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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Crazy Small car into a Generator / powerplant Ideas
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hbarker
# Posted: 16 Jul 2010 14:57
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OK,, I know we may have touched on this subject in the past , however I cant get it out of my mind..
I have 2 small cars that have been wrecked.
95 and 97 geo prisms.
They both have 1.8 liter 4 bangers one has auto trans the other a 5 speed.. heres my crazy idea.
slice the car up a little leaving the front end only..
Remove the A/c compressor and the power steering pump and add 2 good alt's in there place,,
Its front wheel drive.. So take the tires off the rims,, run big belts off each front wheel to PTO type gen heads from harbor freight..
Crank it up and find the right gear and rev to reach proper RPM for the PTO gen heads.,, shouldnt be to hard or fast??

So wouldnt this little car run like ,for a LONG time on a tank of fuel ?

Any Ideas or input welcome..

Is this over kill? I cant get it out of my mind and hate to take those cars to the scrap yard....

larry
Member
# Posted: 17 Jul 2010 08:39
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they are Geos they belong in a junk yard. don't forget about the in tank fuel pump and the pcm because I'm sure it is fuel injected. exhaust system and catalyst need to be accounted for. sounds easy but unless you have welding skills and a expert understanding of relatively modern automobile engine management and controls it would be easier to buy a generator. on the other hand it would be fun to chop those so called cars to pieces

hbarker
# Posted: 17 Jul 2010 14:00
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hehehe yes it would be fun, We do have some welding skills ,
I think we could just relocate the fuel tank.. leave exhaust same length, but turn it up in the air ?
Sounds like fun to me,, and would have the other engine for spare parts ,,
Hmmmm

hbarker
# Posted: 17 Jul 2010 16:39
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I might add that those little 1.8 liter 4 bangers are the exact same engine thats in a toyota corolla,, its a toyota engine.

those goes are junk,, but the motors are great.

Anonymous
# Posted: 20 Jul 2010 07:00
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And i believe there was a time you could buy a carbureted toyota 1.8. I like this idea.

larry
Member
# Posted: 20 Jul 2010 19:44
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oh great, so it will run like crap and pollute the hell out of the air.

Rob_O
# Posted: 20 Jul 2010 22:43
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Your small car generator will use more fuel than a regular generator. If that's not a problem go for it.

hbarker
# Posted: 21 Jul 2010 16:34
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Thanks for the replies..
Would use more fuel than a reg genset... hmm Maybe
how would I try and calculate how much fuel it would use??

Was looking at northern tools gen heads,, they sell 10,500 watt head that required 18 hp motors..
Ok so could easily turn 2 of those,. so,, X 2 would be 21,000 watt gen + the 3 altenators with clean 12v..

I can imagine what the fuel consumption on a gen set of that size..
heck if a honda IE 1000 consumes 1 gl in 6-7 hours,,.

BUT this little car motor would barely be purring at half that rpm..

Any more replies would be great.

Rob_O
# Posted: 21 Jul 2010 19:26
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Quoting: hbarker
Would use more fuel than a reg genset... hmm Maybe
how would I try and calculate how much fuel it would use??


Just a guess here...

70 MPH on the expressway probably requires about 20 HP in that car, at 35 MPG that's 2 gallons per hour. More generators, more power, more fuel, etc...

Anonymous
# Posted: 7 May 2012 17:03
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The Key would be pulling the motor, and attaching a properly sized generator to the Motor.

you would only need one and the generator control attached to the throttle, I think that could work.

the generator would be more expensive, but you would not have to rely in the transmission, only the motor.

MtnDon
Member
# Posted: 7 May 2012 18:12
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Never saw this thread before.

A challenge would be getting the RPM's right and holding the RPM's as the load on the generator changed. Most of these gen heads need to turn at 3600 RPM.s to maintain the 60 Hz AC frequency. A little variance is generally okay, but not too much. All the typical real loud cheap gen sets have carburetor governors to maintain speed as load changes. You might be able to fiddle with cruise control circuitry, but why bother re-inventing the wheel.

