OT Interesting video

Tom Keats said:

It's all my fault.

Frank agrees! LOL

(See, that's deceptive snipping. Oh, never mind...)

Quoted message said:

Matt O'Toole said:

Tim McNamara said:

You can't pinpoint current air quality problems from a single source or
even a single nation. There are lots of contributors. Cars. Trucks.
Coal fired powerplants. Industry.

Actually the sources can be pinpointed pretty well. Certainly there are
lots of sources, but the lion's share of air pollution is from motor
vehicles.

Quoted message said:

You'd think that motor vehicles would be the lion's share, since
they're so visible and active, but the Sierra Club thinks that power
plants are in some ways the largest single source of air pollution:

http://texas.sierraclub.org/events/LegWork06/powerplantpresentation11-11-06.pdf

I know that Americans tend to believe the rest of the world is a lot
"cleaner" than the US, but it's impossible to think so after living in
Asia for any time (I've lived for years in both Korea and China). In
Beijing, it wasn't uncommon for the pollution to be so thick that it
was literally impossible to see across the street. Think about that.

And the bulk of the problem was the coal-burning heating and power
plants (they used a communal heating arrangement, with coal-burning
hot water plants in every neighborhood).

Now (over 10 years later) add in the many millions of cars that China
is adding to the mix, and it's easy to see that any "solution" that
doesn't address the developing world is going to be a solution that
doesn't work (this is why Bush and the Senate under Clinton rejected
the Kyoto protocol unanimously).

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

A Muzi said:

As a classic car buff, I learned fast that total production is a BIG
factor in whether or not you can afford the thing. My Corvairs went to
nearly two million copies and many service parts are shared with all
Chevy sixes (1955~1980) so they are cheap to run and hop up. Every piece
you want is available and cheap. These mills are currently powering
brand new sport planes (November cover Sport Flying) 38 years after
'death'.

That reminds me of one of the actual real advantages of a rotary, at
least for aircraft use. If you lose the cooling system on a
water-cooled aircraft motor, you can get into big trouble - you won't
get far before the piston engine gets too hot to continue running, and
then if you're not within gliding distance of a suitable landing
place, you're gonna make the evening news.

A rotary OTOH will continue to run virtually forever (at a somewhat
reduced power level) until you can get the plane safely on the ground.
It'll be a "throw-away" at that point, but would have potentially
saved the aircraft and the pilot/passengers.

Another benefit of the rotary is that they have a very smooth power
output at the crankshaft. This has huge benefits for an aircraft, and
the PSRU (Propeller Speed Reduction Unit) which gears down the prop
speed allowing the engine to run in its efficient RPM range without
sending the propeller tips into the (noisy and inefficient) supersonic
range (that's the noise you hear when aerobatic planes do vertical
dives). The lack of extreme "power pulses" puts a lot less stress on
the PSRU and propeller (which can be destroyed by the pulsating power
output of a piston engine in certain situations).

Quoted message said:

A vehicle or power plant with 100K copies is not going to be a cheap
project over the long run.

True enough... as an owner of a mid-80's Alfa Romeo, I know the pain
of trying to find parts for an "unusual car"... (the oil pump I just
bought set me back over $250).

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Exactly. But that doesn't prevent "nucyooler" from sounding dumb!

We can live with pronunciation variations; it's the damn political
dogma that's dumb!

Quoted message said:

Stephen Harding said:

Jimmy Carter can say "nuckyooler" (and he worked in the field
in the Navy) with only a bit of "haha" from the Press, but Bush
does it and over and over we hear it as proof of how stoopit
he is.

Matt O'Toole said:

But Carter is otherwise well-spoken. There's other evidence he's actually
smart.

For varying definitions of "smart".

A bunch of Carter Institute staff quit this week over his new book.
(what's he smoking??)
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ben C said:

email hidden said:

dustoyevsky snipes anonymously:

Quoted message said:

> The Wankel is dead!

Quoted message said:

I looked for some sales figures; this is the first thing I found:
"As of March 31, 2005, 114,444 RX-8 models had been sold worldwide
since introduction."

Quoted message said:

That's not very dead.

As I said, the motor has no benefits, only drawbacks and that's why
no one else is using them. They are curiosities that don't perform
well. I'm curious how many miles tey get before requireing engine
rebuild?

My 1988 model did 120,000 miles on the original engine. About 80k was
the anecdotal average, depending on how you used it and how often you
changed the oil. That was 1988 though, I expect the new ones are
better.

