Hybrid Hot Rod, sticking it to the man

I hate whining about gas prices but yesterday it cost me almost $100 to fill up my 52 ford paneltrucks tank.
I'm building a new ride 27 frame, body parts from various makes and years, late 20's stuff mostly. Basic ride, frame, body, motor, no radio, ac and all the other crap.

I was going to use a 302 motor with a C6 trans that I have laying around.
Since gas prices are steep and I drive my old iron everyday I was wondering if anybody knows anything about "alternative" engines I could use. Maybe electric even. What's involved.
I like the idea of sticking it to the man.

 

Funny you mention this. I'd been kicking around a non-traditional engine for a while (and even dreaming of a time in the future when fuel cells could be had in junk yards). I know electric engines have 100% of their available torque at zero RPMs, and can be crazy quick to accellerate. I don't know of any that would be light enough and energy efficient enough to be used in a vehicle, though. What about wheel motors?

Got me day dreaming about cars that aren't made to look like a Model A or a 50s Chevy, but more cobbled together like something of a Pod Racer from Star Wars. Wheels wherever you want 'em. Engine wherever you want to package it. Wire it together and lose as much weight as possible. See you on the salt (?)

 

I think your sticking it more to the man if you use that 302. The man wants you to use a weak electric motor and have that constant humming sound coming from your batteries. He doesnt want you to have power to smoke tires and scare old people.

 

Acctually, from what I hear electric motors kick ass but they are heavy or the batteries at least.
Not having the roaring engine noise would kind of suck.

 

Batteries would kill that small of a car, you need a few of them to go any distance.

 

So it has gone from Traditional Hotrods to Future Hotrods.

Where the Hell is George Jetson when we need him.
(By the way, I get first shot a Judy if she shows up.)

 

If it does not smoke, rattle,burn your eyes,or hurt your ears......Who in the hell would want it???

 

I would go the small cubic inch route. How about a 260ci with progressive
triple carb setup, manual trans , highway gears and tall tires. In a light car this should get good milage while still being traditional. Chevy fans could go with a 265.

 

My plan for sticking it to the man.


Buy a small motorcycle, 70 mpg. Use that for trips.



Build my car as tough and as mean as I want. Save up some money and go out on the town with it every once in a while.


SO what if it costs $500 in a weekend. It will be even crazier when you burn out in front of a bunch of economizers and greenpeaceniks.

 

SCREW THE MAN! Sorry... couldn't resist.

In the interest of contributing to this thread, there are companies that make self contained electric drivetrains that include the batteries, motor, DC converter. The last time I looked, it was about $25K Electric motors can be extremely torquey but I still think there's the age old trade off of speed over range.

 

I don't know shit about electric motors, but I'm about to go from a 10 minute commute to a 80 mile roundtrip commute, and my wife will be sharing my '94 Eldorado for a while(25 MPG freeway) so I was thinkin what kinda car I could get that I would enjoy driving that could potentially get good enough gas mileage for me to drive it every day. I ended up buyin a '66 barracuda a few days ago. Picked it up in sacramento and drove it home to LA, got over 20MPG on the freeway, and thats on regular 87 octane gas with tiny 13" wheels in the back. It's a 273 V8 with the stock 2 barrel, and 727 torqueflight trans, completely stock drivetrain, and I didn't have to settle for a 6 cylinder. Although if you can find a barracuda with a slant 6 I'm sure the mileage would be even better. These motors are bulletproof, would be cool for what yer talkin about, or just buy an early 'cuda like I did, they drive great, and you can make em pretty cool. Theyre unibody, so theyre light, and mine already has a wilwood disc brake kit on it. best of all theyre pretty cheap. found mine on ebay. Also I've seen a dude tooling around in an electric model A coupe around here, everybody used to laugh at him I wonder if they still will, but I always thought it was pretty gay. too quiet, no balls. I'm not down with electricity, but maybe alternative fuels would be something to look into, bio diesel etc.

