92 mpg and 0-60 in under 5 sec

[shawnlee28]

http://videos.streetfire.net/categor...3600d36841.htm
http://www.fuelvaporcar.com/

[viking]

Long overdue.

[Oldf100fordman]

Man, that looks like it would be a fun vehicle.

[Irelands child]

Nice - but it so far sounds like another 75 mpg Fish Carb to me though - especially since it has what looks like a conventional 4 cyl engine.

[Bob Parmenter]

Interesting stuff, but the vague description sounded kinda familiar. Hopefully nobody here is attracted by their call for investors at a seemingly low $5100 minimum investment thinking that it's a chance to get rich. (Hint; there's a LOT of private equity money out there looking for legitimate opportunities along these lines, so much so that no viable opportunity would have to seek low threshold private funding)

Dave, your instincts are pretty good. Their site states it's a turbo charged Honda engine, so their system is adaptive rather than a revolutionary new powerplant design. They don't give many specifics about the thoroughness of their testing (which wouldn't give away any secrets, it would just validate their methodology) for mileage. Was this a one time number, from a down hill test, with a tailwind, the tires pumped up to 75 psi, and so on? Or was it in real world driving conditions? When they don't brag about it, there's usually more to the story.

The concept of vaporization before combustion is not new. I did one quick data search without refining the search criteria and came up with this; http://www.google.com/search?q=vapor...e=utf8&oe=utf8
You'll see there are several patents already existing for the concept. Based on some of the numbers, the ones for carbureted engines are fairly old. Sure, it's possible that these guys have a new "twist" on the concept, but are they credible?

If you read their "resumes" on their site you'll note that each of the principals have "day jobs". If they were nearing a successful, revolutionary breakthrough technology, they'd be way too busy to be operating other businesses, or they'd have a huge team that they "merely" managed. Hyped resumes aren't a surprise, but how blatantly they're hyped might be revealing. The guy responsible for business operations must be the most efficient business operator in existance. He claims to have three businesses employing "over 90 people", with gross revenues of "3 million dollars". Hmmmmm. Let's see...............that means that if his business is a fairly typical service sector business about 45% of his expeses are in labor. That means his average employee cost (wages, benefits, the whole enchilada) is only around $13,000 a year per employee. They must all be illegal immigrants I guess.
There's probably a lot more, but there's only so much time in a day.

Hey, this could be something new and nifty, but it doesn't have the right vibe to me.

[shawnlee28]

This is just some old boy in his garage,doing this who works a day job,only employees are contracted out machining and helper than runs on beer. j/k I dont know....

If you sold oil and collected taxes per gallon would you put all your effort into promoting it?This car represents a 2/3 cut in profits for anyone assocciated with oil,drilling ,refinement,shipping,gas stations....etc.
There are tons of state highway tax colleted on a per gallon basis,the gas station only makes pennies on the gallon and is sustained from soda and candy bar sales,major impact there?
Actually cracking the gas in the car itself is nothing new as Bob pointed out and has successfully been done,but where is it at?
Technologies such as this represent a major impact to investors and companies,they have to go thru a federal approval standards and thats where the big companies and lobbiests come into play.........
Hypothetically if I had 400,000 invested in oil type companies I would be against this car being promoted simply on the fact that it would affect investments,thats me on a individual basis,how much more of a impact would it have on major investors or groups,technologies like this are like shooting your own foot if you have investments this field.
Does this car actually get the mpg quoted ????????????
On the other hand ,it may make gas more exspensive therefore bringing in more profit,at 8 bucks a gallon and 92 mpg its still cheaper than current price per mile at 30 or 25 mpg,I dunno?????
I also recall a dune buggy that ran on water that was in the news about 15 years ago,he was producing hydrogen on board usuing water,maybe he sold out and its just now hitting the market as hydrogen you buy per gallon,rather than adding water directly to the tank.Think about what effect filling the car with the garden hose would have on America.......same tech ,just selling it to you by the gallon or pound ....to keep this mess moving along....I understand the big picture that there is more to it than money .What would happen if everyone started using this new technology overnight,.....there would be 10 million people unemployed the next day and that would be worse than paying 5 dollars a gallon at the pump.......It would bring society to a halt or a drastic change to say the least.Even revolutionary technology has to be introduced slowly or the effect is worse than no technology.Theres alot of people right now on the planet and they all have to work or the economy ceases,what are we going to do when technology advances far enuff that 50 percent of the world is not working???? The reprocutions of a 92 mpg car are deep reaching and have effects that go far beyond just the auto /oil industry.

