( I did not know this. )

This one should give "'NeckCar" fans a pause....

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/ESPNSports/story?id=542106

I live within two miles of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport....YUCK....I bet my air is FULL OF LEAD..

NASCAR fans who frequent these races with young kids are putting lead into the kid's systems, and that increases the likelihood of lowered mental capacity....

(hey, have I hit onto why millions of people pay good money to go watch loud noisy dirty cars go 'round and 'round a track?)

 

Its not the airlines that burn lead, it is the small piston powered aircraft. Jet and turbine engines are basically diesel burning. However the majority of small aircraft have no choice but to burn leaded fuel. Small aircraft engine manufacturers have been working with petrol companies for more than 20 years now on trying to find an alternative solution to leaded fuel for there engines. The problem is that the engines are high compression. They knock like hell if you try to burn auto gas. The majority are also air cooled. Very inefficient as a whole. Just in the last 4 years has a computer controlled system has come along that adjusts mixer with power and altitude settings. On every small airplane I have flown, you control your mixer, power and manifold pressure settings. Most people think that this should have come along a long time ago, but technology hasn't really changed much in small aircraft since WW2. In the mid 80's an aircraft company named Mooney teamed up with Porsche to build a modern "single lever design" to eliminate pilot controlling 3 throttles. It was a hard learing experience, and had tons of problems. Finally 20 years later, reliable systems are coming to market. Also, Bombardier is building 2 "V6" engines. One is a turbo, the other isn't. They burn auto gas, are liquid cooled, and have a reduction gear box. Instead of having 2500rpm redlines, they are the normal 6k type. So far, these engines haven't come to market yet, but they are in the pipeline. The other is diesel. The biggest problem with a diesel is the wieght of the engine. A 1.7 litre turbo diesel weighs as much as a 320 cubic inch 4 cylinder in the same style plane. It developes 30 less horsepower at sea level, and it is real new to the small aircraft market. Pilots as a whole are very conservative, and like to stick with what they know......magnetos, 2 spark plugs per cylinder, air cooling, and no gear reduction. The also like controlling there mixture and prop angles. Not to worry though. The last company that makes AVGAS will stop producing it in the next 5 years. Simply a matter of math. The total sales of AVGas in a year is less than 2 days sales of Auto Gas. They have already announced it, and small aircraft owners throughout the United States are hoping that a new additive, fuel type or something is stumbled upon. The engine in my fathers plane is a 550 cubic inch turbo 6 cylinder making 310hp. It gets about 12mpg at 201 mph at 13000 feet. If you throttle back to 55% at 6000 feet, you can get over 25mpg at 135mph. Try that in a car. As for the polutants, I've been around airplanes my whole life. A bit of lead ads character, and the decibel level is really not that bad. My father came to visit me here in Washington DC in his bird. With a brisk tailwind he made a 650nm trip in just over 3 hours, and only burned 49 gallons of his 115 gallon fuel supply. I'm waiting to be able to afford a twin engine diesel. It just as fast, and only burns 13 gallons per hour, or 6.5 gallons per side. I'm a firm believer in having 2 engines on a plane whenever you can afford it.

 

Um.. if two dozen Cup cars burning leaded gas means everyone in the stands is going to die of cancer, why isn't everyone in America dead from when every one of the 50 million cars used to burn leaded gas?

 

Good post....except for the two engine part. I fly single engine turbines (PC-12 and Caravan) and four engine jets (KC135R) and I can't say I'm any more concerned in the singles. Even though I burn a lot of Jet-A, I am concerned for the future of aviation fuels. When I drive my hybrid (HCH) to work then fly around burning a gallon every two seconds, I can't help but to think about it.

 

(Good post....except for the two engine part. I fly single engine turbines (PC-12 and Caravan) and four engine jets (KC135R) and I can't say I'm any more concerned in the singles. Even though I burn a lot of Jet-A)

Wow! What I would give for a Pilatus or Caravan! Hell, what I would give for a mid 80's P210! I agree, I'm concerned about aviation fuels as well. The KC 135 is a 707, correct? It's certainly been around for awhile, but I bet it is a real thrill to fly something like that. I can only imagine how bad the mileage is in any large jet, but per seat mile, how does a new 737 compare to a car, if you take into account every seat filled on the 737 vs's a given car, then account for time.

I am jealous of the Pilatus. It is an awesome plane. Never ridden in one. I have ridden in a Mitsubishi MU-2, and it was very fast. I've never been Pilot In Command of a turbine. My father recently got a type rating in the King Air 200, and he loves flying it whenever he gets the opportunity.

As for the twins, I agree that having a second engine doesn't always guarantee safety. I know in the twins that have the "critical engine" if you don't stay on top of your training and you lose that engine, your certainly just as well not to have a second engine.

.....Back to the fuel. I don't worry so much about Jet-A. Plenty of fuel is being burned to justify production. I wonder if they could make it out of some sort of bio-fuel. Could you imagine the airliners owning crop land in Kansas or something to keep there fleets fuel price competitive?

I'm not an engine designer, but I wonder if a better designed turbo engine, with lower compression could burn unleaded fuel. Aircraft engines have such high compression ratios the lead is a must. Hopefully they will figure something out. We can get to the moon, but designing a piston engine that doesn't burn leaded fuel requires the hand of the al-mighty!

I'm waiting for my warranty to run out on the civic hybrid to install a different ignition system, and a low boost turbo. I'm thinking nothing more than 5 PSI. I'd like to burn as lean as possible, without detonation. I don't know if anyone has taken the injectors our, or know the size of the injectors. I'm also "on paper", working on a heat scavaging system. The system is simple. It is a 2 tube system. One tube for fresh air, the other is a filtered intake directly behind the headers, in front of the engine. It is a wide, flat pipe that wraps back to the stock system that would be used for cold weather to keep the charge from becoming too dense.

