ACME Engineering and Design Limited, a Dave's Barn Subsidy

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

First, I'm Dave! And here's the barn:
Sorry for the crappy picture. I used a Polaroid XS70 and those pictures tend to not age well. So you can see that way back in 1974-1975 ACME Engineering and Design Limited was very Coyote-esc. And the chief executive, head of R&D, chief engineer, master fabricator, head mechanic, and the gopher, comprised 2 people. A friend, Pete, was gopher, I was everything else. Well, I did let gopheruse many of the tools, especially when the task at hand required 3 or more hands. I kid, but in reality Pete was one of my best friends and worked on anything that didn't require welding.

So back to the tale. Jim Langenback, another good friend and driver of the beast above, fabricated the frame:
Again, crappy picture, same camera. And same photographer. Yup, me... go figure! And I was standing right up against the front wall, next to the door. Size of the barn: 16x18. Fortunately the arsenal of tools only included a welder, a set of torches, a 3 drawer roll around with all of the hand tools I owned then, a pistol drill and a 9 inch angle grinder. ACME was not flush with cash in those days. And fortuitously I was employed by a machine shop, and had access to the machinery AND the machinists. Outsourcing at its finest. Also silent sponsor.

Here's some of the results of the efforts building race cars in that barn:

The crappy frame picture was taken about 5 months before the 3rd picture, taken before the car's 1st race, and the 4th picture was about 14-15 months later partway through the next season, approximately June of 76, after a complete rebuild. And Jim, gopher and I also helped 2 brothers who had taken over the car in the next picture from Jim, driving to the Catskills a couple nights a week from western Massachusetts.
This was opening night 1974, brand new car, and a feature win, taken away by a protest. Long story short the car was 37 pounds underweight after the race! And we lost ... And got weighed every week for a couple of years!

So what is the reason for this ramble thru the faded past? Just to point out that I'm so much slower in the garage these days. The WHATEVER project is 4 or 5 years and counting, and the frame isn't even fully welded yet! I was looking through old pictures today, and remembering how much got done with so little equipment, heretofore called ACME Engineering and Design Limited. I guess captain is right. Engineers get too carried away with stuff that really don't matter! And yes I chose that wording purposely. We also didn't have a lot of liberal arts in our education...

So what is your story?

[DanStokes]

Bummer that Jim is no longer with us. One Hell of a fabricator. Folks - he made several chassis (I forget how many but more than 1) for the drippy car project (hybrid with hydraulic energy recovery) for EPA when I worked there. The concept was doomed but the chassis were quite wonderful.

As far as Acme - you guys were MUCH more organized than me and my buddies. I was a third hand and painter for many projects back in my younger days but as far as I know no pictures survive so it's like it didn't happen.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Bummer that Jim is no longer with us. One Hell of a fabricator. Folks - he made several chassis (I forget how many but more than 1) for the drippy car project (hybrid with hydraulic energy recovery) for EPA when I worked there. The concept was doomed but the chassis were quite wonderful.

As far as Acme - you guys were MUCH more organized than me and my buddies. I was a third hand and painter for many projects back in my younger days but as far as I know no pictures survive so it's like it didn't happen.

Haven't thought about the drippy car in a while. I've got a couple of pictures of the stuff that we worked with. Let's see...
Here's part of the motley crew members on the drippy car engine side of the project. Dan is right behind the very powerful 2 cylinder 850 cc combined cycle powerhouse on a Superflow dyno. We kept burning up the electronics, the glow plugs, bending connecting rods... best power it ever made was when Jim M and I rebuilt it using parts from the cut away display engine from the lobby! 12 horsepower! I set the cam timing like it was a race engine. And I don't think we ever fessed up about taking the $7k display engine from the lobby and swapping out its 2 good rods for 2 bent rods.


These 3 pictures are from Jim's shop, when I visited for reviews of the progress and design of the 1st chassis custom made for the drippy car. You know Dan, we should really tell the peanut gallery its real name, A Proposal for a New Generation of Vehicle, PNGV for short. After all the government hates to waste an opportunity to create another acronym.

The first picture was the basic chassis platform, nothing fancy, just a 60s era slot car soldered tube chassis made big. Those 5 bays in the midsection were space to put up to 5 approximately 10 gallon capacity, 3,000 to 5,000 psi hydraulic accumulators. Proof of concept used heavy steel bodied industrial accumulators, the last set were custom designed and fabricated composite bladder accumulators. A research firm in San Antonio designed and fabricated them to our specs. And they were not cheap. Or tremendously lighter, for that matter.

The other 2 pictures show the front and rear suspension design, based on current Ford Taurus front suspension components. I had specified that for both ends as we were going to have energy recovery in front, and drive in the rear. So this gave us utmost flexibility to mix and match where the power flow was. Initially it also had a midget/v8 6 spline quick change independent suspension differential at each end, but those were deep sixed early on because the design had evolved to not include direct drive from the engine to the wheels.

I haven't digitized any later chassis pictures.

I left a couple of years after the 3 total chassis were built, and the team had made a valiant effort to create something that weight the same as a current Taurus, had the same performance, and got 80 mpg. The best it had performed before I left was 1000 pounds overweight, slow as a snail, and maybe 45ish mpg (questionable at best).

