Practically Classics Forum

Ahhh, ght you're always such a ray of sunshine ..
What i meant is i like to see the results of those fabled people who live in their garages creating things that no one thought possible or necessary and really annoys the purists.. so bring me your modified morris minor with the fiat engine and plastic body kit or the mgb with a diesel engine from a truck or the finished restoration project with the wrong style of number plates... i love them all..

I believe that the ideal alternative engine for a Rolls Royce must be a two stroke Detroit Diesel, noisier and smokier the better, what-ho.

JPB wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 11:12 am I believe that the ideal alternative engine for a Rolls Royce must be a two stroke Detroit Diesel, noisier and smokier the better, what-ho.

Please tell me you are building this?

If only! That said, a Shadow with lots of mechanical faults but decent bodywork can be had for less than the cost of a double measure of post-lockdown, 70 proof Pussar's rum and I do occasionally have a dream in which I'm at an auction and am instructed by "voices" to put my hand in the air when a lovely late '70s Shadow comes round, on a pair of pallet dogs, in spotless condition, but minus engine and all running gear. I always wake up before I get to find out whether mine is the winning bid.

Dick wrote: Sun Jul 05, 2020 7:21 amAhhh, ght you're always such a ray of sunshine ..What i meant is i like to see the results of those fabled people who live in their garages creating things that no one thought possible or necessary and really annoys the purists.. so bring me your modified morris minor with the fiat engine and plastic body kit or the mgb with a diesel engine from a truck or the finished restoration project with the wrong style of number plates... i love them all..

Oh I see, of course, silly me I should have known that you would go all jelly at the knees for a street legal, twenty-seven litre, hand built car with a Rolls Royce Merlin, Spitfire engine. Just your everyday project at the back of the garage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFS83GUMTCc
(read some of the YouTube comments.)

Excuse my butting in chaps, but The Beast is so last century! OK, so it's looking pretty much as good as new now, but how about a device that's even faster yet doesn't put so much strain on the poor old Merlin V12? (The SD1 only touching the Merlin's red line of 3000rpm once it's already doing an estimated 200mph ) Were it not for the essential LPG tanks, holding an entire year's worth for many regular converted or duel fuelled cars, where the rear passengers and boot space used to be, the following could be a perfectly stock SD1 from a few feet off.. https://youtu.be/eiZIU54WYxw

And that's how it's done, though I think that The Beast wins in the categories of interior trim and bonnet to passenger accomodation ratio.

As you were, don't mind me.

Quick post
https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/ELECTRICARS-EL ... noapp=true

JPB wrote: Mon Jul 06, 2020 12:02 pmExcuse my butting in chaps, but The Beast is so last century!

Quite so, and it's timely that the last post is an electric milk float on E-Bay. Just before my brother and I sold our business we were talking to the proprietor of the garage that serviced and maintained our vans. He told us that he had been taken to a jolly at somewhere like Goodwood or Brooklands, where he had seen the latest electric cars. He said that they made him feel redundant. He had sat in a car that had done the nought to sixty in under five seconds. He likened it to that of a WW2 fighter plane and a later jet.
So, back to that timely milk float, you won't get much in the way of a crate full of pinta's in this little electric car, but you can do that nought to sixty in under two seconds. It's enough to shift the most stubborn of bowels.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/05/pininfa ... ries%20BMW.

You'll probably find that with that sort of power the batteries last for about 20 miles and take three days to recharge

suffolkpete wrote: Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:27 amYou'll probably find that with that sort of power the batteries last for about 20 miles and take three days to recharge

You're probably right, but the speed that technology goes at these days, it will only be a matter of time. Back in 1986 I saw my first ever mobile phone, this fellow had, what looked like a small satchel slung over his shoulder, the satchel was for housing the battery, the phone was akin to a landline handset on top of the battery. It wasn't that I thought it wouldn't catch on, it just seemed like a lot of faff to be the first to have a must have. Texting back then was still to come.

The reason that electric is so powerful is because it does away with oscillation. A piston oscillates, meaning that it stop/starts as it goes up and down in the bore. If you can devise a way of just rotating, like a jet engine, like an electric motor or even like a sewing machine, you will have a much faster, more efficient power plant.

The new Vauxhall Corsa exceeds 200 miles between recharges and now Tesla have produced the long range battery giving their car 400 miles between charges. It's just my speculation of course, but it's not beyond the realms of fantasy to say that there might come a day where you pull into a garage and instead of putting fifty quid's worth of unleaded in, you simply swap out your batteries for re-charged ones, pay your money and drive off.