Pop N Wood

Maybe I am coming off as arrogant. Sorry. When I go back and reread some of my posts they tend to read that way. As for the hydrogen, if you can make a car run an LP gas, then it can run on hydrogen. Just have to get over the safety issues and where to find a gas station.. But I still remain skeptical about the cost advantages. Looks like you have put a lot more detailed thought into it than I so I won’t dispute your numbers. I still don’t see how hydrogen can reduce our dependence on oil since the hydrogen is only a storage medium. It still takes some type of power source to generate. If the power source is solar, then you aren’t there yet since solar power is still not cost competitive with oil. I brought up the wind power costs just to illustrate what seems like “free†power in reality isn’t.

I am well aware of all this, as are hundreds of technical investors. Look up detailed numbers.

The units of torque have an angular component too. Mathematicians don't like it but you could specify it as lbs-ft per radian of revolution. RPM can be converted to radians per second. So when you multiply it all together the radians cancel and you get lbs-ft/sec, and one horsepower is defined as 550 ft-lbs/sec. That is where the "5252" comes from in all the car magazines. It just makes all the units work. Torque and work are not the same thing and do not have the same “unitsâ€. Torque is the rotational equivalent of force. Push on the side of refrigerator and you are exerting force. If it doesn't move, then technically you have done no "work", even though you are expending energy at some rate. But all of that “if it didn’t move you didn’t do work†just confuses the issue so don’t worry about it. Also keep in mind that power can exist in different forms than just work. An engine being reved against a trans brake is still producing power. The power is just being dissipated as heat in the trans instead of work moving the car. Light bulbs could be rated in HP. A 75 watt light bulb is about a tenth of a HP.

But once you include the price of the initial purchase your FREE energy is much more expensive than oil. Can't ignore the reality of that. A lot of us grew up in the 70's. Alternate energy sources were all the rage. Then the price of oil stagnated in inflation corrected dollars and suddenly the alternate energy sources were no longer cost effective. I think eventually the world will turn to hydrogen as an energy storage medium. But there are some very real technological questions that need to be answered first (that stuff is dangerous, ever hear of the Hindenburg?). And none of it will happen on any scale until gas becomes much more expensive. Also I wish John had not posted that article on war for oil. It is not the way I think.

Would have to arque the corporate ethics part. Remember those corporate accounting scandals (i.e. Enron) that happened on Clinton's watch? Not that I blame Clinton for that, but makes it hard to argue things are worse now than 4 years ago. As for the economy, anyone see the job reports released today? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6414103/ In terms of shear numbers more Americans are working today than at anytime in our history. I do worry a good deal about the deficits (budget and trade) and wish Bush would take a more fiscally responsible approach. But I don't see how electing Kerry and his entitlement programs would have helped that. Guess his "tax the rich" programs might have made some short term differences (assuming he could have gotten them through congress). But that could easily result in a recession wiping out any revenue increase. I simply do not agree with all the economic maysayers. Things simply are not going that badly right now. In fact, for the majority of Americans, things are going pretty well. And what do I care what the French think of us? Can't be any lower than my opinion of them.

You're being non causal.

No. I don't feel abused. Mainly because I don't feel lied to. I feel those who are keying in on WMD are uniformed. There were a 100+ reasons for invading Iraq. The potential for WMD was just the one everybody latched on to and the one Bush made a selling point. There is a difference between being wrong and being lied to. I really don't want to argue whether the war was right or wrong. Out of all the reasons I could think of there are unquestionably people who won't agree with them. But unlike some of the depressed individuals flaming all these political threads, I recognize there are other, fully legitimate points of view beside my own. Also you may want to go back and read Mike's post to you. He didn't say gun deaths in Oz went up. He said violent crimes went up. Big difference. Some would claim one could be prevented by the other.

Send me the link. I would be interested in what others have to say. This thread has digressed a bit.

Guess I just don't agree with the money motive. In the short run, the contracts are being paid with our money anyway (at least a good chunk of it). Not to mention American lives. In the long run, that country is still going to hate us. Eventually they will get on their feet and start chanting Death to America again. Guess one could argue that we will turn them into a puppet state. But if our current relationship with Germany is any guide I wouldn't bank on that. People will always do busines with us because money talks and we have a lot of it. But you don't have to agree with someone or even like them to want to make money off them. Let's face it. I would be suprised if we regain even a portion of our investment in this struggle. All we will have to comfort us is the idea that we at least tried to do the right thing. And given the current divide in our country it is not much to hang our hats on, now is it?

He will claim he is Canadian. No one will ever know. After all, people like Linda Ronstadt think Micheal Moore is a great American.

That's OK. Boner Boy will have that job soon so then it will be legal again.

An actual email exchange between a convervative and liberal friend of mine.

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6386157/

Doesn't the JTR manual say something about replacing the guts of the early tachs with the later ones? What year was the cut off for that? I think the early tachs worked off current where the later ones work off voltage. If this is true, then the tach could be working like a short. All the ballast resistor is suppose to do is keep you from buring up points. If you have replaced the points then you don't need it. Can't see how that would make a difference with the tach.

F the UN. I have never understood the concept of a war being "legal". War by its very nature implies a break down in social order. It is (or should be) a fight for survival. The Geneva convention isn't so much a set of rules as a gentleman's agreement that we won't do these nasty things if you don't. And who the hell enforces the law anyway? What authority stands above the US constitution? Laws are only laws if the people agree to be governed by them.