By comparison, I except 300,000 miles on my 1990 Volvo 240 before I will
need to rebuild the engine. I currently have 170,000 miles on it.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Matt O'Toole said:

Tim McNamara said:

You can't pinpoint current air quality problems from a single
source or even a single nation. There are lots of contributors.
Cars. Trucks. Coal fired powerplants. Industry.

Actually the sources can be pinpointed pretty well. Certainly there
are lots of sources, but the lion's share of air pollution is from
motor vehicles.

Given that air and air pollution are globally distributed and do not
keep pollutants segregated, it is impossible to pinpoint sources in a
practical way. "Hmm, that smells like pollution from a 1978 Chevy
Caprice" is not really a doable proposition.

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Tom Keats) said:

And it's their own air pollution they're complaining about.

We all own the air pollution as we are all economically complicit in its
creation.

Bill Sornson said:

Tom Keats said:

It's all my fault.

Frank agrees! LOL

(See, that's deceptive snipping. Oh, never mind...)

Hmm. I _could_ point out that such "deception" would always be
ineffective, because we can always read the thread to see exactly what
was being said.

But if I pointed that out, it would be repetitious. We've told you
this many, many times.

Furthermore, if I pointed that out, I'd be pretending you'll eventually
learn. That's just too unrealistic.

So, never mind! :-)

- Frank Krygowski

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ben C said:

email hidden said:

dustoyevsky snipes anonymously:

>> The Wankel is dead!

> I looked for some sales figures; this is the first thing I found:
> "As of March 31, 2005, 114,444 RX-8 models had been sold worldwide
> since introduction."

> That's not very dead.

As I said, the motor has no benefits, only drawbacks and that's why
no one else is using them. They are curiosities that don't perform
well. I'm curious how many miles tey get before requireing engine
rebuild?

My 1988 model did 120,000 miles on the original engine. About 80k was
the anecdotal average, depending on how you used it and how often you
changed the oil. That was 1988 though, I expect the new ones are
better.

By comparison, I except 300,000 miles on my 1990 Volvo 240 before I will
need to rebuild the engine. I currently have 170,000 miles on it.

170K is not that surprising for a well looked-after car, but 300K will
be good.

The problem is though that everything else on the car is going to start
failing and the body will rust (unless you live in California, where it
is said that even British cars don't rust).

It works for bikes to replace each thing when it's worn out and keep the
bike running for ever, since there are relatively few components. It's
not as easy or economical to do that with cars. Still, it's laudable to
attempt it.

"Tim McNamara" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

(Tom Keats) said:

And it's their own air pollution they're complaining about.

We all own the air pollution as we are all economically complicit in its
creation.

I am not. But if you want to see how much pollution you create go to One
Tonne Challenge. Averaged out we make 5 tons a year.
Myself I only make 2 and that was before I stopped using transit to work. I
am at home and only ride the bike as I have since I was 8. So my life time
contribution has almost been nil to those averages of 5T/y

Thanks
SN
Would not want to be you.

Quoted message said:

The big deal is that Turbines don't like to change speeds much.

Sounds like a potentially good match for a hybrid application.

Chris Neary
[email hidden]

Quoted message said:

Interestingly, the Wankel first found real fertile soil at NSU in
Neckarsulm (from which the name arises) just north of Stuttgart where
I was working at the time. n R&D engineer came rolling in into our
shop at Porsche to demonstrate this new concept.

At the time I mentioned to the engineers to mark my words, that this
engine will not survive, (snip)

Approx. 50 years ago. Which is roughly half the period of time that IC
and diesel engines have been used in automobiles. IOW, "it survived"
and survives to this day. IOW, pt. 2: You were wrong.

(trying again): Might be a very small minority of one, etc etc blah
blah, but the Wankel is still around, still popular, to the tune of
hundreds of thousands of units of the current model, the RX8, being
sold, even with that mighty strange and ugly (opinion) body stuck on
it. If they'd made it beautiful, or even attractive (more opinion), who
knows what the sales would be? The small doors giving access to the
back seat, heck of an idea for folks with young families who want
something fun to drive. Which, by accounts, the RX8 is.

It's been said that interest in the Wankel is responsible for Mazda's
survival: cited are the "halo effect" of the high-performance,
later-generation RX7 (said to be still a tuner favorite) and the
reputation as "the little company that could", i.e., make the Wankel
work when the big boys couldn't.

BTW, a Mazda Wankel was the first engine made outside Europe or the USA
to finish the 24h of LeMans endurance race. In time, Mazda Wankel won
Lemans outright. The Wankel engine was banned shortly thereafter.

In the USA, Car and Driver magazine campaigned a heavily modified Mazda
Wankel that was so superior in (racing) class performance that it was
penalized with 300 pound ballast requirement. It still won races.

