The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

Enhanced Recovery Means More Oil

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The Department of Energy released reports indicating the effect enhanced recovery techniques are having on recoverable oil reserves. With all of the hand wringing going on and predictions of "peak oil" doom, these reports don't get a lot of publicity, but they should. Our current proven reserves of 21.4 billion barrels could be increased by another 89 billion barrels, that's … [Read more...]

Scuderi Split Cycle Engine – again

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A few recent articles popped up about the Scuderi Split Cycle engine. The reason for the latest interest is because of the funding they recently received of around $8 million dollars, including $1.2 million from the Department of Defense. They also say they are going to show their technology to the SAE next month. The Scuderi Split Cycle engine periodically shows up in the … [Read more...]

Smartuki Kits Now Available

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The very popular Smartuki is now available in kit form. The Smartuki, as you'll recall, is the GSX-R powered Smart car originally built by Z Cars for Peter Bee. Although the Smartuki was an incredible little beast, Z Cars didn't have the time to turn out a kit and sold the whole project to Bill Allen. Allen, who was involved in building the original Smartuki, took the time to … [Read more...]

Pivotal piston water cooled two stroke engine

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Pivotal Engineering of Christchurch, New Zealand has designed and built a new two stroke engine. The pivotal engine utilizes a pivoting wedge shaped piston that pivots on a shaft while the driving force is transferred by a connecting rod from the bottom of the piston to the crankshaft. The piston itself is directly cooled by water which circulates through the piston from the … [Read more...]

Hubless Mini Chopper

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Spotted this bike on the AMA site among the Daytona bike week photos and I think it illustrates very nicely what I meant when I said mini choppers are a great way to learn about motorcycle building. Brandon Baughman, 17 years old, is starting his own company and one of the first few bikes he's built is this mini chopper with a Honda 18 horsepower engine and a friction driven … [Read more...]