[Bob Parmenter]

Keep in mind that there are pilot programs in effect right now that have readers installed at the pump to read the database on your car to log miles driven. The point? States and Feds have already realized that higher fuel economy cars might use fewer gallons of gasoline, thus impacting current forms of tax collection. The tax rationale becomes miles of roads used, not gallons of fuel. Don't ever underestimate the power and speed with which tax policy can be changed to benefit the politicos (and on occasion us).

If you were a significant investor (not exactly what $400,000 is, multiply that by 10 and you'd be closer to realistic) in current petroleum based fueling what your position represents is a drop in the bucket financially compared to market demand, especially for a "quick" (and real) 92 mpg solution. Market demand is for inexpensive energy/consumption. Even at today's higher (than a few years ago) costs, on average, energy cost for the "average" U.S. family runs somewhere between 4 and 7 % of annual income depending on who's doing the data crunch and what weighting factors they use. That compares with nearly double that for the mid 1960's, which would partly explain why folks aren't seriously cutting back on their useage, because, even if they can't vocalize it, they see/feel the overall economic benefit to themselves. (yes, back to my bandaids vs gasoline value assessment) I know, the dedicated negativists don't believe that, so call me a liar or an idiot, but I'll stick with the reality of the marketplace.

If water became the raw material for our energy needs tomorrow the price of water would skyrocket the next day. Why? Because there's no free lunch. Where's the water going to come from? Your municipal system? Let's say they'd have to double (probably unrealistically low) throughput. A) they'd have to scale up to do that (meaning extra expense), B) like any other "business", when demand accelerates dramatically prices rise (the theory of supply and demand endures for a reason). And where do they get the water? Whether they have to drill more wells, build more dams, desalinate seawater (good luck getting the Kennedy's to go along with one of those off the coast of Mass.), or build new reservoirs to collect rain water, there's going to be huge capital investment that will be repaid by the consumer. And if they can't secure enough water, then we get rationing.......................yeah, there's a neat solution to our energy needs.

You're right and wise to realize that no change in technology occurs overnight. But even if it did, most of those displaced in dropping the old technology would likely migrate to supporting whatever the new techology is. Well...................unless the new technology is magic pixie dust.

[shawnlee28]

I agree 100 percent,
No matter whats presented to us, it seems theres a little sprinkle to a whole mountain of pixie dust getting thrown in.....We hear of the new energy sources or better stated substitutes for oil ,but rarely are they backed up with complete tests revealing the actual data or how the tests were performed,leaving us with little actual hard data, only that it seems logical to work based on sound principals.
I believe there is no free lunch,if it ran on air there would be some sort of meter or a base charge for consuming it.
Other than small changes in fuel or engines,the only new tech is hybrids and that just uses existing tech.

[Dave Severson]

Nothing new there. Right up there with the "top secret" carburator that makes a car get 60 MPG, let's see, story has it GM bought the patent..... Just another scam. If it were that easy, Gale Banks, Kinsler, Gaerte, Hillborn, Enderle or any of the high tech fuel injection/turbocharging technology companies with rooms full of engineers would have had it on the market years ago...

I suppose the conspiracy theory crowd will buy into the plan... Not me. Though I did manage to buy a few more shares in one of the local ethenol plants....

[shawnlee28]

Well believe it or not ,its a real car and the stats currently posted are on the pixie dust vapor It only gets 70 miles to the gallon on the stock turbo 1.5 honda engine.
SEMA footage.
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/c...8f00c30598.htm
speed channel interview
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/2...8f00bbc0b5.htm
Street fire interview
http://videos.streetfire.net/video/1...7f013a6cb6.htm
http://news.windingroad.com/auto-new...ale-prototype/
http://www.vtec.net/news/news-item?news_item_id=631588
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/11/01/s...otive-x-prize/
http://horsepowersports.com/fuel-vap...s-180hp-92mpg/
Press release
http://www.fuelvaporcar.com/Press_Release.pdf
If this is conspiracy they are setting themselves up for mega shame and will never bother the world again.
I think they were smart and hid it untill now,I know I would not have told the world untill it was ready to drive.