 

During the first gas 'crisis' in 1973 a guy got some ink cuz he took a 12 volt electric motor, which had been used as a jet engine starter motor and put it in an Opel GT Coupe (Looked like a 73 Corvette) in place of the engine. He kept the manual transmission and added a one cylinder lawnmower engine to power an alternator which kept the battery charged.

As I recall, he was getting 90 miles a gallon.

 

HAHAHA! Right on Dan!
I sold my '66 Barracuda last year w/ a slant six and 4-speed. Had a TON of miles on it but ran great and got close to 30 mpg. Shoulda kept it lookin' back now.

Josh

 

Are there still cities that have buses powered by those overhead DC electric lines? Like in Boston? I want to build a little drag car that is motivated by an electric motor and uses those overhead wires for power and have a drag race late at nite blasting through the city. Would suck if you missed a corner though...

 

http://www.electroauto.com/index.html
This site will tell you a lot. I was going to do it too, but it cost about 10 grand so I said forget it. Good luck maybe you can figure out a cheap work around

 

What you'd need to do is pull all the engines and tranny out of a new Lexus SUV. My brother drives them around for work - says they'll blow your socks off. Lexus isn't trying to get the best fuel mileage out of em (though they still get great mileage.) But they're tuning them for performance.

torque on tap - even at highway speeds - if you stomp on it - it goes like a bat out of hell when hose electric motors kick in

every time you brake it charges the batteries in the car.

not very traditional.

but cool.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Honda-CB-CB750A-1978-Three-3-Wheeled-Honda-Rat-Rod-Bike_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ80647QQitemZ4640588340QQrdZ1

 

You could always put some playing cards in the spokes

 

Now that I would definitely roll in!.....got a 91 CRX as my commuter right now ......cost me $1000.....gets 30mpg......but it's still an f***ing Honda ......someone ought to buy that thing, make it safe at speed, and drop an american made lopey v-twin in it

 

Just rig the 302 to run propane - or run a LPG-fueled Toyota if you really wanna stay away from 'the man'.

http://www.gotpropane.com/p4.html

Here's a 700-hp, twin-turbo, propane-fueled '57 Willys wagon...

http://www.truckworld.com/4x4-OffRoad/96-1957TurboWillys/1957TurboWillys.html

 

Has anyone seen this Reverse Intake Engine or know how it works?
http://cleverlever99.blogspot.com/
Supposedly it runs on Ethanal E85

 

toyota four banger great power lots of parts 30+ mpg and cheap i built a 22r with a 20 head and webers for my mini truck ,for under 600$ and a no frills a got to be light!

 

The Prius has already made it to the Dry Lakes like our car's forfathers did, It's was just a matter of time

 

Now thats silly

 

If you really want to stick it to the man rig up a still and make your own fuel from corn. Run ethenol with an injected small block. Would need a large fuel taknk and a surge tank.

 

I live in Los Angeles, there is no corn

 

We drove to TX with a guy with a Chevy v6 in his 39 coupe. The rest of us had v8s (350, 302, etc) I swear he put gas in his tank once for every 3 times we did. My girlfriend's 98 VW DIESEL Beetle gets around 40-50mpg. You don't need to look into alternative fuel sources so much as you need to look into alternative engines. Get a v6 or a diesel from an old mercedes or volvo

 

wankel

 

Now is the time for hot rodders to use their ingenuity. OR say F-it and pay 3.50+ for gas and get 10mpg.

Most of the cars we drive are half the weight of a mainstream car, weight is part of the mpg package.

I remember Car Craft(I think) back in the 70s building a sbc for mileage, think they had it up to 20 mpg, that motor would still rock as far as performance in a lightweight rod and probably get over 20 mpg.

Max efficiency flathead, small block v8, inline 6, 4 banger with a 5 speed manual gear box.

We can do this, just need to focus on the problem and not just be concerned with an "alleged" look.

 

I've got a 85 turbo diesel VW jetta. I run it on 100% biodiesel. Cheap and smells good. Rigging up a conversion kit to run on fryer grease for FREE! plus I get 45 mpg!