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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
  2. balthazar
  3. balthazar
    Questions is, who's surviving on EVs now?
  4. balthazar
    Using old vehicles as parts cars IS recycling! Want to make a vehicular-based difference? Advocate for less plastic and more metals in future vehicles. Just saw a piece today that said a AAA study showed that plastic headlights begin to deteriorate as soon as 3 years from new.
  5. balthazar
    ^ That can't be a logo. Way too generic. They could take from the Volt and make an angle of the 'M' into a lightning bolt that overlaps the GM 'box'. Yer welcome, GM. PM me to find out my PayPal addy.
  6. balthazar
    There are a number of other brands and materials that are far more cost-effective than Dynomat, which is hugely overpriced, IMO. I did the floor/ firewall/ rear bulkhead on my B-59 with a heavy foil-faced butyl rubber product and it cost me less than $50. I am looking for something to do the roof, and haven’t done the doors yet. EDIT: same stuff is now $33/roll and I used 3 rolls, but I bought it a number of years ago and then I believe it was 18-20/ roll.
  7. balthazar
    Grand dame ~
  8. balthazar
    And of course that’s your prerogative. Most people don’t want/know how to work on vehicles.
  9. balthazar
    If one happened to live in an area where they thought they could get away with ludicrous mode launches without getting nailed, I suppose. Seen plenty of videos of teslas on the drag strip, tho, but there they’re limited to what Tesla built. Drag racing a factory stock car always struck me as pointless. Point of my answer was, you could build a markedly faster Model S if you went IC. If that was important to you.
  10. balthazar
    I don't believe it's the motors as much as it is the batteries. Unfortunately for competition; the EV packages are the antithesis of competition - they are HEAVY. Model S is 5000 lbs and it's not really that quick. 100 lbs = 1/10th of a sec in the quarter mile. Giving it more power/batteries just makes it heavier, not lighter.
  11. balthazar
    Pffft- it could go faster. 'Making sense' is seldom part of radical re-engineering automotive projects. That's not the goal. My brother is getting I think his 4th engine HE put into his Firebird finished up, and it was a fine running & looking 400CI powered car when he bought it. I drove it and it would burn the tires off (too small/street tires). It hasn't been street legal since I think the 1st engine replacement, but he keeps re-doing & re-doing it. His prerogative, but basically it's driven by wanting to go faster. Engine 3 was already way faster than a Model S in Ludicrious; best (lightly modified) time I've seen was 10.41 sec and he was already at 9.6. New mill should be good for right around 7.9-8.0, which would equal the verified world's fastest EV doorslammer. Top EV performance is light years behind top IC performance. And an IC competition engine can still be torn down/rebuilt faster than it takes a Model S to fully charge & bring the batteries up to ideal temp for Ludicrious Mode launches.
  12. balthazar
    Nash metropolitan: wheelbase : 85". Original weight : 1800 lbs. Nothing there structurally could handle even 150 HP, never mind the possible 800 this might have. Basically you hang the Nash sheetmetal and interior on everything else custom.
  13. balthazar
    Sure; that and much harder automotive projects have been successfully executed before. If one can 'EV' an IC vehicle, the reverse is just as possible. Don't need a 'truck chassis'; people are custom building frames all the time. The back half of my B-59 (and the suspension) was scratch-built. I know one guy (via the 'net) who put a B-59 on a '77 Cadillac chassis- nothing there remotely lines up and the wheelbase is wrong. All the body mount locations & number are different. He waved all that work off, and really had no answer as to what he gained by doing so. People with tools get ideas and make it work.
  14. balthazar
    Of course major surgery is required. I knew a guy who put a 426 Hemi in a Dodge Omni. Numerous people have put a blown big block Chevy in a Nash Metro. You guys forget that torches, grinders and welders aren’t just for angry peasants.
  15. balthazar
    Fit in a Grand Prix, it certainly could fit in a larger Model S.
  16. balthazar
    Someone interested in the car hobby could always re-power an obsolete EV as IC. Someone built an LS-powered Model S already. ?
  17. balthazar
    First price I ever heard, back when the Rivian pickup concept debuted over a year ago, was $69,500. Announcing 'the price will be lower' had better mean a tangible amount more than a mere $500.
  18. balthazar
    Further adding to my dismay at the short lifespan of so-called "sustainable energy source" wind turbines was learning that there are already 'wind turbine junkyards".
  19. balthazar
    Depends on the pricing. Initial sales will likely be good, but once the ‘one-uppers’ get theirs, sales will fall off. Right now, it’s a high-priced entry and the volume is going to stay low.
  20. balthazar
    Was in Flicksville PA today, I'll be generous and call it 'painfully rural'. Not that I don't like that, but where to even get a pizza. I didn't take this pic in/of Flicksville (tho I did drive down this road); I stole it from.... Flickr.
  21. balthazar
    ^ there are some numbers / facts worth consideration. Oils, greases and petrochemicals are required to build a wind turbine, a 2 MW unit costs 3-4 million & only lasts 20 yrs (with 3 gearbox changes along the way). Any discussion of efficiency must also take into account base costs and longevity. There’s a hydro-electric turbine that at least circa 1990 was using the same main bearing installed circa 1902. I believe the turbine was of mega-tonnage. Sorry I don’t recall the details, but it may very be still running. It was a major disappointment for me to learn a modern, new millennium turbine, that turns so incredibly slowly, isn’t built to last 75-100 years. That’s unquestionably, an inefficiency.
  22. balthazar
    Any component can be made to any level of quality/longevity, but all else 'being equal' ; mechanical should outlast multi-component electronics every time. Permanently sealed/lubricated pivot points are not going to get contaminated/corroded or fail before electronics- which don't seem to ever meet 'military grade spec' for longevity; that's not a basis the military really designs on.
  23. balthazar
    Yes- centrally-located clusters were quite commonplace in the early years.
  24. balthazar
    Owner made the 'Pontiac' trunk emblem light up- it never did that from the factory. Cool :
  25. balthazar
    ^ Unfortunately and inconsistent with the "less moving parts" mantra of EV proponents is the 'by wire' approach needlessly complicates and ADDS numerous components and points of potential failure. I realize these systems exist on more & more IC vehicles, but my point is the complexity & longevity questions. Still rocking the factory original mechanical throttle linkage on my 80-yr old truck, and I had to do nothing to it to have it working smoothly & linearly (it's also rather lengthy, as it crosses over to the pass side of the "throttle body", and is routed around the front of the engine).
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