Its been at SEMA,probably hid in the back from the crowd,two guys garage,countless other publications and is going to compete in the worlds most effecient production car contest,after all the aftermarkett has surpased this already and is not allowed to compete in the competition.

http://www.fuelvaporcar.com/html/news.html
The investment oppertunity is on the fuel vapor pixie dust technology,not the actuall car itself.Its set to do a limited run untill 2012 ,then supposedly goes into full production,unless something happens between now and then.
Only problem I see is thats its a one seater, and has not been approved in the us.
They are using almost all production parts for other cars,so reliability in that area is covered.Right now weight ,areodynamics and engine size is whats giving it the fuel effeciency,not the pixie dust.
They have driven the snot out of it and everyones happy soo far,1.7 gs in the corner on stock street tires sounds good to me,12.9 in the 1/4 even.I am sure once one begins to romp it hard the gas mileage goes wayyyyyyy down from the 70 mpg,probably more like 20 mpg unless on flat ground at 55 mph with pixie dust injected to get the 92mpg.

[Supa Roosta]

I did a little research on the tax we (here in Michigan) pay per gallon based on the current average of $.3.69 per gallon.

State Sales Tax = $ .21
State Fuel Tax = $ .352
State Environmental Regulation Fee = $ .875
So, it is safe to say that for each gallon of gas, we are actually funding the State $1.437 in taxes - that is 39% of our gas prices!

[Lord Antagonism]

Smokey Yunick was doing the same thing in 1983

http://bankspower.com/tech_coolair.cfm

The mention of Smokey's work is in the last paragraph

[shawnlee28]

Heres the quote
Now comes the really interesting part of this article that raises all the questions. Twenty years ago, the late, great racing mechanic and inventor Henry “Smokey” Yunick left the automotive engineers shaking their heads when he invented and patented his hot vapor engine. Based on the familiar four-cycle piston engine concept, instead of cooling the intake air to improve efficiency, he used coolant heat and exhaust waste heat to significantly warm the intake air. The purpose was to fully vaporize the fuel and to make the intake air expand in the intake system to generate positive pressure, like a supercharger. A small turbocharger was used as a “mixer” and as a check valve to prevent the expanding intake air from backflowing out of the intake system. With the heated, pressurized, homogenous mixture, the engine ran at air/fuel ratios considered impossibly lean, such as 22:1, on pump gasoline. The hot vapor engine made incredible power and was highly efficient, responsive, surprisingly emissions clean, and delivered fuel economy of 45-50 MPG in a compact car, and it did it all without computers, smog pumps or catalytic converters. Although initially denounced by the automotive world as a hoax, several prominent SAE engineers later published papers validating Smokey’s theories and design. It was no hoax to Smokey. He considered it his greatest achievement. However, the automotive giants had their own designs for increasing fuel economy and controlling emissions, and Smokey’s simple and cost-efficient engine package was ignored. Today, Smokey’s designs are buried somewhere in the U.S. Patent Office (www.uspto.gov, patent numbers: 4,503,833; 4,592,329; 4,637,365; 4,862,859) awaiting someone to take this technology to the next level. So just when you think you know the rules of how things work, somebody comes along and breaks the rules. It’s only fitting that it was Smokey Yunick.

[Chrislee13]

tax man commeth, tax man taketh.........

[mopar34]

Actually I like the looks of the vehicle regardless of whether or not it gets 92 mpg. Years ago when I was more into bikes than cars there was a manufacturer out of the Northwest that was building fully enclosed three wheelers (two passenger) using the Honda GL 1000 engine (100HP) and selling them for about $11K. I beliieve the MPG rating was about 45 mpg which was about the same as either of my two Wings. Because both my Honda Civic and my Gold Wings got the same or better gas mileage as the three wheeler I never pursued the notion of getting one.

Of course now, at my age, when I retire, I plan on building either a 27 Track T or a 32 roadster and that will become my daily driver. Not going to worry about MPG because I will only hit the local cruise scene mainly because by that time I will be as old or older than dirt ) Hopefully by then I will be in central Florida so I won't have to worry about getting a top for either one.