by using “biodiesel.”

• Hemp fuel is nontoxic and only a mild skin irritant; anybody who’s ever cleaned out an old carburetor with gasoline can confirm the same is not true for petrol.

• Growing hemp for fuel would be a tremendous boon for American farmers and the agricultural industry, as opposed to people like, say, the Bush family.

And that’s why hemp might not go anywhere as a fuel alternative. Oil interests are big and donate likewise to politicians, and selling a man on an idea that will cost him more than he’ll benefit requires an amazingly skilled orator -- or a gun. Unfortunately, unless you’re the federal government, gunpoint conversions are usually illegal. Ergo, PR is about the best bet right now.

[GoneForNow]

As an aside, wasn't rape seed oil used by the KGB to kill the Polish diplomat by injecting it in his leg with an umbrella? Or is my memory becoming really faulty.

[bonzobob999]

That was Ricin....not sure if its extracted from rape seed though, and he was Bulgarian. Killed in London UK. Your memory was dam close though.

EDIT: Extracted from the Castor bean apparently. so I've just been told.

[ChrisJones]

Originally Posted by gbrumb

As an aside, wasn't rape seed oil used by the KGB to kill the Polish diplomat by injecting it in his leg with an umbrella? Or is my memory becoming really faulty.

I think you are talking about Ricin, I think it is made from Castor beans... Whatever the hell they are.....

[Stoner]

Castor bean plants were very popular in my area in the 50's. Quite decorative, especially in late summer and fall when the leaves turned purple and violet. They stood about 6-8 ft tall. The variety my Dad planted had more of a main stem and tropical appearance than the bushy varieties I found online:
Link

When the public was made aware of their toxicity, we along with others, quit raising the plant.

[ChrisJones]

A few bits of info on ricin, some scary stuff.
Ricin as a Biological Weapon
Why we need to be worried about terrorists....
How Ricin Was used to Kill Bulgarian Dissident Georgi Markov

Thanks MSMHobbes for all the info on hemp... I didn't realise it was such a versitle plant. I knew it could be used for paper and textiles but I didn't realise it could be used for fuel as well!! Nor that it grew so productively... It is hard to see why it hasn't been utilised further!

Chris