Toyota Prius, Fact or Fiction

[egon]

Was that the Sprite or the Sunbeam?

There seem to be many different versions of popular diesels being produced in India and China. If they are licensed or not is a different matter.

The old Lister Type with one cylinder, the heavy flywheels and running at maybe 1000RPM always intriques me for use on a generator.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Egon, The '66 Sunbeam Tiger came stock with a high performance Ford Mustang V-8 engine and the Ford HEH 4 speed tranny (short throw tranny with T-Bar reverse lockout.) A real tire smoker, that.

For a while there was a thing going around about the rotary Mazda engine (RX-7 after the seals were good enough to last) and the A-H Sprite, the BugEye version not the other, later, one that was the same as the MG Miget. There was considerable action replacing the little 849cc 4 banger (40MPGallon) with the RX-7 (130MPHour plus) The best way was to swap the engine, trany, shortened drive shaft, and reduced width axle. This way it would stay put together. None of the Sprite driveline components could take the guff and the tranny was way off in needed ratio as the RX-7 was a high winder. Not that the AH engine couldn't be worked over and warmed up (been there and done that) but the stock Mazda should smoke most any reheated Sprite engine. The aded expense of really good front disks was insurance. The little drum brakes of the stock Sprite were about right for a goat cart pulled by an anemic goat.

About the diesel generator... I met some folks with a cabin in the mountains who had a diesel generator that was in service for two generations. I don't recall the name but it was a single cylinder and ran at less than 1000 RPM. By weight the single heaviest part by far was the flywheel, a monstrous thing. I don't recall the output but think it was way less than 5KVA, something like 3KVA.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[kokopelli]

pat
there is a shop in cali putting 3.9 cummins into jeep wrangles.
Since the 3.9 mates up to the chevy 400 tranny I am thinking about tossing one in my 89 s10 for giggles in the spring....

[Pat]

Curiously, the Toyota dealership where we bought our Prius called us a couple times to try to buy it back used for well over market. Then almost a year later (a few days ago) they sent us a letter trying to buy it back over market price. They have a sad tale about not being able to meet the demand for Prius.

Each time we tell them to not bother us, if we didn't want the car we would not have waited 8 months to get it.

We are up to about 20,000 miles (2004) and are super pleased with the car which performs perfectly with no problems or warranty maint beyond rotating tires and changing oil. the oil changes are free, negotiated as part of purchase price.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

Hey Pat!

I'll hit 100K on my Prius in about three weeks or so. Time for a new one, maybe in the Spring?

[Pat]

Gary, I heard a report on NPR that placed Toyota as number two in the US, displacing Ford to number three. Toyota is gaining on GM.

They also reported that Prius Sales were up 185% compared to last year.

If you get a new one, let me know how you like the rear view camera and other upgrades. I wish there were an easy way to interface to the display on my Prius. I'd like to be able to feed camera video to it from a small CCD camera like the after market ones mounted in lisc plate holders.

Pat