Hey guys,

The title above relates to a guy called Jonathan Goodwin who's working on biodiesel engine technology. Has anyone out there heard about this?

He's been featured on a show on MTV that tricks out cars & as part of an Earth day special he took a '65 Impala & using a biodiesel engine he doubled its gas mileage to 25mpg & increased its pull from 250 to 800 horsepower.

In order to show case what he can do he's taking Hummers & converting them to do 60 mpg & 0-60 in 5 secs. That's a 5,000lb vehicle.

It seems he's making his engines with all existing parts from GM to show they don't have to reinvent the wheel to make this happen.

The first link below is from a magazine that did a feature on him.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/...d-messiah.html

This second link is to his company. If you look over on the left of the page & go down to products a little box will pop up with choices for "fuel savings & economy" and "performance & towing". He has products for Cummins, Powerstroke & Duramax.

http://www.saeenergy.com/09_about.htm

My question to any of you in the know is have you tried any of these products & how have they worked for you?

I have a 2003 Ford F250 6.0L Diesel Crew Cab with 102,000 miles.

My daily mileage is going up to 35,000 per year. If I could get even 40 mpg I'd be a very happy man, let alone 60 or 80.

Thanks for any replies.

 

I don't think you'll see that kind of mileage in your truck unless you do one of those diesel electric conversions he was talking about. The website does mention a ECM tune available in 2008 that is supposed to increase MPG by 4 - 7 for around $200.

Sounds like one of those companies that's worth keeping an eye on.

 

What I try to bring up evertime wild MPG numbers are thrown around is the cold hard numbers of the engines that run our world.

Gasoline piston engines are 20-25% efficient, diesels start at 30% and large low speed 2 stroke diesels are capable of passing 50%. Gas turbines, while being much lighter than most piston engines, are usually only 30% efficient.

Powerplants that are gas turbine fired usually have a secondary power generator that uses the waste heat from the turbine to power a boiler. This is how >80% efficiency is possible with these types of powerplants, more power comes from waste heat of the engine than the shaft of the engine!!

This is true with piston engines as well, changing the fuel will not change the thermal efficiency of the engine. Unless his engines run without a radiator (which can put out as much energy as the crankshaft!), I'm going to call this a scam. It is possible that he intends to rate these vehicles as a combined rating of running on battery power, and diesel power, so if the vehicle runs for 20 miles on battery power, and only uses the engine for the last 5 miles, sure you can claim very high mpgs, but it is very misleading.

The thing is, biodiesel and hybrids are good buzzwords, and are politically correct, so he gets the spotlight. In reality, only electric motors are capable of such high efficiency, in such a small package.

 

From what I read, that's pretty much what he's claiming, other than putting a (bio)diesel engine in a car increases fuel economy and power which isn't really news. It might be somewhat misleading but doesn't the prius etc. make the same claims in regards to fuel economy?

 

Unfortunately, you are correct. Companies are converting prius hybrids to plug-in duty, so its possible to make short trips without burning a drop of gas (recharging the battery at home off the house is cheaper and more environmentally freindly). A good idea, but the MPG rating is misleading because the distance you travel after the battery runs out and the generator kicks in determines the MPG rating, so the constant MPG rating is not changed from stock, but you can get some attention with selective information.

For my part, I am a raving fan of real world electric, and hybrid cars/trucks (as well as biofuels), but it burns me when folks like this raise a cloud of suspision over the idea with misleading information. And don't get a prius either, the MPG ratings from the EPA were sadly exagerated, a VW TDI gets better MPG and is more fun to drive.

 

I'm still waiting on the diesel electric system from locomotives to be designed for auto use. Forget expensive batteries. Run an electric motor off a diesel generator. It's a proven technology with fewer pieces to break or wear down.

 

There is enormous potential in adapting EMD technology to pickup trucks. Pick and choose the ideal engine RPM no matter the speed of the vehicle, eliminate thousands of moving parts, wide and dynamic gearing possibilities, whats not to like? Whats neat about this, is that the powertrain is easily adaptable to fulltime hybrid duty, if the option is preffered.

