The New Hot Rod Lincoln!

Trouble is, I don't think I am the only one who has grown weary of ford's way of eventually building the cars. I'll believe ford is serious when they build this and their other ideas such that they actually do have the E85 technology (which first appeared about a decade ago on the super stallion) and aren't built as some limited-edition marketing excerise.

The TwinForce V-6 is a 3.5-liter gasoline engine that features twin-turbocharged direct injection for performance that rivals larger and less fuel-efficient V-8s. In the MKR, it delivers 415 horsepower and 400 lb.-ft. of torque on E-85 ethanol. Ford plans a family of TwinForce engines to power a number of Ford and Lincoln products.

But will it fit in my 2000 Contour? :)

Al

True, but this thing looks great. And face it, alternative fuel is the only way of the future. I'm getting sick or reading daily where the planet is headed. Time for Ford to be a leader again.

Brad

"BradandBrooks" wrote in news:nHqmh.542630$1T2.268927@pd7urf2no:

Horrible front end, but that's what people said about the DC 300 when it first appeared.

E-85 is nothing more than a marketing thing to make people feel better about not burning gasoline. It's inefficient and expensive. At best, it's a stopgap until makers fully develop true alternate fuel sources.

Ford will become a leader again only after they dump unions and get their marketing together. Both are dragging the company to a slow death.

It depends on how the ethanol is made. Anything can be made with an inefficient process. However, if the energy used to produce the ethanol doesn't come from oil, it works, even if it turns out be nothing more than a 'battery' for something like wind or nuke power to be used in a car.

> Patrick

I have seen someone cram a Chevy 350 into an MG Midget. Yeah, it will fit. ;)

>>

You sure it wasn't a B? I've seen that and also a 302 in a B-GT.

>>>

No, it was a Midget. The carburetor was so tall the driver to look out of the far left side of the windshield to see where he was going. It also had an auto tranny that connected directly to the rear differential. There was no room to fit a drive shaft. He couldn't get on it because the car had slicks and would pull a wheelie and flip over to easy. It reminded me of a Hot Wheels toy car.

The Ethanol Illusion

To begin with the facts: Some 3.9 billion gallons of ethanol were produced from corn in the United States in 2005, and sold as a blend with gasoline that accounted for 2.8 percent of total gasoline sales by volume in that year. But here's the rub. Ethanol's energy content is significantly less than gasoline's. You need 1.5 gallons of ethanol to drive the same distance you go on a gallon of gasoline. So on an energy basis, the savings in gasoline associated with U.S. ethanol use in 2005 amounted only to 1.9 percent of total gasoline sales. The wholesale price of gasoline in the United States in the spring of 2006 was about $2.20 a gallon (with retail prices closer to $3.00 a gallon). For ethanol to be competitive economically, it would have to sell for less than $1.50 a gallon. Yet by May

2006, the wholesale price of ethanol had risen to $2.65 a gallon (or in reality $3.16 a gallon, if you allow for the subsidy of 51 cents a gallon authorized by Congress in 2004 to encourage production). The wholesale price of ethanol in corn-producing states such as Illinois was $3.10 a gallon in July 2006; in California, it had increased to $4.00 a gallon. Allowing for the subsidy and the lower energy value of ethanol, this meant that motorists in California were paying more than $6.00 for enough ethanol to obtain the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline!

Energy yield from corn ethanol equals approximately 125 percent of the fossil energy used to produce it. Primary sources of fossil energy used in U.S. ethanol production: natural gas and coal; there is significant net savings in terms of oil use.

Here we go again....

Hint: Corn isn't the only thing you can make ethanol from.

The problem is the fuels are different, so you can't directly use the rough 66% of the energy per unit volume like this unless one has a rather poorly designed E85 vehicle that acts like it's burning gasoline. Plus, E85 isn't straight ethanol, but 85/15 ethanol/gasoline.

And if oil isn't used, and there is no reason to use oil to produce ethanol, then it's all a net gain over oil.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Brent P) wrote in news:L8OdnSSeAIhjVAfYnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Right. They're fighting down here with the sugar growers to try to use sugar cane for it.

No matter how you cut it, it's significantly less efficient than straight gasoline.

