Dyna - Steam power question

You have a company over there that makes a steam engine retrofit for cars back to a 1963 Ford Falcon. Could you find out how much they cost, please? I like the rearend ratio: 1.5:1 and no transmission.



http://www.pritchardpower.com/Image of a Pritchard Unit in an Austomotive Application.html

Here's the company's link:
http://www.pritchardpower.com/

And it's other applications and fuel sources:
http://www.pritchardpower.com/Other Alternatives.html

These Time Magazine articles got me thinking that we're headed for more fuel craziness, and I'd like to be ahead of any restrictions on retrofits that our government is planning.

August 20, 2008
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1834265,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom

November 13, 2008
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1858684-1,00.html
Check out this site's links under the Miscellaneous menu. Seems you guys have more interest, even though we are the most wasteful in Canada.

 

Sorry but I live in the UK not Australia or am I getting something wrong here??

Cheers Dyna

PS: Looks cool but I didn't look to close..

 

Why did I think you were from the land downunder? Mea culpa, and thanks anyway.

 

Maybe because both UK and Australia drives on the wrong side of the road

Cheers Dyna

 

That or your accent?

 

I was wrong. Canada is looking at steam powered vehicles! wow!
http://www.iaasp.org/news.htm

You go further down that page and they list a whole slew of companies making retrofits! hmmm. Our winters are long and cold. Good time to ponder and plan.

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_steam

http://www.steampower.com/featured.html

 

I dunno but call me stupid, why isn't it so that nobody has looked into harnessing the excess heat generated by a gasoline engine. Instead of having auxiliary stuff to drive such as alternator, AC pump etc why could those not be powered by steam generated from the heat of the engine. It would be a significant saving from driving it the mechanical power of the engine it self..

Cheers Dyna

 

Hmm like accent of Charlie Chaplin in his famous silent movies.....

Dyna

 

Actually there has been some work done by BMW on heat recovery. Wankel did some too. It hasn't stopped completely, but it doesn't seem as cost effective as adopting newer systems like Steam. This Aussie magazine has a great article search box, but here's an article of old, modern and future steam engines:

http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/A_2571/article.html

From that article, I just typed in 'heat recovery' and have a look:
http://www.autospeed.com.au/cms/search/index.html?keywords=heat+recovery&x=23&y=3

 

You're keyboard click-clack is a definite giveaway.

 

Well, there. I wrote to the founder's daughter - company director at Pritchard. One Quebec company has a steam turbine system, more like a 4-facetted wankel system, and they want almost $9,000 for a 5 litre steam motor, but you'd have to add the whole power train transplant to that.

I figure it's worth it, even up to $10,000 to swap over. Cost of a new hybrid is over $40,000 and still wouldn't be as efficient as the steam-powered car.

Can't use a hydrogen-powered car in temperatures below -30C, anyway.

Here, you can plug in the block heater at any mall, so the water tanks would never freeze solid.

The best deal is that you'd want the 'over-heating' light to go on.

Imagine running around with a 1" exhaust pipe for a 2 cylinder motor. pftt, pftt, pftt. I could run steam stacks up the through the fenders, like a 1939 Cord Excalibur. Yes!

I'll bet the gas milaege on a 2 cylinder engine is way over 100 MPG too.

The 6 is only an 85 HP engine. The 302 V8 was 135 HP, so a 75 KW Steam engine would be closer to the 302.

Well, I'll post when she writes back. Meanwhile, its just day-dreaming.

 

Just found a picture of their engine in a crate:


You'll have to look at the diagram I posted at the beginning of the thread to recognize the components, but here's where I found this picture:

http://www.industriesforafrica.com/pritchard.html

 

Recovering energy from heat is not really effective as heat is a low form of energy. Steam engines have the massive advantage that they have torque from 0 rpm, which makes the need for idle rpm completely disappear!
Big problem is that the effectiveness from a combustion engine can be significantly higher if the temperatures are raised. And they actually did, when new materials were available. I even heard that the optium air/fuel ratio of 1:13.8 (or something like that) could be increased when using pre-vapourised gasoline and much higher temps to a stunning 1:5000 orso!!! What about that for fuel savings. There was even an Opel Caravan (yes, the base was a wagon!!!!) that ran something like 380 mpg with this principle. Here is the link:
http://www.nextautos.com/buy-it-now-the-376-mpg-1959-opel?gid=11357&nid=28606

 

I read the one comment about how they drove it. yuk.

I think there are grants available here in Canada for doing this Steam engine transplant, if only so they can 'study' it. Since I'm in one of the coldest regions, they'd take great interest in 'studying' it. But I won't enquire until I can get a handle on the costs to complete.

Make it powerful enough, and we just might be able to prove that we can build a better mousetrap for our Northern regions.

Let's see where it goes. The adventure begins...

 

Senri, this is an amazing thread on steam-powered retrofits for cars.
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/9/2/7215/19732