Quoted message said:

to their utter amazement... and that of all
the others who wanted to believe in it.

FWIW, I'm still amazed that you continue to make the "Wankel is dead"
statement, which is so obviously "wrong".

Quoted message said:

My thermodynamics Professor
had shown us running rotary prototypes in the lab from years past and
explained why they cannot work.

Where oh where does "running prototype" equal "cannot work"?

Quoted message said:

They all have the same feet of clay
as they address only the mechanical part of the machine and fail to
see that this is a heat engine and thermodynamics its main focus.

Mazda accomplished a successful "addressing of the mechanical part of
the machine". Thirty-five years, with, I believe, only one short gap in
production. Hundreds of thousands sold and used.

Quoted message said:

The Wankel is dead!

Whew. Well, "You just keep telling yourself that". --D-y

Tom Keats said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> You can't pinpoint current air quality problems from a single
> source or even a single nation. There are lots of contributors.
> Cars. Trucks. Coal fired power plants. Industry.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Actually the sources can be pinpointed pretty well. Certainly
there are lots of sources, but the lion's share of air pollution
is from motor vehicles.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I can recall when trains were pulled by steam engines that often
belched huge plumes of thick black smoke. However, we had not yet
experienced smog, although media mentioned it with respect to Los
Angeles.

Quoted message said:

One of the convenient things of living on the West Coast is that the
Prevailing Westerlies tend to blow our air pollution inland, into
smaller communities with smaller communications media, so we don't
have to listen to their whining and griping and gasping and choking
too much.

Quoted message said:

At least, it was like that, back in the day.

Quoted message said:

Now those inland communities have grown, and become more vocal. And
more intertwined with the larger, more polluting urban centres from
which many have fled to live in the 'burbs, while still working in
the City. And it's their own air pollution they're complaining
about.

Quoted message said:

If those inland suburban communities weren't residential, they'd
still be agricultural. And then we'd be eating the air pollution
that falls onto the fruits & vegetables and the soil they grow in.
Remember when lead was a fuel additive? I wonder where all that
lead went.

Quoted message said:

But now we get to import fruits & veggies encumbered with other
people's air pollution. Especially from Mexico.

I assure you that San Francisco has plenty of smog and that in the bay
area, on occasion, it is so thick that we cannot see the coast range
on either side of the bay.

http://mtham.ucolick.org/hamcam/hamcam1.html
http://sv.berkeley.edu/view/
http://www.rntl.net/sausalitocam.htm

Jobst Brandt

Peter Chisholm said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Isn't the RX-8 a rotary engine? And I owned a RX-2..2 plugs per
rotor, btw, not one.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

They are both in the same place and fire at the same time. Putting
more of them there does not move the "combustion chamber" away from
that hot spot.

Quoted message said:

I guess my point was the reference to how "Wankel' engines are both
dead and use 1 spark plug per rotor... but not dead and use 2...

So if we used +4 spark plugs, it would have eight by your logic. It's
not the number of gaps but that there is only one ignition point. I
suppose the adverse shape of the combustion chamber made this design.

http://www.autobarn.net/bosplat4spar.html

and the concept is DEAD. There may always be Wankels as there will
probably always be recumbents, but they won't make a significant
presence in most uses. I haven't seen an MTB or cyclocross recumbent
although its possible someone will try. You won't see any commercial
vehicles with Wankel engines unless they are selling Wankel engines.

So why do you suppose there aren't a wide variety of small or large
cars offered with these engines?

Jobst Brandt

Bill Baka said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> You can't pinpoint current air quality problems from a single
> source or even a single nation. There are lots of contributors.
> Cars. Trucks. Coal fired power plants. Industry.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Actually the sources can be pinpointed pretty well. Certainly there
are lots of sources, but the lion's share of air pollution is from
motor vehicles.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I can recall when trains were pulled by steam engines that often
belched huge plumes of thick black smoke. However, we had not yet
experienced smog, although media mentioned it with respect to Los
Angeles.

Quoted message said:

And if they had any smarts back then they would have used Hexane or
Octane or something along those lines. C6H14, less Carbon but as much H
as can be bound to a Carbon and get something that can be liquefied.

Oh? Where do we get these fuels? Just think how you would be in
demand if you showed the way to do that.

Quoted message said:

I have heard of experiments with oil powered steam but that was back
in the primitive days. Diesel or steam we still have big pistons
going back and forth.

I see, you are a rotary man at heart, but if you understood the
benefits of "going back and forth" in heat engines, you might see it
differently... sort of as most thermodynamicists and engineers do.
Do you believe that these folks have no smarts?

