Dieselpunk !

Because Steampunk isn't dirty enough... I've gone diesel with a 1979 diesel Volkswagen Rabbit that's been modified to use waste vegetable oil from a separate tank.

Thus, the car can run on 3 different types of fuel; regular pump diesel, biodiesel, and veggie oil (and any variant and mixture of the three). I'm also going to use as fuel "black diesel", which is used motor oil, hydraulic fluid, transmission fluid, and variants & combinations of above. Basically, if it can burn and is oily in nature, I can probably use it as fuel.

It's the cleaning of the waste oils that is the trick -- otherwise you end up with clogged fuel filters and/or damaged engine components if the stuff is too laden with gunk. That's the biggest challenge; aside from finding myself a good reliable source of free oil(s), and where to store anything I acquire in my limited garage space....

Nissan Reveals LEAF Pricing...

Today, Nissan unveiled pricing details for the 2011 Nissan Leaf electric vehicle
(EV), which will be available for purchase or lease in select markets in
December.

The Leaf's list price of $32,780 MSRP may be just out of reach for cash-strapped
Americans, but a hefty federal tax credit of $7,500 will knock down the price of
the Leaf to $25,280, placing it just at the low end of the mid-size vehicle
market. That credit will also be factored into leasing deals, which are expected
to start at $349 a month.

State and local incentives -- like a $5,000 tax rebate available in California
and a $5,000 tax credit in Georgia -- could bring down the cost even further.

And with electricity being cheaper than gas, and lower maintenance costs, I
wonder if anyone has calculated a realistic TCO?

New crap coming soon

I've decided to redo this... Start from scratch. Put up some relevant posts. New crap is coming soon... I just need to get writing and taking some photos.

My Nissan Leaf

I have a new blog... And I apologize for not updating this one regularly... I've been busy! Anyhow, the new blog is http://mynissanleaf.blogspot.com, as I'm very excited about this new electric car from Nissan, the Leaf -- finally, a real electric car from a real company that actually makes cars.

Check out this wild high speed (1000 frames per second) footage shot with a miniature temperature resistant camera of the inside of an engine. You can clearly see the valves open, the spark plug fires, and the gas/air mixture detonates, pushing down the piston. This is going on inside your engine, hundreds of times per second.

Build your own cheap wind turbine

Free electricity is one of my biggest pet projects. If I can glean some free power from solar cells, a crank generator, something mounted on a bike frame, or a windmill, then I'm gonna do it!

If nothing else, to try and recharge my non-rechargable batteries which often don't take too well to that kind of thing (cheap batteries respond better than alkalines, ironically). But I do it anyway, to try and save a buck as well as be prepared for when World War Three wipes out the power grid.

Anyhow, this dude in Arizona has a complete website dedicated to building a windmill generator (turbine), and how to do the whole thing on the cheap, with pretty good results.

Six Stroke Engine Could Save Gas

This guy has invented a whole new kind of engine. You already know about 2-stroke and 4-stroke, but how about a 6-stroke engine, that harnesses normally-wasted heat energy by creating steam inside the combustion chamber, and using it to boost the engine’s power output and also to control its temperature.

Read the full article HERE.