Category: Cars

I am a “car guy”… I love old cars.

Le Mans Result: Diesel Dominates (still)

Peugeot 908 HDi FAP #9

I dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 AM to catch the last few hours of the 24 Hours of Le Mans today. As always it proves itself to be the greatest event in motorsport. No other event tests cars and drivers like Le Mans. Leading the way always in technical innovations the sport welcomed Diesel power just a few years ago and the cars have dominated the LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype) Class ever since. To date that has meant Audi and their all-conquering R10 cars. In 2007 another manufacturer fielded a Diesel entry: Peugeot. They chased Audi and would have, SHOULD have, beaten them last year as their 908s were three seconds a lap faster than the Audis. Audi however proved that speed is not everything and managed to pull off a near-miraculous win by staying focused and running a great race, using strategy and tactics. Many have attributed the win to tire choice in the rainy final laps, but really it was the Audi team’s complete performance, from start to finish over 24 hours that kept them within striking distance for that final tire choice. (If you haven’t watched “Truth in 24” the documentary about last years’ race, do it now!)

This year Audi came to the race with a new Diesel-powered prototype car, the R15 TDI but Peugeot capped a long pursuit of Audi with a victory for the 2009 event in their 908 HDi FAP. The winning car was driven by David Brabham (Australia, son of racing legend Jack Brabham), Marc Gené (Spain), and Alexander Wurz (Austria). Fishing second overall was another Peugeot 908, followed by the only Audi R15 to finish the race making a clean sweep for Diesel power. Six of the top ten finishers were Diesel cars in fact, as all the Peugeots finished along with two of the old R10 Audis being run by a privateer.

Still think Diesels are noisy, smoky, and slow?

Nuke & Pave

“Nuke & Pave”… it is a systems administration term for deleting the data off a hard drive and rebuilding the system software and user environment from scratch (with some data restored from backups of course.) The idea is to just blow away any crufty buildup and start anew.

That is what I’m planning on doing to my home brew BioDiesel setup in a few weeks. The system has grown organically over the past several years with me constantly tinkering, modifying, and adding to the design. Additionally the handling of waste vegetable oil (WVO) in the area has made things… messy. So I figure I’ll drain my tanks, get out the pressure washer, and give everything a good washing to get it cleaned up. Everything from the settling tanks to the concrete slab. I’ll then disassemble the plumbing and reconfigure it to my liking.

The only thing that will not get washed out are my BioDiesel storage tanks. This is a pair of 55 Gallon drums (that started life as my original WVO filtering system) that I can’t really risk getting water into. I’ll tighten them up with good seals and wash their exteriors though.

I’ll also plumb in the new methanol recovery still to the processor. My little test with a prototype has gone very well and I’ve learned how to (and how NOT to) extract methanol from my glycerol BioDiesel by-product. I haven’t built a new recovery still yet, but I plan to do so very soon. Plumbing it into the processor will allow me to clean up a messy step in the process, namely draining the by-product off the bottom of the processor. Right now I do this into buckets and hand carry it to the still. I’ve gone through this process with each expansion of the system: either doing something by hand, or using temporary plumbing to bridge a gap, and eventually building a cleaner, more efficient system to reduce labor to turning valves and operating pumps. The less I touch this stuff, the less I spill on myself, the ground, etc. Ideally I’d like to do as little manually as possible.

I often find myself sitting in the middle of this Rube Goldberg setup, looking around and just thinking about how I can improve it. Step One however always involves dropping that nuke and getting this part of the barn cleaned up. I’m a designer, not an engineer, so I work somewhat intuitively and through iteration. The time for that is now, while the weather is dry and warm and I can let things dry for a week or so before using them again.

Western Landscape with E-type Bonnet

I’m trying to work from home today, but instead am wrestling the technology that allows me to do that. Namely my VOIP phone system and VPN it rides on are acting up and driving me crazy. So I’m seeking a little peace as I pause in the struggle. What better way to calm nerves than to gaze upon a serene and inspiring landscape? This photograph was taken from a pause in the ascent of the Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park. I can’t recall exactly where, but from the looks of things it is still pretty low, but beyond the big switchback after the tunnel.

ahhhh.. I feel better already.