NoodleKnight

Hey the ad free skin is back, except it's not totally ad free, haha. I guess I must be the few that paid subscription fees because I felt that I should help contribute to the forums, rather than take away the ad's. Being able to edit my posts and hide ad's was like free extra features. Since I don't really have a lot of good knowledge to offer, or anything else worthwhile for that matter, $40 (or whatever I paid) for what I've learned through this board is a pretty good bargain. I'm sure if Charles (or any other veteran member here) charged a consulting fee for the random questions I've asked him it would have totaled more than what I've paid for, haha. Pretty good deal for me. Felt like throwing in my 2 cents into this mess...

They're diesel engines, their limited rev range yields lower HP figures. Doesn't matter since the high torque output is what matters. EDIT: nevermind, I should have bothered to read the other posts, lol.

Hmm that's right, my mistake. Thanks for correcting me. CNG was stuck in my head when I read a post about NGV public transportation.

Have you seen the LPG tanks are used in vehicles? You have other things to worry about before the tank breaking in an accident. And like ethanol, LPG's energy density is like, 3/4ths that of gasoline, so that's some substantial power loss, haha. You don't need to convert deep fryer oil into diesel, you just need to filter it. Some people go beyond that and add a shit ton of chemicals and detergent, but why bother if you're just trying to save money. Unless you happen to live in CA...

Dang. Should have waited a few more hours, haha.

Hybrids aren't a fad. They're not going to go away and we're going to go back to just gasoline burning cars. If anything, they're a crossover to electric cars. It looks like you didn't bother to read what I wrote.

Toyota is offering a 10 year, 150,000mile warranty on the batteries, that's how reliable they are. The batteries used in the Toyota rav-4 EV are over 10 years old and have over 100,000 miles on them, I believe south coast edison has a fleet of these Rav-4 EV's and they've put them through a lot of use. Although Toyota isn't permitted to build and use these batteries anymore, they wouldn't use any lesser technology on their current batteries. On top of that, the Prius has one of the most aerodynamic bodies of all the current cars on the market. I believe the EV-1 was the only other car with a lower coefficient of drag, but GM pretty much crushed or disabled all of those. You're just speaking from ignorance; the toyota prius engine is the most thermal efficient engine you can buy off the market as of right now; it's around 30-35% thermally efficient, where as most gasoline engines are only around 20-25%, diesel engines are around 40%, but that's a different story. The electric drivetrain assembly in the prius only exists to help recapture lost energy when you brake (normally the rotational energy is just turned into heat), and is later sent back to the wheels when you accelerate from a stop, or when you need extra acceleration. The Prius has better gas mileage than a civic, the end. Hybrids aren't only purchased because they're fashionable. Everyone picks on the batteries. If you think of it, there aren't many of us who commute over what the range of the 10 year old EV-1's gave us. On top of that, battery technology hasn't been standing still, lead acids and metal hydride batteries are older technologies, lithium ion (and hopefully lithium polymer) batteries are the current cutting edge of battery technology. And no, they don't blow up like they do in laptop batteries when they fault.

Slightly bad timing, lol. Oh well, 4 business days until the darn money transfers to my paypal account.

I think you can just take your rear O2 sensor and hide it somewhere in the undercarriage; don't unplug it though -- this makes the O2 sensor think the cat is doing its job really well.