Comments by "Thump Er the Sweaty Fat Guy" (@SweatyFatGuy) on "Why They Want To End Private Car Ownership" video.

  1.  @donreinke5863  I've been working on vehicles for 40 years, newest one I own is a 2007, I will never have anything newer than that. Oldest is a 1932 Pontiac two door sedan... currently its a shell, not for long though. Stopped spinning wrenches for a living back in 2000, did it part time a bit. Now I work on my own stuff. Most of them are older than 1979, with the most numerous year being 1972. My daily drivers in the summer are a 65 GTO and a 70 Cuda AAR clone, the GTO runs on ethanol with a race gas compression 455, EFI, and its getting a TKO 5 speed when the snow is finally gone here. The 340 in the Cuda has low compression, I didn't build that one, my dad bought it and left it to me. All my Pontiacs will be running E85/E100 though. 40 cents a gallon to make vodka vs whatever pump gas is going for these days is worth the two weeks worth of work processing cattails and running the stills. Not many of us left who can build a carb and tune EFI, and know how to repair pretty much anything from the pre war era to now. Why is 07 the limit? Because I don't need all the extra stuff they put on them, and I can keep that GMC crew cab running forever easily. Why did I get into making fuel? Simple. I have four GTOs and a bunch of other cars I like to drive, and when gas was $5 back in 2007, I started learning how to make ethanol and convert carbs and EFI. If I can make it it costs me less cash, which opens up funds for things I can't make like tires, cylinder heads, camshafts etc. It was purely a money saving adventure.. then I discovered I can drive around with 13:1 compression or 15psi with a roots blower on it, and not have to retard the timing or drop the compression to 7:1. I'm in the middle of a supercharged 505ci Pontiac powered 68 LeMans build right now. Its going to be lots of fun. I figured out how to get better mileage on vodka than I can on gasoline too. Lots of compression, run it 220F coolant temp, EFI deadhead system with the fuel being heated by coolant after the bypass/FPR and the injectors. It vaporizes instantly, burns exceptionally cleanly, doesn't ping or knock and makes more power. Essentially its the same thing Smokey Yunick was doing but within normal operating temps rather than getting the fuel to 450F. Works great in diesels if you can add a spark plug, and ditch the mechanical injection for a carb or EFI. Working on some LS engines to do the same thing, the 76 C10 is going to be the test mule, who needs good aero... Already got better mileage with a carb in the 70 GTO with a 455. It did 17-18 highway with an 8.8:1 compression 455 running 87 octane, 2.93 gear and 2004R trans. It would also run 12.60s at almost 110mph, despite weighing 4100lbs. .. when it hooked anyway. Swapped in a 13:1 455, 700R4, and 3.42 gears and got 20mpg mixed city/highway from it with a Qjet I modified. 210F coolant temp and didn't block the heat riser in the head so the intake would get hotter. I want to try an EGR manifold to vaporize the fuel better with a carb. The 13:1 engine is a monster, just a bit over 600ftlbs from 2400 to 4500rpm and carries over 500ftlbs to 6000. It might do better on fuel if I didn't have a heavy foot.. its just too much fun. Maybe I will put it in a Firebird, they are more aerodynamically favorable than GTOs. I live 20 miles from town, out in the woods so public transportation is limited to a bus in the morning and one mid afternoon. Miss those and you are stuck in town or walking. EVs don't go very far in the cold, currently its -8F outside. Even in the summer they have a hard time making it 40 miles to the next town and back. If they dry up gasoline or make it hideously expensive the only problem I will have will be 10w 30. Oh and I have no corrosion issues with anything running my home made vodka. E85 from farther south has some additives that cause problems with white chalky stuff, a yellow gel, and rust. Methanol is the highly corrosive and toxic alcohol, ethanol is the one you can get in a bar. They are quite different for anyone else reading this. :) the 70 GTO has been on ethanol since 2007, zero issues with it in all this time.
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  2.  @donreinke5863  easy way to get the % up is to let the gasoline evaporate from it, half full barrels left in the sun for a while, then just open the bungs. All the light stuff boils off and you're left with more ethanol. I didn't break the forward or direct on Th400s, various things failed in them over the years when I put lots of torque through them with a heavy car and a highway gear. Had the center support decide to shed its snap ring on one, what a joy it was getting that one apart. Had one grenade a planet set, to be fair I hadn't checked it when I went through it. A 455 will find a weak link for sure. Most people ran methanol until the early 00s. Thats why most people conflate methanol and ethanol as being the same thing. I've had lots of fun learning all of the fuel stuff, interesting challenge. When the snow melts up here I will start making more content about my fuel project, last year an AHRA youtuber event and needing to repair trucks and my trailer kept me from doing much with the fuel project. I need to get to where I can produce 1000 gallons per year, thats my goal. I can put everything on it when I make that much, and only the winter beater will be on pump gas.
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  3.  @donreinke5863  The TKO trans is rated to 600ftlbs, and I am not going to be racing it. I have other vehicles for that. They have TH400s, and yeah my 455s can tear up a transmission easy. I don't bother with the heads and tails, since I am not drinking it. Have to denature it to use it to go driving around, thats easy enough to do. I put the last part in about corrosion and methanol for other people who will read the comments. On gasoline, yeah you want to run them cold. On ethanol if you run your engine at 160 you are going to milkshake the oil, it wont get hot enough to boil the condensation out. With the latent heat of vaporization of ethanol, the intake charge is still cold and dense, so you don't lose power. The heat lets you use less fuel, and since ethanol doesn't like to ping or knock, you don't have to worry about it lighting off before the spark hits it.. If you want max power then its a different tune than max mileage, but you are still going to get really good power with max mileage. Same timing, 7.5:1 AFR for power, 8.5-10 AFR for mileage, depending on the engine. Much more fuel than 7:1 and you are just wasting it, and not making more power. I am pretty good at tuning on gas, so learning to tune ethanol has been very interesting. Its a different thought process, because you aren't trying to shed so much waste heat and keep it from rattling. Just give it as much as it wants and let it eat for power. I find with my Pontiacs, because they are predominantly under 6000rpm power bands, that throwing a bunch of advance at them makes them considerably faster. Not worried about power over 6000 at all, except for two of them. Those two have the airflow to spin more RPM. Takes a lot of air to feed 455-540 cubes, and the long runners of a Pontiac will need to be huge to make power over 6500. Back in the 90s running a closed chamber head with 11.3:1 on VP 110, one of my 455s wanted 52 degrees total, back it down to 38 and it went from 11.40s to 13.20s. The slow burning fuel and low RPM nature of the engine, pushing a 3.42 gear wanted the advance. I did a lot of testing with it back then. Those are the head on the 65 GTO now, with .04" more stroke. Yeah you need quite a bit of space to make fuel. Its not an apartment thing, and a city will have concerns.. lol. Two storage units would be enough room for fermenting and the still, but not fuel storage or what you're using to make it. I have almost zero interest in the modular Fords, burned by a 5.4 and that was enough for me. Look into 3d printing, you can make it in sections and epoxy them together. Intakes aren't overly stressed and you can keep them cool, so its an option.
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