zBoat project finally begins!

[DumHed]

After sitting around for 18 months or so my F1 Tunnel boat has arrived at the zHouse ready for some f1><0r1ng!

here's what it looks like at the moment:

http://www.zgeek.com/albums/albuw94/boat_front.jpg

Stage one is to finish off surface preparation and get a coat of paint on it.

Then there's the problem of making it actually go.
Current plan is to use a VW beetle engine driving one or two large multi blade fans, in a similar setup to an airboat or hovercraft.
This is partly because it'll look cool, and partly because it's a lot cheaper than buying a decent outboard motor or the parts required to convert the boat to an inboard power plant setup.

I'll update this thread with any progress when it happens :)

[Buffy]

I'm scared. O_O

But I will still help paint and sand etc if you need it :p

[dogwomble]

Hmmm seeing as I will be in Syd this coming weekend and have very little in the way of plans, how about a working bee on Saturday?

However, considering my considerably little knowledge of Sydney, being able to get to whichever ZHouse this is at will be a challenge I will have to overcome.

Edit: Well, considering the reason I wanna get out of Canberra for a few days is because I'm bored of it and need a short change. A change is as good as a holiday, so I've opted for both.

[That Bloke]

For a mere 500UK pounds(less than $1500Au) you could acquire a Rolls Royce Artouste gas turbine, that would be easily converteted to a Jet engine

[Blunt]

Shit man, forget hucking that in the sea. Combine that shell with the spare car in the yard and create a Mach 5 car and "let's break that speed record!".


GO SPEED RACER! GO SPEED RACER, GO!

[DumHed]

Originally posted by That_Bloke
For a mere 500UK pounds(less than $1500Au) you could acquire a Rolls Royce Artouste gas turbine, that would be easily converteted to a Jet engine

Can you get them in australia for that?

If so, tell me where! :)

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
Can you get them in australia for that?

If so, tell me where! :)

Not sure, Sometimes Rolls Royce Avons come up locally for around $4500 but they are proper jet engines & are about as long a medium car.

Here's an artuoste in england, the shipping weight is around 204kg (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2968330237&category=2983)

[Skouboe]

Congrats on the Zboat.

[DumHed]

thanks :)


hmmm, 1500 + millions of shipping sounds like an expensive option compared to the $150 VW engine and the rest of the gear that I already have :)

Funnily enough though I am thinking of reviving my old jet engine project to add a little bit of thrust (and mainly noise / flames :))

Rather than a real turbine engine I'm thinking I'll have a combustion chamber and exhaust nozzle, with compressed air coming from a mechanical compressor driven by the main engine.
Much simpler, and more flexible.

[DrDivad]

woo! zboat!

rock on

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
thanks :)


hmmm, 1500 + millions of shipping sounds like an expensive option compared to the $150 VW engine and the rest of the gear that I already have :)

Funnily enough though I am thinking of reviving my old jet engine project to add a little bit of thrust (and mainly noise / flames :))

Rather than a real turbine engine I'm thinking I'll have a combustion chamber and exhaust nozzle, with compressed air coming from a mechanical compressor driven by the main engine.
Much simpler, and more flexible.

Ah, Pressure jets, you could also go for Pulse jets, people have made there own turbine with Turbocharger parts(actually the turbine from the turbo is the part that is normally discarded), I saw one made from an old Holset prime mover turbo that put out 100hp at the shaft.

[DumHed]

yep, I've built a jet engine out of a toyota turbo before.
I've built a pulse jet too, but I couldn't use it much since everyone within a 2km radius seemed to complain about the noise!
Interestingly it used to turn green when it heated up (was made from galvanised pipe)
I let it keep running till the reed valve block melted one day, and never fixed it :)

I reckon the pressure jet setup would be kinda interesting though. Saves a lot of complexity. If I could get hold of a mega large turbo though I'd do another turbojet.

I have a couple of positive displacement superchargers which I could use for a pressure jet though. One of them even has an electric clutch on it, so I could kick it in when the main engine reaches full revs.