I know there are generator ends out there that can go as high as 190kw (257Hp) and are compact enough to replace the transmission, with the right traction drive and some solid state voltage modulation, you would have a EMD truck. The net losses of power would still be on par with a mechanical transmission, but now you have access to the max HP at all times, or max MPG range at all times, not to mention the better reliability with fewer moving parts. Unlike most hybrids, and EVs, the performance would actually be better, even under heavy load conditions.

 

Thanks for the replies guys.

David85, thanks for pointing out the importance of the electrical component in this guys new creation. I had kinda glossed over it, probably too eager to get down to where it talks about how I can get one : )

But let me quote you ...

.... & ask you this: if he's not plugging in to an outlet or carrying a solar panel on his roof, then the electrical juice he's using in addition to the diesel comes from the diesel itself through a generator & a battery storage system of some kind. So if he puts one gallon of diesel in his tank, & through use of the engine & the energy supplied to the batteries he's able to go 60 miles at a respectable highway speed & with the power he's talking about, then hasn't he just gotten 60 miles to the gallon & isn't it ok to claim so?

And then, if the diesel that was added to the tank can be cheap if not free by means of biodiesel, additives, restaurant fat, whatever .. then isn't that icing on the cake?

Either way, I do hope some good comes from any of this work. I probably can't afford any of the new innovations that may hit the street, but I'm hoping to get up to speed on it now so that when it does become more affordable I can best spend my extra cash. (not that I have extra cash, but to drive an F250 powerstroke that gets 35+ mpg then I'll find some!!!)

BTW, diesel in New Hampshire at the moment .. anywhere from $3.38 to $3.60 with $3.45 +/- being the most common.

 

I looked at the site and, quite frankly, I'm not ready to spend $ 2,300.- +for a technology that may not provide an adequate return of investment. I just as soon spend my money on a DP tuner.

 

Your sentimints reflect why I chose to learn about alternative energy and propulsion, its nice to see I'm not the only one who is trying to learn about better technology.

To answer your question, I'll have to get technical again (so I'll apologize in advance). If you were to use an electric motor, battery pack, generator, and controls that are all 100% efficient, then you could gain a minimum of 30% efficiency (most vehicles loose 21-30% power to the mechanical drivetrain). So if you got 20 MPG before, you would end up with 26 MPG, plus some extra for running the engine at optimum, but you would not get annother 40-50 MPG because you cannot get more energy out than you put in. The engine is still only 30-35% efficlient, so you would not burn only 1 gallon during the regen phase, because the truck is still a big heavy brick that has the same drag that must be defeated to hold highway speed.

Now if you were to charge the battery off the grid that is powered by say, a gas turbine fired powerplant that is operating at 85% effeciency, then you could argue a higher net MPG rating, but the rating of MPG inside the truck itself, will not improve as much as the numbers suggest, its all in the presentation. The method he is using is nothing new, even electric cars are rated in terms of MPG to give the perspective buyer a comparison for operating cost. But it gets a little grey when it comes to hybrids becuase the duty cycle depends on how much of the energy comes from the grid or the on board fuel tank. You have to examine the numbers carefully to get the full picture.

So to try and simplify this, the shorter the trip, the better the fuel economy can be, for really short trips, it could be unfinate MPG if your electricity comes from a solar collector on your roof of your house (a proven way to run an EV) but if you are going to hitch the truck up to a 5th wheel, and head across the country, your average economy will be no where near 80 MPG unless you opportunety charge along the way (every 20 min) becuase once the cheaper electricity in the battery runs out, the engine still has to kick in. And thats why I consider this misleading, one might think that the improvement happens under all operating conditions, but because the least effecient part of the truck (the piston engine) is still making all the power under constant duty, you are not going to see an 80 MPG pwerformance on longer trips, no matter how much you baby it.

Converting to hybrid is a great idea, I'm even thinking of doing it, but these numbers are just too optimistic for me to swallow, not if he is using the original engine.

 

David85,

Thanks for the response & taking the time to put together an answer. I'm going to search the threads here but do you know if any of the big 3 will be offering some sort of factory installed new technology hybrid engines in the coming years, or is the cutting edge stuff only available thru private companies such as the one we've been talking about?

