How many Alternators would t take?

[htchbck]

i was thinking, the alternators is not dependent on torque to work but more so on speed/turns, so the concept is based on pulleys, small gears, like the bicycle wheel effect where you pedal once and you have the wheel turning hundreds or thousands of times from that one spin. So if you notice even with a slow movement of the pedal the wheel goes even faster than the pedal movement, also maybe operated on a derailleur system as the bike.

The stuff about bike gears and stuff reminded me of a project one of my buddies was working on last summer, so I tried to get in touch with him. Bear in mind that he and I both are gearhead, not electronic techs, so he was working with a gas motor (and a Geo Metro, not festie), but this seemed like a cool project. I couldn't get ahold of him (he moved out of state about this time last year) but I assume he's still working on it. Anyway, here's basically the info I know about his project.

Project name: 1/8 Wonder of the World (he is using a 125cc engine in a formerly 1.0L Metro, which is 1/8 the displacement )

Base: 1992 Geo Metro, 3 cyl 1.0L, 5 speed.

Engine: Unknown make and model, 125cc 4 stroke dirt bike motor, 4 speed

Basic Plan: Not sure how he was planning on making everything work exactly, since his job caused him to move away before he got too far on it, but he took everything with him to continue. He was going to keep the 5 speed trans and link the output shaft from the dirt bike trans to the input shaft of the Metro trans via chain drive with gear reduction (probably a couple of sets of chains/gear). The idea was to have it work kind of like a 5 speed semi with a two speed rear end. In effect you would have 20 gears to choose from, so it would be a pain to drive probably but you could have 1st geared low enough that the low HP/torque of the bike motor could get you rolling and start shifting through till you topped it out.

If he had stuck around we probably would have ended up EFIing by building a "mini-squirt" system for it. He and I and another guy John (who IS an electronic tech) built a multiport EFI for a 14 horse B&S V-twin back in highschool. We did most of the mechanical work, and John did the rest of the magic. Never really got much efficiency testing done on it, but it ran just as good as it did with a carb. For inputs he used (I think) engine temp (it was water cooled), some kind of Hall effect sensor for the timing, a VAF that he built (don't ask how lol idk), a TPS that was basically a fully variable potentiometer attached to the TB, and an O2 sensor. We had to "remanufacture" the flywheel and some other parts, put a port on the exhaust for the O2, built an intake from scratch and I don't remember what we go the injectors off of. Probably wasn't too efficient, but it was cool!

[ideas]

sounds complex but i would also love to see the results of you and your friend's project, don't you guys email each other or something to keep in contact?

[htchbck]

Haven't talked to him lately, but its his project not mine. I was never really involved with it just knew about it. I don't have an email for him, but when I called his cell I got his voicemail so I don't think his number has changed. Still haven't gotten a call back though so idk

[iceracerdude]

i was thinking, the alternators is not dependent on torque to work but more so on speed/turns,

That alternator is not the same as when you're playing with it in your hands, once the field is energized, it wants/need torque to work.

But here's something for you to think about, or even try.
How long do you think you can drive the car with a freshly charged battery, during the day only?
Remember, you will occasionally be using the brake lights, the turn signal, and possibly the horn. Hopefully not the wipers, radio, or heater.
If your car is fuel injected, it will need more battery than a carbed car obviously.
I would do the test with a spare battery in the trunk, ready to swap out with.
See, an "electric only" car gets plugged in every day right, because there no generator in that kind of system? What if after you pulled the motor and substituted a 1 cylinder 4500 watt generator to keep up with the batteries for that electric motor idea of yours?