Thickness of the cables

[iansp]

Yes I agree with that. I’ve also in the past used an outdoor antenna but that’s a too long a story to get into. At the end of the day it’s what works for you. Norfolk might be a bit behind or left out it’s a county which nobody passes through as it’s out on a limb.

I’ve wondered what you would think of an Austin 7 engine, revs to 2400 if you dare, 10bhp, two bearing crank and an oil feed with has two jets that squirts oil at two cups in the crank. Oh forgot fragile con rods any marks on them and they will break at sometime. Years ago some adapted Renault 4 con rods, but somehow don’t think it’s your sort on thing.

Thanks for finding my post on “mobility and life” interesting by the way. I had pondered for a long time before making the post, I do find your posts excellent and so varied on so many subjects.

[Burgerman]

Well...
11 to 12k rpms, turbocharged with massive turbos, running at 2 bar boost and 330 to 500bhp from a 1100cc 16 valve nitrous injected 4 cylinder bike engines with cenrifugal weighted lock up clutch, forged pistons, etc was more my thing! Around 70 psi oil pressure at idle. And rev limiter set to 12750 rpms. Needless to say I broke a few figuring out what works. Inc cranks, engine cases, burned heads and pistons etc. When it works well its reliable. Even built my own dynamometer systems to find out!

[iansp]

Sounds good. I’m a as they say a petrol head but never had anything with that much power. A good friend of mine renovate mainly vintage car engines, however, he does work on some very famous cars like the old ERA race cars, 50’s Maserati f1 car which is owned by a famous auction house in a historic race at Silverstone the driver buzzed the engine and put a conrod through the magnesium crankcase, ops. Some of the engines he has been doing have got so bad that he’s having new engine blocks cast, getting them back as a raw casting and then machining them to rebuild them. Very clever bloke, sadly one of the few engine specialists left who does white metalling as the really old cars didn’t have shells on the crank so were white metalled as I’m such you know.

In 1935 Austin decided to go racing seriously in the 750cc class, the plans on the drawing board was for it to rev to 10,000 rpm and produce 100 bhp which at the time would be some achievement. On the dyno it ended up reving to 9700 and produced 109 bhp. It was a twincam and the only surviving one is in Donington museum.

I must say hearing the engines that you must have built must have been fantastic.

[iansp]

But unless they brake you don’t know what will work and what won’t, in a way it comes under trial and error although an expensive one. Think we have got off the original post heading of “thickness of cables”. However this is far more interesting!!!!

[Burgerman]

I started drag racing big street bikes. And lost. Then I started on Nitrous... DIY not bought. That stuff is amazing and does not hurt engines IF DONE RIGHT! (over rich, retarded ignition, open exhaust, better ignition system, and "loose" clearances on valves). Anything up to 3 and 400% power increases on an otherwise STOCK engine are possible. I ended up building rater a lot of these for other racers.

But its a bit sudden when you aleady have the worlds fastest accelerating vehicle under your ass already! So on the strip its very hard to use massive sudden boosts off the line. You need to hold your mouth right, learn to launch with some small wheelspin, control excess power and wheelies with back brake, while wheelieing and shifting and spinning all at the same time. After a couple of years you get good at it. Cant explain or really know how, you just do it.
On the road where you can use it only in the top 3 gears thats easy. To go fast on a quarter mile you need that power away from the line in low gears... Easy to flip a bike when its stops spinning its fat sticky tyre... Since its on or off big instant boosts.

Enter pulsed progressive systems... And Dynamometer systems to configure things better!

Then T5 Rajay turbos which is HUGE turbo for a 1 litre engine. That will not boost (not enough exhaust gas) below around 8k RPMs at full throttle. Until you hit say 100BHP worth of nitrous. At ANY rpm. Because nitrous is fed in regardless of RPM, its like a string chopping machine. Add 100HP and thats why you get. At 1000rpm or at 10, 000. It doeent care! So now you get a literal instant turbo boost to max pressure even at 1k rpms.... Plus that nitrous. Its quite wild! Massive turbo, zero lag at any RPM. Feels like you were hit by a giant cricket bat.

So this needs some control... You dont want a microswitch on the throttle that suddenly trips at WOT to go from say 10HP at low RPMs to say 400... Because that is impossible to control and it breaks engines. So enter nitrous control systems, boost controllers, RPM switches, launch controllers, mixture sensors and real time fuel mix and ignition control. And now things have gotten very complex.

Ultimately detonation limits power possible. So now we need to add methanol nitrous enrichment fuel, instead of petrol. And so on.

But safer for the engine and you, and better control.

Austin 7?

I used to go help out engine building etc to many tracks with the formula 750 motor club. Racing home made single seater reliant 3 wheeler engined 700 and 750cc tuned engines. That was the cause of a lot of very bad hangovers. And waking up laid on the track with the drivers doing track walks all around us. Fun.

[iansp]

Amazing stuff chap. Really enjoy the conversations, brings back so many memories for me. Being 68 now don’t know where the time has gone. I use to help a mate of mine racing ff1600 many years back, and also have personally known some famous F1 people and drivers. Have to be careful though as I was employed by a Bank and am now a staff pensioner I’m still under the bank contract I signed which in a nutshell is the banks equivalent of the secret services act.

Reading you replies to people’s questions for help I wonder sometimes how you keep so calm.

[Burgerman]

I dont!