Here's a video of the old jet engine running briefly till I was worried that the turbine would get spat out the end :)

http://www.zgeek.com/albums/albuw94/Jet_Engine1.wmv

[DumHed]

ok, slight update to the project is that there'll be more focus on the jet side of propulsion (for extra darwin award goodness :))
So I'm now trying to find the biggest truck turbocharger I can, to build a very large version of my old jet engine - with the addition of an afterburner.
The main fan driving engine will probably remain, partly to drive all the accessories - oil pump, fuel pump, etc for the jet.

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed

http://www.zgeek.com/albums/albuw94/Jet_Engine1.wmv

Ah, it's the type that use the complete housing with a large seperate combustion, You can make more efficient ones with an integeral combustion chamber behind the compressor, the use only the inturnals, sometimes they use the turbine from the charger but often people fabricate an axial flow turbine rotor from a high temp steel alloy called inconel.

[DumHed]

yeah, fabricating from inconel reeks of hard work and empty wallet :)

It would be more efficient, but you then have problems of keeping the bearings cool, etc, and much more complex combustion chamber design.

I'm hoping to overcome efficiency problems the proper way - by making it heaps bigger! :)

[jmello]

i like the vroom-go-go!

[pleed]

What ever happened to the Geek Car? It was an XA falcon if I remember.

[DumHed]

that was Pirate's project - but didn't get to the having-of-car stage.

The boat is well under way, and most of the parts have already been found :)

[pleed]

Cool, at least someone is organised.
Pirate, get off your lazy arse and finish that car.

[DumHed]

someone find me a turbo like this:
(the larger one :))

[DumHed]

OK, I found a turbo.
It's a mega old (60's) turbo from a big perkins diesel engine.
It looks pretty rough, but it's actually never been used - it still has the plastic plugs in the oil supply / drain holes!

I'm sure it's a very inefficient turbo, but it has a few design characteristics that make it fairly well suited to this project. It comes apart easily too which is nice :)

Here are some pics of it in pieces on my desk at work this arvo:

http://www.zgeek.com/gallery/album13

and here are some pics of the combustion chamber from my old jet engine:

http://www.zgeek.com/gallery/album14

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
OK, I found a turbo.
It's a mega old (60's) turbo from a big perkins diesel engine.
It looks pretty rough, but it's actually never been used - it still has the plastic plugs in the oil supply / drain holes!



Where did you get that & what did it cost you?

[jmello]

think you can pilot that thing to the states? i'd like to see it when it's complete.

the white river's about a half mile from here. .. if you're feeling especially energetic, you can bring it around argentina (or that panama thing, but you don't want malaria), up the mississippi river, into the white river, and straight to my house :P

[prong]

Dumhed with his bigger turbo

[DumHed]

Originally posted by That_Bloke
Where did you get that & what did it cost you?

I got it from a diesel wrecker nearby.
Cost $400, which is a fair bit for such a crusty old bit of gear, but when a turbo of half the size with dead bearings sells for the same amount I figured it wasn't a bad start - especially since it's mechanically in new condition, and is very easy to work on / modify.

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
I got it from a diesel wrecker nearby.
Cost $400, which is a fair bit for such a crusty old bit of gear, but when a turbo of half the size with dead bearings sells for the same amount I figured it wasn't a bad start - especially since it's mechanically in new condition, and is very easy to work on / modify.

I've never come across a cheap big turbo but on ebay you come across those tiny Hitachi turbos you find on Handa Cities & that for under $100 but even the turbos that are commonly used to make jet engines for remote controlled planes are bigger than that.

[DumHed]

I paid $100 for the turbo used on my old small jet engine. I got it from a japanese car wrecker. It's a mid sized turbo from some kind of toyota.
They had a whole box full of turbos, and that was the biggest.

anywho, update on the boat wise:

Since it's rained constantly since I got the boat here and ready to work on I haven't been able to prepare and paint it, or do the minor deck repairs needed.