 

I'll bet he's making the claim by only using the regular diesel (in the mix) to calculate mileage. And figuring miles per TOTAL gallon of #2 diesel fuel used!(not including the bio-component)

 

There's people that also claim to run cars on water too!! It's just the same BS.

 

The technology is there for an improvement. The drastic claims are all marketing. That's why were talking about it here. Even I can get 80 mpg in my truck (if you find me an 80 mile straight down hill slope)

 

It depends on what your definition of "hybrid" is. GMC is offering some bold features in recent years, quatra-steer is one of them, but a parallel hybrid powertrain is currently available on the 1500 series pickup. The ford escape is also available as a hybrid.

Heres where it gets complicated again. Parallel VS Series hybrid.

Parallel hybrids are the only type of hybrid currenty available. What they (designers) do, is take an automatic transmission, and add a motor that doubles as a generator to it, usually near the flywheel. This setup allows the motor to "help" the truck accelerate, and and deccelerate. Think of a parrallel hybrid as a big spring, when you hit the brake, the spring gets compressed, when you hit the gas, it gets released to help accelerate the truck up to speed again, so it only kicks in part of the time. Most hybrids are designed to shut down the engine when you come to a stop, and automatically restart once you pass a low minimum speed, usually 10 mph (the early accord hybrid can rapidly cycle the engine on and off if you creep forward at a specific low speed!!!).

OK, now heres why parallel hybrids suck.

1, instead of making the vehicle simpler, it ends up being more complex, expencive, and heavier.

2, Fuel economy is only marginally improved (10% on average, better off with a diesel), and even then, only in stop and go traffic conditions, MPG on the freeway is no different (EPA MPG estimate for the OEM pruis is BULL S***!!!)

3, You cannot customize the operating RPM of the vehicle, because the RPM of the engine is still limited by the fixed ratios of the tranny

4, you cannot run on battery power alone, because the motor is usually small, and only designed as a "helper" (battery is also kept small and cheap), so for higher speeds, the engine is needed, no matter how short the trip, and you are back to square one for MPG.



In a series hybrid, there is no mechanical connection between the engine and the wheels, EVER. Instead, you have a generator where the tranny used to be, and it maintains the state of charge of an on board battery bank. From the battery, the energy is transmitted to a traction motor, ideally one in each wheel. Now when you throttle the truck up to speed, you are controlling the drive motor, while the generator only kicks in when the battery is low. This means that the diesel engine is always run at its optimum, but it also means that you can use a smaller one. The truth is, even for towing application, you don't really need much more than 200 Hp to keep you going, for a 1/2 ton truck, even less is possible. Even a big F450 need less than 100 Hp to hold 70+ mph.

Instead of relying on the engine for low end torque, high end Hp and all the other things we expect engines to do, just let the electric motors do all that, they have a much better powerband, and can operate over a wide speed and torque range very efficiently.


EMD is essentially a series hybrid only without a battery bank, so the engine alwas runs, but you can put in into its optimum range and keep it there, no matter the speed of the vehicle. When you need Hp, mash the pedal, and the tach goes to redline and stays there untill you back off, giving you unrestricted power on tap. This wider range gives the vehicle better drivability, and this is one reason why diesel have better accelleration relative to their Hp rating, and why EVs are better yet. With an EMD, you can basically pick and choose your cruising RPM at will, now think of all the moving parts you eliminated between the crank shaft to the wheels (transmission, driveshaft, U joints, differential, axle shafts), the truck should also weight the same as before, maybe less.

As for availability, we are all SOL, I'm afraid. Lots of companies can develope this technology, but automakers will not buy it as long as they continue to sell what they have. As for the companies that could develope the technology, they are usually not interested in talking to anyone other than a mega automaker, hence we are ***t out of luck. I have been reasearching these ideas for several years now, but some motor builders are annoyed for me even showing interest in their technology, others simply don't respond to inquiries at all.

If you want to make a smaller lighter car, then there are some components available off the shelf, but large pickups are expected to do a lot of different things, often under heay load, and so far, there has not been a system made specifically for that application.