[iansp]

I have read many of the posts you have responded to, which I can see is vast. I very much agree with you that as little knowledge is a dangerous thing and if you don’t know what you are doing then leave it alone. You must miss what you used to do, I know I do, not the bank but the cars, bikes and speedboats. Still have the memories and still laugh at some of them.

[iansp]

Cars I restored

[Burgerman]

The one in the middle needs nitrous.

[Burgerman]

The one in the middle needs nitrous.

Imagine how much that would wind up the regular restoration crowd.

[iansp]

Hi, well it was as I said built as a special, therefore it was fitted with hydraulic brakes, rake and pinion steering and a Reliant 850cc tuned engine, done by the guy who done a lot of the 750mc engines. I drove that from Norfolk to Swansea and over to Southern Ireland not on the motorways got to Wales 4 hours early but had fun driving it on the roads of Wales. Engine would rev to 8000. Had further mods in the pipeline but the injury to arm ended all of that. After they were all sold everyone said that I’ve always had classic or vintage cars so one day went out and brought a Porsche much to the surprise to my wife. It was my money so I spend it as I liked, that’s gone now as couldn’t get current scooter in the back.

[iansp]

Forgot to say it already wound up the purest as it was. They do tend to be stuck in their ways to say it in a polite way.

[ex-Gooserider]

I find it curious to see (in USA) wooden electric poles with transformers.

Remember a lot of your infrastructure got blown up and shot to $#!t a few years back and needed replacing, not to mention that you got started well after we did in the US...

As a result much of the US is still running on the same legacy infrastructure that was put in back when we were first getting going... At that point we didn't have the technology to do underground wiring, as we didn't have things like plastic insulations. Cheaper to replace and repair the older stuff than to tear it down and build new most of the time. NEW construction does usually get put underground, and often they will move to underground if doing a really big general rebuild project...

Back in the old days, we were starting to build out both phone and power infrastructure at the same time, and both the power and phone co's realized they would save money by renting space on each other's poles, plus the gov'ts in cities and towns didn't really want them putting in two different sets of poles... As a result it worked out that in any given town or city, the poles will all be 'owned' by either the power company or the telephone company, with more or less alternating ownership so each owned about the same number of poles... This meant that the rents they paid each other basically canceled out to a net zero dollar amount... Then the cable and fiber companies came along, and end up paying rent to whichever owns the poles in any town they operate in...

By code, for safety reasons, the electrical service wires are always at the top of the poles, and the phone / cable / fiber companies are on the lower levels where you usually see the longer cross-bars...

It is ancient, but it (mostly) works, and is probably faster and easier to fix if something blows up, or a pole gets knocked down than underground setups, not to mention being easier to add capacity if needed....

Flip side, poles are pretty easy to install, putting in underground infrastructure especially in some of our older cities can be a nightmare because of needing to work around existing infrastructure that might or might not be documented....

ex-Gooserider

[Burgerman]

not to mention that you got started well after we did in the US...

Really?

In 1886 the first commercial power system in the United States was built. This system was designed by G.Westinghouse, W.Stanley and O. Shallenberger. The invention of AC induction motor (by N.Tesla) in 1888

1860s–70s Public demonstrations of electric lighting in Britain stimulate interest in the new technology, such as the temporary illumination of Clifton Suspension Bridge in December 1864 to mark its opening.
1879 The Liverpool (Corporation) Electric Lighting Act 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c. ccxiii) was the first electric lighting act to be enacted in the UK, it gave the Liverpool Corporation powers to light streets by electricity.
1882 The Electric Lighting Act 1882 allowed the setting up of supply systems by persons, companies or local authorities. Local authorities had the right to take over the assets of companies in their area after 21 years.
The Edison Electric Light Station opened as the world's first coal power station at 57 Holborn Viaduct London producing 110 volt DC and was used for street lighting. It ran at a loss and closed in 1886.

[ex-Gooserider]

There may have been intermittent short term projects or things like DC systems (which don't work carrying significant power over distances due to voltage drops, etc) but I think the US was the first to start doing large scale deployment, and even that was scattered and a bit variable. (I have an old Singer sewing machine, the manual starts by cautioning you to make sure the power you are connecting to matches the motor....)

At least in the history stuff that I've been taught, the reason for the 60Hz AC frequency we use vs. the 50Hz used outside North America is a product of GE's invention of practical large scale generators to supply the distribution systems. GE patented their designs, and was unwilling to license them to other manufacturers or sell them equipment at a reasonable price. So the competition came up w/ the 50Hz designs as a way to get AC systems that didn't violate GE's patents...

(Of course 400Hz is better than either 50 or 60, but we won't get into that...)

ex-Gooserider

[Burgerman]

50HZ = 3000 RPM motors or generators.
60HZ = 3600.
400HZ = 24,000 rpms... Your sewing machine would have been very fast. The generator would have physically exploded. Thats why.

[ex-Gooserider]

50HZ = 3000 RPM motors or generators.
60HZ = 3600.
400HZ = 24,000 rpms... Your sewing machine would have been very fast. The generator would have physically exploded. Thats why.

Depends on how the motor is wired / internally constructed... The 400hz stuff is smaller and lighter than the same thing would be in 50/60Hz, which is why they like it on aircraft especially...

ex-Gooserider

[Burgerman]

Yes. Same reason that inverters etc all run at high frequencies. But generators dont like it. Your portable household generator for e.g would need to have 5x as many poles. That reduces efficiency, and causes greater magnetic flux losses or you would need to run big generators at silly RPMs.