Bottom line: it's more expensive to run your vehicle on E-85 than gasoline. As I've already said, all this "technology" (e.g., E-85 and hybrids) are only a feel-good stopgap until the real solution is developed.

The internal combustion engine is inherently a poor choice as a power plant. It simply releases too much energy as hot exhaust gases through the tail pipe. If we want to really look at shaking things up then fuel cell technology or some other non-combustion process is the way to go. Basically eliminate the moving parts of the energy producing part of the engine should be the goal. We would be better off with this type of technology even if we used oil to create the fuel (i.e. hydrogen etc.) for it. At least we would be getting more usable energy from every barrel of oil and with far less pollution.

As for using our food production resources for energy production, I think it is a bad habit to get into. The logistics of generating an amount of alcohol based fuel to make a difference would require an extensive infrastructure and probably consume more energy than it is worth. I could also see the impact on the environment to be very bad if ethanol production is done on an industrial scale.

IMO, the economic development China will drive us to a solution for energy production. There just isn't enough oil, or production capacity, to support two 800 lb. oil consuming gorillas and we are the only one of the two that can make the move to alternative fuels. So the good news is that development of alternative, clean energy will happen eventually but we may not live to see it.

No, engines made to exploit E85 are more thermally efficient than those made for pump gasoline.

The analysis provided ignores various factors to arrive at that desired conclusion.

Would you rather have a 400hp E85 engine powered mustang or electric mustang with little power and/or little range?

And who blew that smoke up your you know where? Please cite source references to E85 engines being more thermally efficient than those made for pump gasoline. I contend, all current E85 engines have no more thermally efficient than those made for pump gasoline.

Electric, no power? You do realize how most all modern trains (hint diesel/electric) are moved, don't you?

Two semesters of thermodynamics, a semester of heat and mass transfer, and basic knowledge of 4 stroke internal combustion engines.

It's basic knowledge, it's not my fault you're ignorant and aggrogant about it at the same time.

E85 has higher octane, octane is a measure of resistance to preignition. The more resistant to preignition the fuel is, the higher the compression can be. The higher the compression, the greater the thermal efficiency.

And of course you have no cite, nor anything else. However, any decent flex fuel vehicle on the market today will at least advance the timing. Of course there is much more that can be done with forced induction, as found in a number of proposed ford vehicles over the years and some that are on the road from other manufacturers. (saab I believe)

Having trouble reading? Sure, you can make a fast electric, good luck having a enough juice to get home after a couple dragstrip runs though. That's why it reads with little power and/or range. Electric motors aren't the problem, it's the energy storage and delivery. Now by the time you overcome those problems with a hybrid set up as in your locomotive example, you have something that is so big, it's only suitible for locomotives, city buses, and other vehicles that weigh a lot and are quite large. And because of that size and weight, rather slow on the acceleration numbers.

I'm not trying to pick a fight here but the engineer in me wants to know what exactly makes an FFV engine more thermally efficient? I thought the ethanol capable engines basically had components that were compatible with the alcohol in the fuel. Some tubing, seals etc. can corrode or deteriorate in the presence of alcohol so the designation was developed to differentiate the component upgrades to burn alcohol.

You are talking about programing differences I presume. I have never heard of any alternative fuel engines that can vary the CR depending on the fuel used. Last I heard was that these dual fuel engines also can run straight gasoline so the higher compression you presume these engines have would cause problems with 100% 87 octane gasoline.

FFV vehicles

FFV vehicles can detect the amount of alcohol in the fuel and adjust the tune accordingly. This does not change the CR at all and since they must also run on 100% 87 octane I would assume the FFV engines have the same CR as their non-FFV counterparts.

Check this out:

E85 is more resistant to preignition. Take advantage of it just like one would racing gasoline.

They do, but control systems can take advantage of E85's properties too.

They advance timing and/or increase the pressure of forced induction.

That's why one does CR changes with the turbo or supercharger rather than with the combustion chamber volume.

I did not say it changed the CR. Read again where I specifically write "advance the timing".

Keep in mind you don't get 250 mile range with the accleration. You get one or the other, exactly what I stated previously.

