Category Archives: Energy

Energy

Diesel Motorcycles Late, But Gaining Steam

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“I ordered a diesel combat motorcycle and all I got was this lousy t-shirt…

HDT’s production apparently has been delayed due to the popularity of diesel motorcycles as military vehicles in Afghanistan and perhaps Iraq. Their latest newsletter mentions this, along with the use of biodiesel and tests to increase mpg. I was doing some reading and reasearch the other day and am sure that it is really a Kawasaki hiding in the HDT Bulldog. Anyway, while some might see their delay as negative, I like the idea that more testing will be done in extreme conditions before they are released for public consumption:

The text of the June 2006 Newsletter:

As most of you already know, HDT has had to delay production of the commercial D650 Bulldog due to recently increased orders for our military models.

During the last 6 months, in anticipation of our commercial model release, we have greatly increased production capacity with the completion of our engine and motorcycle assembly lines. Unfortunately, for our commercial customers, the expansion is now needed to fill our ongoing military requirements.

We maintain plans to produce our commercial diesel motorcycle, the D650 Bulldog, and are increasing our production capabilities as fast as we can.

I want to personally extend my thanks to all you who have shown interest in our diesel motorcycles. We will continue to publish updates of our commercial motorcycle release through our newsletter.

Fred Hayes
President
HDTUSA

Some good news: In the last few months, we’ve been able to improve performance and overall operability. We’ve been able to improve power throughout the rpm range and further reduce vibration at cruising speeds. Fuel mileage has also been improved. (See Economy Run in Upcoming Events).

Biodiesel: We’ve had a number of requests to do more testing using various blends of biodiesel, including B5, B20, and B99/B100. We’ll keep you up-to-date on the test results.

Motorcycle Assembly Line: We’ve started using our new motorcycle assembly line. It will allow us to improve efficiency, increase production rates and retain high quality.

Engine Assembly Line: We are just finishing our new diesel engine assembly line. It is a big step from modifying existing motorcycles to producing our own motorcycle engines. HDT is using innovative production techniques, such as these specially designed engine stands to try and keep costs down and quality high.

R&D Center. We finally moved into our new R&D Center where we’re continuing to find more power, smoother operation, better fuel economy and lower emissions. Currently we’re testing various blends of biodiesel. Very interesting stuff!!! More on
biodiesel later.

Dynos. We just took delivery of our 3rd Dynomite motorcycle dyno from Land & Sea. (www.land-and-sea.com) This makes our third dyno from Land & Sea. We have the original engine dyno, our eddy current R&D dyno, and the latest unit that will be used for final production testing.

News like this and more, all on DieselBike.net. They even have links to numerous diesel motorcycles of the past.

Energy, History, Security

WebCam monitors 1901 lightbulb

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good bulbEver heard of a lightbulb with its own website? The reason for celebration is the quality of engineering. Apparently it has been burning since 1901, the product of an energy pioneer named Dennis Bernal who lived near Livermore, California. Ironically, the webcam setup to monitor the bulb failed after only a few years of use, the same as the average life of a basic modern lightbulb:

Unlike the bulb, the first camera had a limited life of about 3 years. We are hoping this one will give the bulb a run for it’s money.

This Cam image will continue to be updated every 10 seconds. So to enjoy the view of Fire Station Number 6 either hit your refresh button, or click the picture above!.

Imagine if every house in America had been running on a bulb like this. For some reason consumers do not demand this kind of quality. Do they prefer things engineered for failure. Quality doesn’t have to be cost prohibitive, does it? Alas, if you read their website even the fire station believes it is sheer luck, rather than sound engineering that keeps this bulb burning.

Energy, Sailing, Security

Conservation and performance

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Here are two examples of how auto industry leaders might finally be moving away from waste. That’s right, a new value is in town and those who demand quality are taking notice.

First of all, check out the age-old concept of reducing weight and excess in order to increase performance. Nothing really revolutionary here, except that these folks are taking conservation to a whole new level without sacrificing safety (I kind of like the fact that the title to their history page is misspelled and the source says it was created by a Macintosh — quirky but it makes them real). Porche and Corvette (e.g. the Z06) have been obsessing about reducing the weight in their designer profiles on a mostly superficial level (carbon fiber trim widgets look nice, but they are mostly band-aids) whereas this ultra-light exotic-killer is a revolution in engineering and powered only by a Honda civic engine:

Atom 2 power is from the new 2.0 Honda iVTEC engine now regarded as the best 4 cylinder production engine in the world. Featured in the Honda Civic and the Civic Type R the engine and gearbox combines Honda reliability, economic servicing and practical ownership. With the performance emphasis of the Atom geared towards acceleration and handling, the power to weight ration [sic] exceeds that of most supercars giving phenomenal performance and tracks times comparable with pure race cars.

Ah, but how many cup holders does it have? And when is the diesel version coming? Wrap a kevlar or nylon skin around that thing, like a canoe on wheels, and I’d drive it everywhere. Interesing that the alt tag on their main image is “No doors, No screen, No ignition key” but the image itself says “No doors, No screen, No roof”. This makes it seem a lot like a motorcycle with almost none of the risk.

