Krypsis wrote:
Bill Baka wrote:
Geary Morton wrote:
In article ,
wrote:
Side valve/flathead engines for cars went out of favor in the 1950s.You
can buy an old Rolls Royce/Bentley car in UK for about 5,000 British
pounds money.It will cost that much money, or more, each year just to
keep the thing going.
Ask the Brits about that if you don't believe me.
I need to yank the circuit breakers and get back to working in my
attic.I need to remove a couple of junction boxes in my attic so I can
put down some plywood in those areas.
cuhulin
Studebaker had a flathead six in 1960. I know because there was one
in my 1960 Lark.
--Geary
Rambler made a flathead six until about 1963 or 1964. We bought a
house in 1963 and the neighbor was showing us his shiny new Rambler
with a very obvious flathead six. It ran good and he was perfectly
happy with it. One of the reasons flatheads got a bad rap was they
would not wind
One of the reasons flatheads had a bad rap was they had one hell of a
bad combustion chamber shape. Way too much surface area hence too much
heat loss. Smooth they were, efficient they weren't.
I wasn't talking about racing RPM's and for what it may be worth to you
I had one getting 38 MPG on the highway, a 1961 flathead with overdrive.
85 MPH absolute top speed but with 38 MPG I didn't care. Obviously I
could have gotten more with an aerodynamic car but pushing a brick at 65
MPH and getting 38 MPG did *not* make me want to run out and buy a new
piece of shiny *junk*.
If you want
combustion efficiency, then a hemispherical (hemi) chamber is the way to
go with at least 4 valves per cylinder and the spark plug as central as
it can get. Minimise flame propagation distance so avoiding detonation
at higher compression ratios. Throw a good bit of swirl into the
combustion chamber to get that fuel well and truly mixed with air and
properly vapourised. Then you have yourself a powerhouse.
I have a 400 HP ++ 440 police engine. Just how much do I need. It smoke
the tires shifting into second at about 60 MPH. It will already just
about tow a house, and yes I do know I could put 8 little injectors on
the manifold and use 8 little embedded boards to control each injector,
but of course I would use shortwave control. *Grin*
like an overhead. They all had over 4" strokes, so duh..., no 7K RPM.
It turns out that high RPM is good for power but sucks for mileage.
High RPM is good for BHP at the expense of torque.
EhhhTT! BHP is RPM times torque. At about 5,500 RPM 1 foot pound of
torque equals one HP. At 1,000 RPM it would be 5.5 foot pounds.
The poor fuel mileage
is purely due to inefficiencies.
Yes, like spinning the engine too damned fast. If there was an extra
highway cruising overdrive even my 440 would get over 30 - 35 MPG.
Ramblers in the 60's were actually good cars, but economy was not the
priority in the 60's.
Now we have over-winding 4 bangers trying to make up the power gap.
So explain to me how these "overwinding 4 bangers" crap all over the
"old" detroit iron in the performance stakes!
Do you know anything about applying geometry and trigonometry to cars?
I *never* said the imported crap had a chance against a properly set up
V8. It is gearing and the manufacturers have either been too stupid or
the American public does not want to have to shift and think while
talking on the cell.
Bill Baka
Piston speed is THE defining factor in all of the above. Higher RPM
equals more power strokes in a given time frame. Long stroke engines
have a piston speed that is far too high when wound up around 7k RPM.
Remember, that piston is reciprocating, not just going in the one
direction. Usually this results in catastrophic engine failure when
piston speed exceeds sensible limits. Cut down the stroke and you keep
the piston speed reasonable at the expense of torque. Appropriate
gearing and more gear ratios compensates for the lack of torque.
I am leaning to 6 speeds like in the performance cars. A Tremec 6 speed
with a 3.35 first and 0.70 and 0.50 are perfect overdrives for the road.
RPM is what sucks up mileage.
My
current daily drive is a five speed and its fifth gear is NOT an
overdrive. It's high revving 1800 cc 4 banger that pumps out 100KW and
it's as stock as the day it came out of the factory. The sports models
get 50% better power and still remain street drivable.
Having read that I don't know if I can have an intelligent car talk.
Radios yes, cars no. I can't educate you on this group.
Sure isn't like my younger days when we were into street rods that were
barely street drivable. Sounded good though! ;-)
And gas was 21 *CENTS* a gallon.
Left all that behind in the 70's and got into shortwave for the first
time. This was mainly because I was in and out of the country so much in
that era that I didn't have time for cars any more.
I believe.
Those are the kind of jobs I don't like though. I want an office to call
home and a fully expense paid flight, and not in 'sardine can' land.
Krypsis
Bill Baka