Got caught completely off guard last night around 4:30pm. My in-laws are visiting and my mother-in-law asked if I could get the latest weather report, since she last heard there would be snow on Tuesday. So I checked. Imagine my surprise when I saw a full blown blizzard warning, and 20-30 inches predicted. WHAT!?
So I spent the next 2 hours running around like a crazy person. My single 2-1/2 gallon gas can was completely empty so that was cool. I ran to Ace and bought two of the most expensive gas cans I've ever purchased. At 5 gallons each and with a fancy easy pour/no spill spout, these babies cost me $70 (that was the regular price).
But, now I have 12.5+ gallons on premises which is way better than 2 years ago. I put Sta-Bil in the 2-1/2 gallon one for the snow blower. Maybe I should go the extra mile and plan out a siphon/pump solution to remove gas from my various vehicles in case it comes to that. I have a hand pump and some hose but from what I remember, the hose is quite large and barely fits into the filler.
Jamie also sent me for milk and bread which I thought was incredibly cliché. At least I didn't buy batteries. I saw this at the local mini-mart. He seems prepared. There is a Pontiac 6000 under the stickers.
Bob, I assume those NC plates make you proud.
Because the Maxima is completely unusable right now, I will have to use the Ranger as my scout vehicle for gas runs and whatever else. I put my 320 lbs of Quickcrete in the bed of the Ranger as ballast and my experience is it does pretty well in the snow like that. The ground clearance helps a lot and I have modern all seasons on it this time around. The Malibu also has good all seasons I guess. I will try to leave the Caprice tethered to the house in inverter/generator mode.
Speaking of, I think I will install my mechanical fan on the water pump and unplug the electric fans. That will buy me another ~10A of DC power for the inverter. Hey, that's 150W of AC (128W after conversion) which would handle most of my lighting load. Unlike last time, I have energy efficient bulbs in the entire house, between LED and CFL. But with the mechanical fan installed, I can't drive the car because there is no shroud, and it would probably end up sucking the electric fans into the blades. Here is a demo I tried last March just to prove the concept:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTfIVz7Rfa4
Even without the shroud, I think it pulls enough air over the radiator to cool the engine at idle, especially in the winter, and especially with the new radiator it has compared to 2 years ago. I guess I'll monitor coolant temps initially until I feel comfortable with it. I guess I COULD leave one of the fans connected, and hope the fan controller set point is high enough that it would only kick on if it really needed to.
Based on my experience during Nemo, that extra 150W will be pretty high value as there were several instances where the alternator did not keep up with the load and the battery was discharging pretty heavily. Another thing I wish I had time to look into is a way to kick the idle up a tad, even manually (like triggered by a command for A/C). Alternators have a pretty steep curve at the idle end where even a couple hundred RPMs add significant amperage.
I have the 140A CS-144 (police package).
With a 3.38:1 pulley ratio (Crank: 7-5/8", Alt: 2-1/4"), the alt will spin around 2,500-2,700 rpm at idle, which is good for 110-115A of output which converts to about 1,500 watts. Subtract some power to actually run the engine (ECM, fuel pump, ignition, etc.) and you can see the alternator can't possibly keep up since the inverter is rated at 1,500 output which means it would need at least 1,750 input watts. But if I increased the engine idle RPM by about 200 rpm, that would add 10 DC amps or 135W. I'm hoping that by removing the electric load, I'll essentially get that gain for free, without having to idle a 350 at 1,000 rpm.
Here is the rough curve of engine RPM to alternator raw output:
I wish I had a chance to increase the size of my inverter cables as 4ga is a little on the small side for the 10 feet I made 2 years ago. Oh well, there will be a little efficiency lost there.140A @ 1770rpm
136A @ 1500rpm
130A @ 1180rpm
120A @ 885rpm
110A @ 723rpm
In the interest of efficiency, I even went so far as to tighten a chronically loose driver's side rear exhaust manifold bolt. Any air leak would fake the O2 into running the engine richer which would obviously decrease fuel economy.
I think I may also try to roll the CTS-V forward in the garage to make room for the snow blower. I guess I'll deal with that tonight. I did finally test my free snow blower on like 1 inch of snow/ice yesterday morning and it works great. Anxious to try it on some real stuff.
I have not tested the inverter since Nemo, which is about 2 years. I guess I should have done that. If I find out it's not working soon enough I could probably make it to Harbor Freight since they don't run out of those before storms.
On the way home from work I'll top off the Caprice which will probably take another 2 gallons. Maybe I'll try to document more of this evolution than I did the first time. With the 23 gallon tank plus the 12.5+ on hand, I could probably make it 2-4 days at a stretch before even needing gas (4 days would require some very judicial usage). Obviously I'll try to buy as soon as I need it.