Sunday, November 28, 2010

Understanding the term ‘Horsepower’

power

The term ‘horsepower’ (hp), which represents the unit of power, was first introduced by James Watt in 1782 in order to help market his improved version of steam engine. James Watt (1736-1819) was a Scottish scientist, who brought the fundamental changes in the steam engine.
This started off the Industrial Revolution in England. The background history of the term ‘horsepower’ goes like this:

Few tips you should always be careful about

helpful_tips_image Most of the driving tips are from common sense. Sometimes we forget basic check up with our vehicle creating bigger problems while on road. During my past almost 14 years of driving experience, I learned alot and today I am going to share some with you.

1. Older cars need more regular checkups. Basic check up start from your home. If you don’t do them periodically you end up at a mechanic mostly as your car grows with you.

A rather haste endeavor: Govt. allows import of 5 year old cars

Cars-Sit-Unsold-In-Avonmo-003 Recently, Honda announced Civic’s exit from Japan. They told the reasons were the small Kei cars have brought down the sales of Civic in Japan, but many saw it coming. Due to the fact that Japan is running out of space quite fast which also means that the average Civic buyer is also running short of space to park the fat, bulgy Civic in his driveway if he has one. Much of the Civic owner’s in Japan are middle-class folks which don’t have a garage mostly or have tiny ones. Parking space in the city is another issue but the Kei cars have solved this to an extent, especially the problem of in city driving.

The art of copying a copy

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Earlier in this decade, Chinese cars came to fame due to design piracy. Several vehicles from Chinese soil emerged which had remarkable resemblance with an existing popular automobile. These Chinese cars were either partially or heavily inspired, or in some cases were an exact replica of the original car. Many of those vehicles remained as ‘concept cars’ and never really moved into production, some of them were produced but were phased out very quickly. However there were a few which became a mighty hit & were even labeled as trend setters. Among those, Chery QQ is a must to mention.

Something about Fog Lights….


fog1


Effects of Weather
The weather has a amazing effect on our every day lives. It can have an impact on what type of clothing we wear and how we spend our free time particularly holidays. Weather also affects agriculture, transportation, and industry. But harsh weather, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards, can brutally damage property and can take lives. Freezing temperatures can damage crops particularly in citrus-growing regions. Winter snows often generate hazardous driving conditions. The buildup of heavy fog may slow traffic on the roads and cause delays at important destinations like hospitals, railway terminals and airports. Thick fog can also cause deadly road accidents. It was in outlook of the highly dangerous road conditions during fog that the ‘Fog Lights’ were made-up. In this article we’ll talk about the new technology and latest innovations engaged in the automotive fog lights.
Safety and Visibility
Safety has always been a major issue in automotives. This is why auto manufacturers keep adopting newest technologies and placing the best and ground-breaking features on their cars to craft them safer. One of these is the fog light. The most significant facet in driving is your visibility. You should be able to see in front where you’re going in order to avoid striking anyone or anything approaching in your way. However if you can’t see where you are going, the chances are very elevated that you or somebody else is going to get damage. That is why it is strongly recommended to use fog lights on rainy days, foggy days, or during night driving. High beams, which only reflect back on fog and rain, generate the entire extra blinding outcome on your eyes. Fog lights are so designed as to penetrate through the fog to offer you better visibility. They also complement the low beams of your headlights, and working together, they make best use of your vision on the road. The fog lights thus provide accuracy for a highly controlled light pattern to improve the driver’s visibility in snow, rain, sleet, thick fog, and even in blizzards.
How Automotive Fog Lights Work

 

In order to assist visibility in foggy and misty conditions fog lights which are fixed on the front of a car or truck, are now widely used in nearly all the modern cars. The fog lights come in selection of colors and intensities and provide extraordinary assistance in navigating poor weather. A scientific principle of cutting through the fog with the help of extra low-level light helps solve visibility problem especially in foggy driving conditions..
Leaving apart red which is the color already used for both stop lights and brake lights most fog lights are yellow in color because of the need for a single color light rather than white light, to reduce dispersion as the light hits the water vapor and scatters in different directions. Another reason to use yellow color is because it has the longest wavelength next to the red. But the size of water molecules has a definite impact on dispersion. The problem arises when the size of water vapor molecules in fog are large enough causing limited dispersion building the wavelength of the light worthless. So in choosing the yellow lights which was supposed to be minimizing the blur the fog lights cast, the first car companies did not take into account the impact of the water vapor size on dispersion. Also because yellow color was used to point out various cautions to a driver.