The cost of a used Ariel is only about 25K pounds. With comparable performance to a Ferrari Enzo that costs about a half-million more, it seems like the difference between an A-Class Catamaran to a TP52. So instead of saying an A-Cat is the F1 of sailboats, I think it more appropriate now to call it the Ariel Atom 2. Incidentally, like the A-Cat the Ariel is not a new design but it has benefited greatly from advances in technology and many years of dedication by efficiency enthusiasts.

In other news it looks like BMW had a “duh, why weren’t we doing this already” moment at the end of last year.

The concept uses energy from the exhaust gasses of the traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to power a steam engine which also contributes power to the automobile – an overall 15 per cent improvement for the combined drive system. Even bigger news is that the drive has been designed so that it can be installed in existing model series – meaning that every model in the BMW range could become 15% more efficient overnight if the company chose to make the reduced consumption accessible to as many people as possible.

Combining the innovative assistance drive with a 1.8 litre BMW four-cylinder engine on the test rig reduced consumption by up to 15 percent and generated 10 kilowatts more power and 20 Nm more torque. This increased power and efficiency comes for, well, … nothing. The energy is extracted exclusively from the heat in the exhaust gases and cooling water so it is essentially a quantum leap in efficiency.

Funny, I haven’t heard or seen anyone with a BMW talking about their Turbosteamer technology. Is it real or just a gimmicky thing to market when people are getting antsy about efficiency and emissions? Also, apparently BMW researchers have not driven the Atom 2, or they might not be saying things like this:

“This project resolves the apparent contradiction between consumption and emission reductions on one hand, and performance and agility on the other,� commented Professor Burkhard Göschel.

Or maybe if your vehicles were not clad with excessive padding and did not weigh as much as a herd of cattle you might not need so much consumption and emissions to push them around? Quiet and plush (the main sources of weight) cars are nice, do not get me wrong, but we all know that quiet and plush are not the primary objective of the BMW performance engineers. This paragraph from the Ariel site puts it nicely:

After 3 solid days of testing and against cars as varied as a Porsche Carrera 4S, Noble M400, Westfield Sport and Lotus Elise the Ariel Atom 245 has been voted as Track Day Car of the Year by Track and Race car Magazine. A five man test team including race drivers Michael Mallock and Stephen Colbert were unanimous in their decision summing it up by saying: ‘The Atom wins because as soon as soon as you get in it, it’s almost as if that unique chassis suddenly becomes some form of exoskeleton. It’s as if you’ve grown Dymag wheels instead of hands and feet and your heart’s been replaced by a two litre iVTEC. Nothing made you feel more involved, or connected to the circuit beneath you.’

Like I said, throw some ultralight skin on that thing, change the gearing and it would be an awesome commuter car. Then convert it to honda’s hybrid-diesel powerplant to make today’s cars look like they were from the era of horse and buggy.

Energy

New diesel land speed record

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Rudolph Diesel would be pleased, I think. The way I read his story, he was depressed that so many people judged his design for what it could do at the time rather than for its potential. Now, more than 100 years later diesel engines are finally getting the interest that they deserve in terms of research investments that are leading to incredible breakthroughs in efficiency and performance:

Today the JCB DIESELMAX became the ‘world’s fastest diesel’ , a fantastic and emotional day the team! The FIA timed the car at an average speed of 328.767mph subject to FIA ratification, breaking the old record of 235mph.

Through the timed mile a fine 333.364mph speed was recorded despite Andy mistakenly braking before the end of the mile!

No matter, the record was in the bag, broken by almost 100mph. Time for a mass of media photographs and interviews before the team wheeled the car away.

Tomorrow the car will be in action again on the Salt Flats, aiming to raise the bar further! This evening there is more work to do with the aim of improving the cooling system.

Very exciting news and the best of luck to the team tomorrow. I think this is a bit of a stretch, though:

JCB DIESELMAX will occupy a unique place in record breaking history as the first car designed entirely by computer. Besides advanced aerodynamics that break fresh ground the car is innovative in other areas.

Surely someone was giving the computer instructions? You just can’t tell me that someone typed “world’s fastest diesel” into their favorite search engine and a finished design popped-out…that’s about as likely as the answer “42”.

The most impressive part of the story, for me at least, is the ability to take a diesel industrial powerplant and turn it into a high-performance speed machine:

The results of the JCB DIESELMAX engine development work are truly impressive and the headline figures speak for themselves: with each delivering peak power of 750hp and torque of 1500Nm, the engines are over five times the power of the production version and at 150hp/litre, they exceed even motorsports applications as the world’s highest specific power diesel car engines.

I was just saying to someone the other day that my next car might just be a Caterpillar, given their investment in diesel technology. The hybrids are cool, but many people are still unaware that a diesel engine today already gives better economy than a Prius. Thus, it only makes sense that a clean-diesel hybrid…