Seto
Member
# Posted: 9 May 2012 12:32
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i did this with a 94 geo tracker suv, manual tranny. the tranny was dead and it wasn't going to be driven again. i hooked an inverter to the battery with cables set that i had the 3 outlet plugs on the inverter in the cab by the dashboard. i would run a 100' extension cord to my place and use it to power heavier tools or in the winter to use a 12 amp powersports charger to charge my battery bank when solar was not enough.

the engine eventually died since it was an old beater, but for a generator it worked for a few months, i used the rest of the cab as a small storage shed since i only needed the driver seat area to use as a generator. when the engine died i pulled my inverter off of it and sold it as scrap iron.

i reccomend not cutting up a car, use the covered back seat and trunk for storage and if the engine dies its easier to sell as a scrap/junk vehicle, i got $200 for my tracker 2 months ago, and it had less than a ton of iron in it.

rayyy
Member
# Posted: 12 May 2012 06:59
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Sounds like a fun project but an aweful lot of work and money to build it.Besides,what do you plan on running with all that wattage.Your makeing 10000 watts but if your not using it you'd be better off just getting yourself a generator sized to what you will use.

Anonymous
# Posted: 11 Jun 2012 16:21
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If the generator(s) attached to the engine require less horsepower to operate than the engine is producing at a given RPM, you are wasting gasoline, or burning more than you need to. If you put enough generators on the engine to use all the horsepower capability of the engine, you will be producing an excess of wattage as rayyy said. What are you going to power with this? Battery recharge or just a few tools during construction?

Yes, it's overkill, but since you have the engines maybe it's worth it to burn extra gasoline, since your initial set up costs less to build. But, does it cost less just because you have the engine? By the time you spend all it takes to build this, what size new generator could you have bought?

My Briggs and Straton 5000 watt generator powers all my construction tools just fine and sips gasoline. cost $750 but it's new and will last a long time, took no time to build.

analogmanca
Member
# Posted: 12 Jun 2012 02:14 - Edited by: analogmanca
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Anonymous
Sips gasoline, a 5hp briggs with a 5000 watt head? I owned that generator (two of them).
Your opionion of sips, and mine are a little different.
I assume you mean 3600 rpm unit. I had to depend on that model maybe 15 years or so back during a ice storm that left me without power for nearly a week in winter.
I was ready to empty a ruger mini 30 round mag into it by the time power was restored. The noise of that thing, and the fuel it used drove me nuts,and broke.
It was the start of my checking out better ways to supply power.
I now own a lot of engines, and generators since then. I started thinking car engines were the way to go but, problems with load regulation,and fuel economy left me looking at other ways.
Forget any car engines, they cost to much even if given to you, and this is coming from someone cheap, who already has engines from 460,350, to 1.3l, 1 L and many in between. You want a water cooled diesel, with a simple 1800rpm ST style generator head without a avr.
Drop dead simple alternator heads that a blind monkey could keep running.
Look for water cooled Cangfa style diesels that make full HP at roughly 2200 rpm. drop the rpm to 1200 (belt coupling), to 1800 (for direct coupling)
And you will have a low noise long life, low fuel consumption generator that you can recover the heat off of it for domestic hot water, and have a unit that you can run on propane or natural gas as well as diesel all without changing anything.(uses diesel for ignition, propane for run)
Best value for the money, and as a advantage while most Changfas have electric start, they all have a hand crank. Most women find the hand crank easy to start(dueto the flywheel mass), compared to pull cord. My 2 Cents, if someone tried to give me a(gasoline) 5000 watt(3600 rpm) briggs unit I would ask them why they hate me!

I should add that before a changfa diesel a gm90 is even better but I have bought water cooled 6.5 hp electric start changfa diesels for as little as 380.00 where as the gm 90's are into the 1400.00 range.
though if you spend the extra on a gm90 you will have a engine( and generator assy) that is so much fun to watch that you will set up lawn chairs around it so everyone can watch it. Again, my 2 cents.

toyota_mdt_tech
Member
# Posted: 12 Jun 2012 16:23
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Quoting: hbarker
I might add that those little 1.8 liter 4 bangers are the exact same engine thats in a toyota corolla,, its a toyota engine.

those goes are junk,, but the motors are great



Those are a Toyota Corolla engine. Are you sure its not a 1.6, ie the 4AFE instead of the 1.8 7AFE engine?

Thoer were great cars, a Corolla clone almost. Made in Freemont California, joint venture with Toyota.

OK, how would you add power when the laod changes?

Use a small diesel engine, it has a govenor built into the injection pump and would power up when a load is applied. Or an inverter type generator and not worry about it.

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