Build your own alternative fuel vehicle
hans.dek...@gmail.com
At Santa Rosa Junior College in Petaluma, California, mechanics and do-
it-yourself environmentalists are learning how to convert a standard
car into an alternative fuel vehicle running on ethanol, vegetable
oil, or electricity. The class was created two years ago by diesel
truck mechanic Mark Armstrong and has quickly grown in popularity. The
maximum number of forty students filled the class soon after
registration opened this year and another forty had to be turned away.
Mark Armstrong teaches his students a wide variety of skills; for
example how to solder and braze so that they are able to assemble an
ethanol converter from dozens of copper pieces. In other sessions,
students are taught such things as how to install a filter for
purifying the vegetable oil or a heat exchanger that brings the
vegetable oil to the correct temperature to enable the fuel injectors
to work efficiently. Converting a car to run on electricity requires
the most extensive alteration since additional room has to be created
for fifteen battery packs, which usually involves reconfiguring the
suspension.
Reference
Article 'Alternative fuels class flooded' in The Press Democrat
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061124/NEWS/611240376