So many modern fog lights are halogen light that let them to burn at much hotter temperatures than traditional lights. Halogen fog lights tend to have a tighter beam than incandescent fog lights, which yields an extra advantage. A particular category of fog lights, seen on some newer cars, is high-intensity discharge lamps. These lights may well use a number of different minerals to function, together with mercury, sodium and halide. These fog lights are often notable by a purplish shade of color, rather than the traditional yellow color.
Although some vehicles arrive with factory installed fog lights, there are some that don’t. But you needn’t be anxious as aftermarket fog lights are accessible on the market, and come in different shapes and sizes. You can always choose to upgrade the factory-fitted fog lights to higher-output halogen , HID (xenon) or projector style lamps Not only do fog lights make your driving safer, they also add to the aesthetics, drive safely in style.
Updates on Rear Fog Lights
There had been recurring turmoil over the installation of rear fog lights for relatively some time in the past. But the recent decision to add the safety feature (rear fog light) was in response to an online petition by more than 700 U.S. Mini owners requesting that Mini parent company BMW AG activate the rear fog lights on their cars. Many owners say they want the feature because they fear trucks won’t see their small cars in bad weather.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Understanding ABS

ABS
Basic Information:
Anti-lock Braking Systems (ABS) is a form of electronic braking which was invented to help a driver to control a vehicle under heavy braking by preventing the wheels from locking-up.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Environmental Pollution & Hazards of Natural Gas vs. Gasoline


What is CNG?
Natural gas consists mainly of methane (CH ). In addition to this, it usually includes ethane, propane and butane, long-chain hydrocarbons, water, hydrogen sulphide (H S) as well as inert gases such as carbon dioxide (CO ) and nitrogen (N ). The composition, however, depends to a great extent on the deposit.

Natural gas is compressed to 00 bars and carried as CNG  Compressed Natural Gas) in pressure tanks on the vehicle. The gas is usually depressurized to 7 bars by a high-pressure regulator and supplied to the engine induction system through a special mixing device.
In comparison with gasoline, natural gas has an unfavorable  volumetric energy content. Therefore, natural gas can only practically be applied in transport after being processed to a fuel with higher volumetric energy content.

Environmental View

Not long ago, the world used to be free of toxic compounds in the atmosphere, unlike today when every other person is contributing a large amount of waste gasses in the air. These waste gasses exit through the car’s exhaust pipe and into the atmosphere, free, free to pollute the world.
The topic for debate is that which fuel contributes more, CNG Compressed Natural Gas] OR Normal Pump Gasoline. [ISOOctane].
In theory, CNG is supposed to be less harmful for the environment. Carbon monoxide and non-methane hydrocarbons are reduced by upto 90 % compared with gasoline (on a car without a catalytic converter). The way catalytic converter designed for gasoline remains largely ineffective for the degradation of nitrogen oxides and methane in natural gas operation mainly due to low carbon monoxide values.
However, the quality of CNG in our country has led many to believe that it is not the clean fuel as it should be. Local CNG suppliers use low quality mixtures, introduce toxins into the gas stream to save up money and increase volume. Even after looking at these factors, CNG is way cleaner in an internal combustion engine than Gasoline.

Advantages of CNG Over Gasoline:

- 20- 25 % less carbondioxide emission.
- up to 90% less carbon monoxide emission.
- 75-90% less non-methane hydrocarbons.
- Approximately 80% less ozone deterioration potential.
- No Acid Smell from the exhaust gasses.
- No volume losses through vaporization from the tank while    refilling.
- No carcinogenic substances.
- Less Expensive than gasoline.


Disadvantages of CNG Over Gasoline:

- Heavy methane gas emission (global warming).
- Approximately 50 – 100 % more nitrogen dioxide emission.
- 20- 30% less power output with existing dual fuel engines at optimized conditions.
- Additional fuel station network necessary increasing Fire Risk..
- Weight and Space requirements for gas cylinders in a vehicle.
- Frequent Fill-ups.
- Dangerous Fire Hazard in case of Accident.
- Dangerous Explosion Hazard in case of Accident.
- Fire Hazard in case of gas leaks &/or substandard cylinders.
- Low Reliability.

Pakistan: A monopolist’s dream

Monopoly_Here_And_Now_2008_EA_Mobile_Hasbro-0 We have sugar mafia, political mafia, banking mafia, real-estate mafia and finally the automobile industry mafia. The list of these active mafia’s do not end here since our policies provide prudent room to form any mafia one would like to create or join the existent. The people of Pakistan have endured this phenomenon with the world wide Auto manufacturer’s have included the mafia in Pakistani ergonomics I reckon.