I did however manage to get the engine that will drive the fans.

It's a 1600cc VW beetle engine.
After extracting it from the offending beetle, and removing the cooling fan / generator, carby, and oil cooler we managed to fit it in the boot of the Silvia. It's pretty heavy though so without an extra person or two to help it's staying in the boot for the night :)

http://www.zgeek.com/albums/albuw94/vw_engine.jpg

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
yeah, fabricating from inconel reeks of hard work and empty wallet :)

It would be more efficient, but you then have problems of keeping the bearings cool, etc, and much more complex combustion chamber design.

I'm hoping to overcome efficiency problems the proper way - by making it heaps bigger! :)

I saw one that still uses the complete housing & has an offset combustion chamber, but its chamber is much more compact, they reckon it's good for upto 200lbs of thrust depending on the turbo, you're supposed to buy the plans off them for $40 but I can fill in the blanks & bodge one just from seeing the picture.

[DumHed]

can you send me any info on that one? :)

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
can you send me any info on that one? :)

http://www.springerdev.com/jet/main-1.jpg

The combustion chamber isn't much more than a "U" bend, I can't see any reason why you absolutely have to have that trolley.

They are apparently featured in Popular Science magazine.

Some guy on ebay is selling plan sets (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3163350367&category=2594)

[DumHed]

ahh yes, Springerdev

here are some more pics: http://www.springerdev.com/jet/pics.html


That one still has a two layer combustion chamber, like my old one, but it's shorter and fatter.

The tricky part to get right is the flame tube design to give effective mixing to allow complete combustion of enough fuel to run the engine at full power without too much heat reaching the turbine.

You can see on my old engine that the fuel only really gets burning a fair way down the tube:

http://www.zgeek.com/albums/album14/flame_tube.jpg

[DumHed]

ok, most of the boat got a coat of paint on the weekend, and some more parts were picked up.
When I get a chance I'll take some photos.

[scathing]

Originally posted by DumHed
I'm hoping to overcome efficiency problems the proper way - by making it heaps bigger! :)

Because there's no substitute for cubes, right V8 boy?

[That Bloke]

Check out this sucker,
http://i14.ebayimg.com/02/i/01/14/69/7c_1.JPG

It's mine now although I'm yet to take delivery, it's 6.75 inches in diametre & made of titanium.............Finding a good turbine that size could be hard, I was outbid on a complete compressor & axial flow turbine assembley, it was 30cm in diametre.

[DumHed]

bummer!


how much did you pay for that one?
Looks nice :)

The boat has now been moved to the new house, but won't get any work for a while, since I now have to fix the car (broken exhaust manifold) and don't have any money after moving...

I do now have the space to work on it though!

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
bummer!


how much did you pay for that one?
Looks nice :)



$67us

[DumHed]

not bad.

so what's the plan for it?

[That Bloke]

Originally posted by DumHed
not bad.

so what's the plan for it?

A biggish jet engine, maybe even a turboshaft engine, depending on what parts I can find or fabricate I wanna try & build an engine with an in-line combustion chamber(upscaled from a plan for a model aircraft engine).

If worst comes to worst I'll try & find a scrap metal merchant who deals titanium, Ti is worth $2000 a kg in Aus, I already have around 5kg of miscellaneous titanium+ whatever this weighs(I guess a kg).

[DumHed]

sounds like a plan :)

I'm slowly collecting parts to build my jet engine.
The pile is gradually growing :)

[That Bloke]

Here's a video of the old jet engine running briefly till I was worried that the turbine would get spat out the end :)

http://www.zgeek.com/albums/albuw94/Jet_Engine1.wmv
I very nearly bought this sucker, weighs 23kg, It's a Garret M 24 from a 12 litre Detroit diesel, it was about $330 but I really can't be spending too stupidly right now.

[DumHed]

ahh nice!

lucky I didn't know about it, or I'd be even more broke!