An interesting aside, recently I came across some paperwork regarding my position from that time period. I had forgotten but Tom B the manager who hired me, had gotten my position titled Research Engineer, an anomaly for the agency as it's not in their mandate to perform research. The rest of the engineers were titled with the standard government titles, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, chemical engineer, and civil... no there were no civvies! Which goes to prove one of captain's points. My whole career in engineering was in research, so even more lost in space...

[Captain]

He Gave YOU The GOLDEN TICKET,
"Research Engineer" !!
Practical Application of Theoretical
Processes of No Proven Application !

In other words, if it doesn't work, YOU can't be held Accountable!!
I'm only in charge of Research, talk to the "Real Engineers" for an Explanation of What Failed and Why.
Now go find more Funding and we will applied What Failed to Your Next Silly Idea.

[SuperBuickGuy]

ACMEEDL, a DSBS? can it be treated?

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

He Gave YOU The GOLDEN TICKET,
"Research Engineer" !!
Practical Application of Theoretical
Processes of No Proven Application !

In other words, if it doesn't work, YOU can't be held Accountable!!
I'm only in charge of Research, talk to the "Real Engineers" for an Explanation of What Failed and Why.
Now go find more Funding and we will applied What Failed to Your Next Silly Idea.

Didn't have to get funding! Govmint job! Money's no problem! But as to the accountability, well, being 1 of 1 is a problem! To whit, the mechanical engineers assigned to the project over time were a little green behind the ears, you could say. Dan and I did create a training effort, the Dirty Hands Club, and managed to get about 20 of the newbie engineers to participate. And we were awarded bronze medals for the effort.

And I was further tasked by management, a lady whom shall remain nameless, after that effort to continue mentoring the team engineers, all of them the next higher grade by then. And the head of personnel would kid with me that if he saw me running away from the test cells, that no one better get in his way, because they were going to have boot tracks up their backs.

Had something to do with my knowledge of high pressure hydraulic systems. BTW I don't think anyone else had any experience with pressures above air compressor levels, ie 125-150 psi. I had experience with systems exceeding 160,000 psi! Which is one reason why I wasn't given the opportunity to ask for a different assignment during reinvention of government. The rest of the professional staff were able to move around in the agency. But enough of that... it's water, or in this case, hydraulic oil under the bridge!

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

In case you are wondering, that pressure was used to hydrotest reactor fuel rod tubes to failure. It takes a lot of special equipment to pull off that kind of test without anything else getting damaged. And yes, it sounds like cannons firing when the test vessel fails. My graduate degree is in Applied Mechanics, and the position at the research firm was in that field. Go figure, and ask yourself, was Dave thinking when he got the next position?

[Captain]

And Here all this time I thought you guys were working on back then was;

"Non Exploding Atomic Detonators" ......

[DanStokes]

The first day of the Drippy Car project Dave and I and another young engineer (Paul) were sitting around. We predicted that this project was doomed to failure due to mass and safety concerns that couldn't be overcome. We were right. It took management YEARS to figure it out.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

And Here all this time I thought you guys were working on back then was;

"Non Exploding Atomic Detonators" ......

Ssshhh! I didn't say that! (Looking at the t.v. big brother is watching...). And we didn't invent the flux capacitor in 1988, and go back 4 or 5 years to leak its existence so that the movie could mock it, in reality helping to keep the real ones secret. We didn't use a Delorean, however. It was a 250 GTO SWB Ferrari, and the speed was 122.78 mph exactly! Warp drive? Well now, that's a story for another time and place.


Back to the lab now...

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

So here's a couple of pictures to peek your curiosity! It was part of a research project. It's made from stainless steel and it was plated with a hard chrome that also left those bumps on the outside of the gizmo. It's 4 inches in diameter at the ends, narrowing down to approximately 2 inches in the center part. The black stuff on the inside of the body is combustion byproducts.

Guess what it is and the first correct person gets a prize of my choice. And I have a good supply of stuff that needs to be unloaded... er, that is that I have collected for prizes.

[DanStokes]

Clearly, it's a hydrostatic frambambulator. Any modern school kid would know that except the ones stuck in electronic gaming land.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Clearly, it's a hydrostatic frambambulator. Any modern school kid would know that except the ones stuck in electronic gaming land.

WA WA WA WA! (Sound of a wrong answer on a game show). Thanks for playing our game. We have some nice parting gifts for you. Tell him what he gets, Johnny...

[Captain]

First guess, muffler insert for a Honda Civic
Drifter..... paint it Red for a Guaranteed 100 additional Horse Power.

Second Guess, Nozzle for a Pulse Jet Rocket Engine

[DanStokes]

And whatever happened to the Kowanda (the spelling might be off a trifle) exhaust design? HRM ran an article on it (maybe 1970s or '80s) and it was supposed to revolutionize engine power. Don't think it went anywhere. But the pipe design sort of looked like Dave's gizmo only in reverse. I'll see if I can dig up a pic......

Coanda. Banned in Formula 1 in 2012. Couldn't get the address to copy but you can look it up.