I've toyed with car engines, but never ever with an airplanes. I'll leave those to the A&P's

 

If you do go ahead with your turbo Civic Hybrid plans, you'd probably be the first HCH turbo owner, but you'd be the second Honda Hybrid turbo owner I know of. There's a guy on Insightcentral.com that has a tiny turbo on his Insight. It's a really primative setup, but I guess it's sufficient given that it was very low boost; I think he's also running around 6psi or something.

It's the stock turbo from the Canadian Pontiac Firefly, which I think was also briefly sold in the US as the Chevy Sprint or something. IIRC, that was also a 1 liter engine, so it's basically already sized for that displacement. He went from something like 62whp on the dyno to 90whp, which is a real good boost. Anyway, I believe he was running a voltage clamp on the MAP sensor so it would read accurately up until it hit the voltage reading for 14.7psi at which point the device would simply not pass any higher voltage to the ECU.

He had a second MAP or something which was read by a GReddy Rebic II fuel controller running 1 injector in the intake just ahead of the throttlebody. Kind of old-school, but if it's good enough for the Mitsubishi Starion turbo (which also ran throttlebody injection) then I guess it's good enough for the Insight. Fuel mileage was barely changed by the turbo since you spend very little time on boost - the main benefit is just having far greater power reservest for merging, passing, and hill climbing.

I suppose at some point, Honda might do like VW did with their newly released turbocharged, direct injection 2-liter 4-cylinder. Between small displacement, a turbo, direct injection, and a hybrid drivetrain, a savvy manufacturer could almost certainly deliver very respectable accelleration performance figures while still returning excellent fuel economy. I would think that the instant torque of an electric motor would help to mask any effects of turbo lag from a small engine, plus a CVT would make it possible to get the engine into boostable RPM any time you put your foot down.

 

That is the great thing about a low boost turbo. You don't really need to do much with the engines electronics, or with the engine. I was thinking simple throttle body as well. Keeping the boost down does a couple of things. No injector mods "I hope", and no need to get into elaborate boost control, fuel system, and engine monitoring systems. I had no idea that Pontia had built a turbo car. That is good to know. I had also thought of a supercharger, but in my past experience with superchargers, they don't do well with Hondas at all. I helped install a supercharger on a friends S2000. I can't remember the name of the company, but they are huge into honda performance. It just didn't have the torque to drive a supercharger, plus I don't want to sacrifice mileage. I'm going to check out that insight page, and see what he's doing. Thanks for the heads up!

I think your observations about d-injection, turbos, and hybrids are perfect. Someone will catch on. I'd love to buy a turbo hybrid off the showroom floor. I still have a nitrous system from my long dead Yamaha FZR-1000. It was good for 30 shot, but I kept it around 20, just because I didn't know anything about nitrous, and still know very little. It might be something interesting to play with on the car, but the cycle made over 130hp, and had huge carbs. I think 40mm each if I'm not mistaken. I wonder what a quick nitro burn would do in this motor?

 

Hey AZCivic! I just finished reading the posts for the Insight turbo. Very exciting stuff. One of the things that concerns me with turbos is cold, dense air. A fuel/air meter would save on pistons in cold air. I couldn't find any pictures of his install. I'm most familiar with turbo charging Subarus. The most boost I have ever run in a STOCK subaru 2.5 is 16 pounds. I trust Subaru blocks far more than Hondas. It has no counterbalancers, and you burn a hole in a piston, and all you'll do is puff smoke, while still running flat out! I don't think a stock honda block can take that kind of abuse. However, I'm not talking about pushing a mill past its limit, but making efficient horsepower when necessary. On my Subaru I had installed a new ignition system that I could get 29mpg at 70mph! Anything over 80 would kill it, but proof of power was in my top speed. I had put a piggy back, performance chip on the stock board that disabled the speed limiter. Without a speed limiter, my 2.2 Outback Sport, stock.....would do 121mph. With the new ignition system, it could run 126mph. That is a huge difference. That was on a stopwatch, no GPS. I've had my civic over 110mph, and I'm wondering if it has a speed limiter. Not like it really matters. I usually park it at 70mph on the highway, but I am excited at the prospect of pushing air to make power when I need it.

 

Honda motors are not known for being great for high boost since a lot of them are very oversquare (my HX has a 75mm bore and 90mm stroke) and open deck blocks with thin cylinder walls. That's all great for high efficiency and keeping the block very light and able to cast off excess heat, but not good for getting beat on by the abuses that go along with a high boost turbo setup.

That said, I still feel that Honda motors are plenty strong for a light pressure, 6-7psi setup given sufficient fueling and perhaps some way to pull back the ignition timing a little bit under boost. Good luck with it, if you do decide to turbocharge your Civic. Definitely take pictures if you do, I also have never seen pics of that guy's turbo Insight, altough I imagine it probably looks a lot like every other turbocharged Honda I've seen, just smaller.

 

Wow, I need to come here more often. Great post about adding the turbo. Frankly, I'd love to see a VW Golf TDI Hybrid. I hear Opel/GM are working on a TD hybrid that'll do 0-60 in eight seconds and get 65 mpg.

Here's an interesting website about airline MPG:
http://www.skyaid.org/Skycar/aircraf...onsumption.htm

Also, I have a little Excel calculator for determining fuel consumption in the PC-12, which is usually between 2-5 mpg depending on whether in cruise or in the terminal area. So, with four people on board plus me (average), the most mpg per passenger in the PC-12 would be 25. Apparently a B-747 would get close to 100 mpg per passenger if it were fully loaded.

I think if I ever get a diesel VW, I'm going to learn more about biodiesel. Maybe make my own.