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The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

High performance alternative engines

By Paul Crowe

Roger Hedlund's Battery Box SpeedsterThere are a growing number of workshop projects dedicated to increasing the performance of alternative engines popping up all over. Some things, like the huge increase in diesel performance mods, biodiesel dragsters, diesel motorcycles and the like, are continuations of work that has been around for years but now we’re seeing hybrid cars and electric cars and motorcycles going the same route.

Whenever new technologies appear, especially when they are very different from what we’ve known, it’s sometimes hard to see the possibilities. Early versions of slow electrics and hybrids start us thinking about the end of performance until someone out in their garage starts to tinker a bit with his hybrid or diesel or electric vehicle and a funny thing happens. You get a performance vehicle with something other than a standard 4 stroke internal combustion engine providing the only power.

Like many of you, I’ve been around cars and motorcycles for a lot of years and seeing this shift take place is sometimes exciting, sometimes astonishing but always interesting. It’s a necessary part of the process, too, because until you get people involved and excited about a technology, you’ll have a hard time winning over a large number of supporters. I don’t think you can rush it, either. Creative ideas flow when someone asks, “What if?” not when a crazed zealot is screaming about your SUV or your reluctance to change your life overnight according to their worldview. (Especially when some zealots are hypocrites.) But with time and technology, it looks like performance will always be around. The competitive nature of human beings and their toolmaking brains will guarantee that.

Posted on September 17, 2005 Filed Under: Alternative thinking, Engines, Workshop & Tools

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Comments

  1. Jason Younker says

    September 18, 2005 at 10:29 am

    Here’s an newsworthy item on a car that I blogged myself fairly recently regarding biodiesel / advanced technology / etc that was actually put together by high school students.

    Alternative Fuels Awareness Organization – blog entry:
    http://www.ie85.com/content/view/23/

    West Philadelphia High School – additonal details:
    http://evteam.gambitdesign.com/gallery/attack_build

    Jason Younker
    Alternative Fuels Awareness Organization
    http://www.iE85.com/

  2. Doug Staab says

    September 18, 2005 at 2:20 pm

    I thought this wasn’t a political site?

    …and I’m not defending Miss Arianna or the Sierra club because the far right faith-based politicians have plenty of hypocrisy & failures.

  3. kneeslider says

    September 18, 2005 at 6:12 pm

    Please reread the post. I never mentioned, defended or promoted far right faith based politicians, … I didn’t, I don’t and I won’t. I pointed to one particular example of a high profile, constant critic of SUV’s who preaches hybrids but doesn’t hold herself to the same standards she demands of you and me, along with the group that sent the SUV and does the same. That example logically followed and directly supported my observations that techies who get hands on time with these technologies can do much to build interest and support for them, far more support and in a much more positive fashion than those who preach environmental sermons. You can gain a lot more adherents to your point of view by showing others an example and saying “Isn’t this cool?” than you ever will by calling them fools … or worse.

  4. Doug says

    September 19, 2005 at 3:06 pm

    I didn’t suggest you supported, promoted, etc. the far-right. I mentioned the conservative jab to counter the reference to a conservative blog that came across out of context.

    One outspoken SUV basher gets a ride in an SUV & its BIG NEWS!!….did she personally buy the SUV, buy the gas for the SUV, pay the SUV insurance, etc.? Nope.

    Did she even specify an SUV to pick her up? probably not.

    Did the media (including bloggers) exploit her ride in an SUV?
    Yes. The media has better things to report & we have better things to read.

    I did re-read the post before commenting and again right now. The post was great until it referenced the link to a somewhat unrelated topic about conservatives tracking an SUV passenger.

    Your point was understood & agreed upon with only: “Creative ideas flow when someone asks ‘What if?’ “.

    I’ll scream about SUV’s, excluding pickups, because they DO affect me.

    In my opinion, there is an argument against SUVs, regardless of their energy source. Their size & tinted back window are just as problematic. An SUV obstructs drivers line of sight almost completely, side-to-side, top-to-bottom when it is immediately in front of you, even when you are sitting atop a motorcycle or in another SUV. Ford Expedition comes to mind. (With most pickups a motorcyclist can see beyond the truck in front of them by looking through the pickup’s rear window & windshield.)

    I would not be surprised if the obstruction created by an SUV is training drivers, especially new drivers, to only look one car ahead of them or behind them because that is all they can see. This is another topic. Nonetheless, the bad habit of a shortened field of vision affects all drivers, particularly motorcyclists.

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