Jobst Brandt

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Actually the sources can be pinpointed pretty well. Certainly there
are lots of sources, but the lion's share of air pollution is from
motor vehicles.

Given that air and air pollution are globally distributed and do not
keep pollutants segregated, it is impossible to pinpoint sources in a
practical way. "Hmm, that smells like pollution from a 1978 Chevy
Caprice" is not really a doable proposition.

In th e U.S. at least, it's very practical to estimate what portion of the
overall pollution is from that 1978 Chevy Caprice.

Chris Neary
[email hidden]

"Science, freedom, beauty, adventure: what more could
you ask of life? Bicycling combined all the elements I
loved" - Adapted from a quotation by Charles Lindbergh

Quoted message said:

Bill Sornson said:

Tom Keats said:

It's all my fault.

Frank agrees! LOL

(See, that's deceptive snipping. Oh, never mind...)

Hmm. I _could_ point out that such "deception" would always be
ineffective, because we can always read the thread to see exactly what
was being said.

If that's the case, then why leave any quoted material at all?

Quoted message said:

But if I pointed that out, it would be repetitious. We've told you
this many, many times.

"We" have, Frank? You mean my betters, Mastah? LOL

Quoted message said:

Furthermore, if I pointed that out, I'd be pretending you'll
eventually learn. That's just too unrealistic.

Right, Frank, I just don't get this Usenet thing at all. Hope is gone.

Quoted message said:

So, never mind! :-)

If only.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Quoted message said:

Matt O'Toole said:

Quoted message said:

You can't pinpoint current air quality problems from a single
source or even a single nation. There are lots of contributors.
Cars. Trucks. Coal fired powerplants. Industry.

Quoted message said:

Actually the sources can be pinpointed pretty well. Certainly there
are lots of sources, but the lion's share of air pollution is from
motor vehicles.

I can recall when trains were pulled by steam engines that often
belched huge plumes of thick black smoke. However, we had not yet
experienced smog, although media mentioned it with respect to Los
Angeles.

Los Angeles basin is smog central. The inhabitants
before the Spanish noted that cooking fire smoke
ascended ~1000 ft then spread horizontally.

--
Michael Press

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ben C said:

Tim McNamara said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Ben C said:

On 2007-01-20, [email hidden]
<[email hidden]> wrote:
> dustoyevsky snipes anonymously:
>
>>> The Wankel is dead!
>
>> I looked for some sales figures; this is the first thing I
>> found: "As of March 31, 2005, 114,444 RX-8 models had been sold
>> worldwide since introduction."
>
>> That's not very dead.
>
> As I said, the motor has no benefits, only drawbacks and that's
> why no one else is using them. They are curiosities that don't
> perform well. I'm curious how many miles tey get before
> requireing engine rebuild?

My 1988 model did 120,000 miles on the original engine. About 80k
was the anecdotal average, depending on how you used it and how
often you changed the oil. That was 1988 though, I expect the new
ones are better.

By comparison, I except 300,000 miles on my 1990 Volvo 240 before I
will need to rebuild the engine. I currently have 170,000 miles on
it.

170K is not that surprising for a well looked-after car, but 300K
will be good.

Not really all that unusual with the Volvo B230 engine. 250K is pretty
standard.

Quoted message said:

The problem is though that everything else on the car is going to
start failing and the body will rust (unless you live in California,
where it is said that even British cars don't rust).

As you say, it's more likely that the useful life of the engine will be
limited by the chassis and rust issues, although volvo 240s are better
than average in that regard. Here in Minnesota it's hard to go a city
block without seeing at least one Volvo 240 still in good shape and in
daily service, despite the last ones being built in 1993. Swedish
bricks indeed! One of the last cars readily amendable to shade tree
mechanics.

Quoted message said:

It works for bikes to replace each thing when it's worn out and keep
the bike running for ever, since there are relatively few components.
It's not as easy or economical to do that with cars. Still, it's
laudable to attempt it.

Bikes are much easier to keep going because they are so simple. If you
buy a decent quality bike and have a modicum of mechanical savvy, it
should last you for decades of daily use.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Chris Neary said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Actually the sources can be pinpointed pretty well. Certainly
there are lots of sources, but the lion's share of air pollution
is from motor vehicles.

Given that air and air pollution are globally distributed and do not
keep pollutants segregated, it is impossible to pinpoint sources in
a practical way. "Hmm, that smells like pollution from a 1978 Chevy
Caprice" is not really a doable proposition.

In th e U.S. at least, it's very practical to estimate what portion
of the overall pollution is from that 1978 Chevy Caprice.

Really? Please demonstrate.