Ace-Garageguy

Everything.

Just google "styrene sheet". Then google "diamond plate sheet styrene". Prepare to be amazed. Sources abound.

CNG is most efficiently refueled at home, using one of the commercially available compressors hooked to the ol' house gas line. FuelMaker, among others, has had the technology done since the mid 1990s. An engine optimized to run CNG (higher compression, more ignition advance, etc) makes comparable power for its displacement to a gasoline-fueled engine, with competitive mileage. CNG is cheaper than gasoline, so it's ultimately cost-effective. CNG does not cause wash-down of lubricants from the cylinder walls, and so does also not cause oil-dilution over time. CNG fueled engines using synthetic lubricating oils last much longer than gasoline-fueled equivalents. Converting an existing vehicle is MUCH cheaper than purchasing a new hybrid or plug-in electric. "Conformable" fuel tanks made from composite materials solve many of the old-fashioned perceptions of the CNG tankage being heavy and bulky. Again, much information accepted and / or readily available to the public is usually incomplete, inaccurate, or just wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hydrogen as a fuel for internal-combustion vehicles is even better than CNG. An optimized hydrogen IC engine today makes MORE power than its gasoline-burning equivalent, and hydrogen is relatively easily produced from WATER using simple solar PV (photovoltaic) electricity generation for hydrolysis. When burned, it produces zero emissions and is infinitely recycled (the exhaust is water vapor...think about it...). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Using corn feedstocks to make ethanol fuels dates at least back to the '30s depression days...done then as a way to supplement struggling farmers' incomes. Biggest problem with corn ethanol seems to be that it takes considerably more energy to produce it than is recovered when it's burned as a vehicle fuel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alt fuel tech has been politicized, obfuscated, spun and just plain lied about for so long, by so many...kinda like global warming. Lotsa media "experts", few readily available pure facts. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " ... It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. ..." - Voltaire

Agreed 100%. I unfortunately lumped the plethora of "ill-informed goofs" in with "journalists". BUT, there is such a dearth of critical-thinking in today's world that many many people believe anything they read on the web, in magazines, hear on the "news", whatever. Instant experts.The web and electronic media distribution have made CORRECT information much more widely and QUICKLY available than ever before, but human laziness and herd-think have wholeheartedly accepted the veracity of massive amounts of just-plain-wrong-krap (via electronic media) as gospel. And I HAVE encountered a fair amount of WRONG information in printed media, even within my collection of vintage Hot Rod and related mags starting in the late 1940s. Thing is, had I read that krap back then, not having many many years of real-world experience, I would have accepted it as gospel too. But there's just so much MORE krap out there in digital-land today, it's going to be pretty hard for non-experts to distinguish fact from garbage...if anybody even cares what is "fact".

It's been my experience that conversations sometimes digress into related but not exactly specifically-the-same areas. The point is, I think, that the public and industry just seem to have a lot of mis-conceptions regarding what's SMART to do...what actually makes SENSE and makes cars BETTER...as opposed to more un-necessary whiz-bangie BS that is ill-advised at best, and vulnerable to hacking, unforeseen computer bugs and viruses, etc. If your desktop computers all had histories of being 100% reliable with NO bugs, NO unforeseen back-door vulnerabilities, and NO out-of-the-blue crashes...EVER...then I'd think the "driverless car" might be a good idea. That's simply NOT the case. Commercial aircraft have triple-redundancy on flight-critical systems, and they STILL sometimes crash. A "robot or AI driver" of a surface vehicle is going to live in a much more demanding environment than an aircraft system, and will be required to interact much more rapidly with many more other objects than any aircraft. And unless ALL the vehicles within the "driverless" car's environment are AI controlled and linked, the individual onboard system will be required to also interpret and react instantaneously to the random dumbness of other HUMAN drivers, and the possible software / hardware malfunctions of other vehicles. This is a tall order for human-brain processing. It's a VERY VERY tall order for machine intelligence. THINK about it. This isn't resistance to "progress". It's resistance to stupid. If your computer or smartphone crashes, so what? But if an onboard AI vehicle-control system fails, people die horribly.

Well, with fewer and fewer people seeming to be able to actually read and comprehend what they're reading, it's no wonder mags are going away. Why not just deliver abbreviated moron-content via text message or some other idiot app, and be done with it ? Worthwhile "hard" content has been shrinking for years, and most mags are mostly "gee whiz lookit that!!" with little to no technical value, or advertising disguised as "how to" articles. The guys who actually DO something with cars will still figure it out, print mags or not. I seriously believe journalists held themselves to a higher standard back in the days when their words were actually typeset. There is just SO MUCH WRONG INFORMATION being pumped out digitally by folks who either don't know or don't care enough to get it right, it's appalling to anyone who knows the real deal AND pays attention.

Man, I need at least one of those every morning just to be sure I'm still alive.

Exactly. And this is SPECIFICALLY WHY I joined the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition back in 1995, to try to lobby for and advocate the switch to natural gas as a vehicle fuel. Cars as we know them will run happily AND CLEANER on the stuff, conversion of existing vehicles is fairly cost-effective (much cheaper than replacing the vehicle fleet with hybrids or all-electrics), most of the infrastructure is already in place to deliver it (you can refuel overnight AT HOME), and we're floating on vase reserves of it...cheaper by far than gasoline. BUT the short-sighted profit-now-damm-the-future electric utilities are burning it to generate electricity, rather than developing clean-coal tech. There's just nobody with any brains driving the energy-efficiency bus, and we're ALL going to pay the price for stupidity and poor long-range planning on the part of our "leaders" and energy-providers.

see next post...