Because of the multiplication, both motors should be producing the same torque at the wheels. You would have to go through the math and take the gear ratios for both cars times the engine torque they are actually producing. But if you are saying that both vehicles are going the same speed and both engines are kicking out exactly 228 HP, I claim that tells you all you need to know. Mathematically torque times RPM yields HP. HP is the constant and can neither be “created nor destroyedâ€. So in your example, both cars have the rear wheels spinning at the same RPM so the higher reving engine must use a lower gear. This will multiply the torque, but you know that when all the math is done both cars will be producing the same torque at the rear wheels. Why? Because they are producing the same HP and HP = torque X RPM. Changing gearing to affect RPM means the torque will go the opposite direction. Same HP at the same RPM = same torque. When you include gearing acceleration is directly related to engine HP. So the two cars should be able to accelerate equally. For your engine, torque is dropping as engine speed increases. But if HP stays constant, then that means torque is dropping at the same rate that the engine RPM increases (HP = torque X RPM). So if you believe what I say that the available acceleration at any vehicle speed is directly proportional to engine HP, then it really doesn’t matter if your engine is spinning 3500 or 5500 RPM. The potential acceleration should be the same. This is especially true if your HP curve was measured on a rear wheel dyno where drivetrain losses are accounted for. Go with whatever gear you can hold the longest at that portion of the track. BTW. That is an unusual engine to have such a flat HP curve. I personally have seen lots of dyno curves with flat torque curves, but not many with super flat HP curves.

Would you clarify that a little bit?higher engine rpm...compared to what? lower gear ratio...compared to what? more torque...compared to what? Thanks. Think of it this way. You are cruising along at 30 mph in 4th gear when someone jumps you. You want to downshift and accelerate as quickly as possible. What gear will you choose? At that exact instant in time your car is going a certain speed, so that means your rear wheels are turning at a certain speed. If you drop down to 3rd gear, your engine revs will jump to some speed. If you drop down to 2nd gear (i.e. a lower gear), your engine revs will jump to higher speed. All of this assumes you don’t lose traction. Let's say you have one of the new Dodge hemis. Those things have torque curves that are almost completely flat from something like 2000 RPM to 5000 RPM (at least that is what I remember from an old post). Let's also say going to 3rd gear will put you at 2500 RPM, but going to 2nd puts you at 3500 RPM (I made this up just for an example). At both RPM's the engine is kicking out the same torque, so it shouldn't matter, right? But the torque at the rear wheels is the engine torque multiplied by the overall gear ratio. So going to a lower gear will give you more torque at the rear wheels and faster acceleration. What is the difference between 2500 RPM and 3500 RPM? Horse power. Take this example one step further. Say going to 1st gear would put the engine at just under 5000 RPM. Same assumed torque, yet lower gear, so should accelerate even better, right? Yes BUT dropping down to first and accelerating will quickly put the engine over 5000 RPM, torque will start going down and depending on the power curve the engine might go past it’s HP peak. At any rate you will run out of top end very quickly all the while running the risk of lighting up the tires with all the rear wheel torque. So in this case you are probably better going to 2nd and winding the engine out.

A good Z shop can rebuild a manual transmission in less than a day. It is actually pretty cheap too. I had mine done for $250 about 15 years ago. Post where you are and maybe someone can direct you to a good shop. Or get the free 4 speed and have the 5 speed rebuilt when you get the money

Probably just lost all the clutch hydraulic fluid. You might need new master/slave cylinders and possibly the rubber line. But having all the internals rusted together is not too unbelievable either. If that thing has been sitting for 10 years I would bring a trailer and not a tool box. Brave man.

I have a small garage so I have quite a few "multi purpose" tools. All I can say is what a PITA. End up not using most of them because half the time it seems like too much trouble to reconfigure the tool. Need a bigger shop with dedicated tools that are always set up and ready. Oh, and empty plastic peanut butter jars make great storage bins for fasteners. Screws and nails in particular because you can just grab the enclosed jar and take it to the job site. I have several sets of shelves just to hold all the jars. Even built a rack into my workbench with enough room behind it to store the MIG cart.

I have *heard* you shouldn't mix brands of oil since you can't be sure how the different additives will interact. I have also read that 10W 40 is not a good oil, that 10W30 is all the wider of a ratio you should use. Something about the polymer chains being too long to try and get the 40 part. Both of my Toyotas recommend 5W30, so that is all I run.

I guess it depends on whether you consider Iraqi lives as valuable as American lives. How many "people" was Saddam reportedly responsible for killing? I can't remember exact numbers but it wasn't insignificant. Artillery battles and poison gas attacks will do that sort of thing. How many more would have died by him staying in power? I hear your arguments about whether this was our battle to fight or not fight. And I won't contest the idea that it could have been handled differently. But it seems kind of hard to argue that taking him out wasn't for the greater good.

This type of discussion is common on web boards so I have had a good bit of time to think about it. Some of the problem is wording. Most people use the word "torque" like you do above. It is interpreted as having a wide power band. I think of torque as HP divided by RPM. Thus having a wide torque curve is the same as saying you have a lot of HP over a wide range of engine speeds. When you think about it, peak HP is doesn't mean anything unless the engine is always spinning at that speed. Shifting takes the engine revs away from the HP peak. So when you shift you have less HP to convert into rear wheel torque. A car with a wide power band doesn't have to shift as much and can thus be faster, simply because it spends more time at higher HP. I think it is Drax240 who always says it is the power under the curve that matters. I personally can't tell you what the best shift points are. This takes more driving experience than I have. I would imagine it varies with different types of racing. Obviously you don't want to power shift in the middle of a turn or it will upset the balance of the car. But I can tell you from the math involved when the maximum theoretical acceleration occurs, and that is when the HP is maximized.

Did you say Viper engine? Man, you have to post some pics.