Another deception is that they compare the weight of the original engine to the electric motors alone. This is unfair, as the new configuration also requires batteries/capacitors and an ICE (for the hybrid part), which are far heavier than the orignal engine's fuel tank.

Also I wasn't talking hybrids, I was talking pure electrics. but hey, it's usenet, subject changes are all part of the game.

IF the CR is basically the same for an FFV and a normal engine how is the FFV engine more thermally efficient?

The higher boost in needed just for the E85 fuel to produce as much hp as 100% gasoline. I found that it was better for me to use 100% gasoline and inject 100% water (verses an H2O/alcohol mix) on my supercharged Mustang. I made more hp this way and still ran 16 psi of boost. Even Ford's website admits that the mileage of their FFV engines using E85 is lower than the same engine using 100% gasoline. The only real benefit of FFV engines is lower overall emissions according to them.

I'm not sure turbo/supercharging is very relavent to this discussion. Most FFV vehicles are not high performance models.

You said FFV engines are more thermally efficient. Then said this was because the FFV engines have a higher CR. I'm just trying to find out why FFV engines are more thermally efficient.

And exactly what mileage does a gasoline engine get while busting through the 1/4 mile? I can tell you that there are times with my '89 LX that I was lucky to see 80-100 miles from a tank (14.5 gallons). BTW, this hybrid does 0-60mph in the same time as my Mustang. Did you see the total range of this car? It was over 900 miles for the electric and gasoline capacity. It gets up to 80 mpg AND does 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds. Read the entire article. The car is quite impressive, IMHO.

It can't be THAT heavy if it gets 80 mpg and does 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds. Did you see where the wheels have no conventional brakes? It switches the motors in the wheels to generator mode and uses the braking energy to charge the batteries. I can't imagine the performance to had from this type of drive train. Each wheel can be controlled independently and in a very precise manner. I like it!

Since the gasoline engine in the car is a 250cc two cylinder four stroke I doubt it contributes much to the car's 4.5 0-60mph time. From what I read it runs this time mostly on the batteries. A 200-250 mile all-electric range isn't too shabby and would suffice for most daily driving needs. Also, it can be recharged through an external electrical connection so the on-board engine doesn't have to be used at all.

You keep wanting to mix and match. Where I say E85 only you say FFV. Where I say FFV you say gasoline... where I say electric you say hybrid.

But in any case. Figure it out from the ford and other manufacturers' press releases because I am running out of ways to say the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

Advance the timing, increase the boost as octane (ie %ethanol) allows. That's about as simple as I can put it.

NO! CITE? You produce the same amount of horsepower by injecting more fuel. That's all you need to do. (alcohol has O2 in it)

MPG != thermal effeciency! The former is distance per unit volume of fuel, the later is energy vs useful work out.

Fine, you are against ethanol, great. I don't care. You asked how it's done, I told you and you don't like the answer so you are digging for reasons to call it irrelevant. You're mind is made up so this pointless.

I said they can be.

No, you're mixing and matching and confusing things as you slice either through ignorance or on purpose and I don't care which. It's pretty clear your mind is made up on the subject. And no, I didn't say FFV. I said E85. As in something designed for E85 can increase the static compression ratio. FFV vehicles at the very least advance timing, some mess around with forced induction as well.

Your mustang doesn't eek out it's range by very gentle acceleration the way an electric does. Do a couple of those runs and the battery is going to be flat if it's anything like other electrics. Given the fact it's using capacitors it's going for fast discharge.

Disprove my statement about electrics with a hybrid... disprove my statements about E85 vehicles with FFVs. How about I introduce the grey's flying saucers? This isn't some 500hp monster, it's just a light weight little car. When you want a lot of power on demand without storage as per the locomotive concept that was introduced, things get big. This doesn't fit the statement on locomotive style hybrids either because it uses energy storage.

I stated it's heavier than stock when they were trying to make it seem like it would be lighter. That's all, heavier... weighs more than. Like a GT500 mustang weighs more than GT.

There is nothing other than maybe the capacitors here that wasn't done a decade ago.

You're great at assigning me arguments I didn't make. If it's got electrics on the wheels it probably has no mechanical connection between the ICE and the wheels anyway.