It would most likely require an entire re-think of assessing liability, and would become a legal battle between manufacturers of the software or hardware failure blamed after a thorough investigation of a particular crash scenario.

As has been mentioned earlier on this thread, the idea of an "autonomous vehicle" (driverless or self-driving car) has been an engineering dream for a long time. GM's Firebird II investigated some fairly stone-age technical solutions over 50 years ago. It hasn't been until the fairly recent evolution of massive computing power in small packages, and absolutely reliable navigational systems like GPS that the dream had any hope of becoming operational reality. Much of the current work is built on the results of several DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ) projects. Here's a little background and links to more actual information (as opposed to opinion), should anyone want to be better informed of the reality of the research into the technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car

Putting millions of moron drivers in things that fly probably isn't a really good idea. It's hard enough to find a very competent private pilot already.

All polymer-based products have a shelf-life, and your poor performance could be due to chemical breakdown of the constituents over time. There's a reason why we have to scrupulously watch the expiration dates on aircraft epoxies. Inaccurate mixing can also contribute to disappointing performance of epoxies, so watch your mix ratios carefully.

The resin kit you've got up there has a ton of issues, like being sectioned more at the front than the rear of the lower body shell, a significant top-chop, the hood's WAY too short, the front and rear fenders are all wrong...etc. Getting that mess corrected to match the very nice proportions of the real one would be only marginally less work that scratch-building an entire car.

You understand perfectly. But let's face it. To most "drivers", driving is just another one of life's petty but necessary annoyances that takes time away from watching the Kardashians or Bieber, or yagging / texting on the cell phone about some stupid inconsequential BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. Well-engineered machines are vastly more competent than the average human at a variety of tasks already, and a correctly-functioning "driverless" car would most likely be a far better-controlled vehicle than the majority of those on the roads at any given moment now. Every time I'm on the interstate, or even just driving my little 4 miles to work, I'm amazed that there are only the paltry number of vehicle-related fatalities that occur annually (paltry compared to the number of vehicle-miles driven in the USA). EVERY excursion beyond my driveway invariably requires me to compensate for some inattentive, distracted or just plain incompetent fool who shouldn't be operating ANY machine, much less one that weighs 2500 lbs, can travel in excess of 120mph, and is loaded with at least 10 or 15 gallons of highly flammable and potentially explosive liquid fuel. The trick will be getting the engineering right the first time, and making it fail-safe and hacker-proof. Good luck with that.

Yeah brother, exactly. In the recent Snowgeddon in Atlanta, as you said, all the vehicles in the ditches, on their roofs, and stuck abandoned by the side of the roads were newer, "safe" vehicles that had all sorts of spiffy traction control devices...but no actual traction on ice because they had neither studs nor chains. Still, their oblivious-to-physics drivers were passing me like i was stopped...until I'd pass them a little farther down the road, where they'd spun around and were often facing backwards, or with their stunned and surprised "drivers" hanging helplessly from the seatbelts with the wheels spinning uselessly in the air. Not a lot of traction to control when you're upside-down. Yup.

Really nice. I still loved drag racing when cars like these were running, and you've done a fine job of capturing the era in scale.

You have to think of "tomorrow" with the same kind of conceptual elasticity that the PO uses when promising "next day" or "2-day" delivery.

Enough said.

Ah yes, a man after my own heart.

It depends entirely on the epoxy, and not all are created equal...or anywhere close to equal. I use out-of-date MSG 285 resin made for real aircraft, because it can no longer be used legally on planes, but it works fine...exceptionally well...for models (and I get free surplus). MSG 285 takes 24 hours for a full cure, must be mixed on a gram scale, and must also be "post-cured" at elevated temperatures to develop full strength. I also use West-System 105, which isn't as persnickety about measuring, and cures to sand in about 8 hours. It works VERY well as a base for microballoon fillers. Many 1:1 and RC aircraft guys use it. Because I'm rarely in a hurry building, and have lots of other projects to work on while one cures, these extended times work for me. Experiment with the material you choose, make notes as you go, and figure out what works best for you.

Looks very realistic, and really transforms that particular engine. Nice job.

A little more info...the TR3650 is apparently being used in race-cars with 500-600 ft/lbs of engine torque with no ill effects on the gearbox. The 360 ft/lb rating is a conservative factory number to satisfy the lawyers. So if you're building some high-output monster model, there ya' go. Remember though that nothing will withstand constant abuse like clutch-dumping. Also, the post-2004 "remote shifter" version uses a different case and tailshaft-housing casting, with a shift rail coming out the back, rather than a hole for the mixing lever on top. Shifter end of the factory 2005 and later "remote-shifter" style. Part of the linkage is supported by the body. Aftermarket shifters tighten up the linkage and offer better action.

These are thick fills done with epoxy / micro. Let's see you do this with super glue / baking soda, or just straight epoxy. It sands very well because it's relatively soft, but it also adheres to the substrate much better than bondo (but it takes longer to cure). It also doesn't shrink. A thin-bodied 2-part polyester filler like Bondo Professional glazing putty is helpful to put the final touches on the surface after the rough sculpture is done in epoxy / micro. The result, with a simulated bare-metal finish.