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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Johnathan Goodwin - an Auto Mechanic Does What Detroit Says is Impossible
This is an interesting story. It centers on Kansas City auto mechanic and inventor Johnathan Goodwin.
Two years ago, Goodwin got a rare chance to show off his tricks to some of the car industry's most prominent engineers. He was driving a converted H2 to the SEMA show, the nation's biggest annual specialty automotive confab, and stopped en route at a Denver hotel. When he woke up in the morning, there were 20 people standing around his Hummer. Did I run over somebody? he wondered. As it turned out, they were engineers for GM, the Hummer's manufacturer. They noticed that Goodwin's H2 looked modified. "Does it have a diesel engine in it?"
"Yeah," he said.
"No way," they replied.
He opened the hood, "and they're just all in and out and around the valves and checking it out," he says. He'd filled it up with grease from a Chinese restaurant the day before and was worried that the cold morning might have solidified the fuel. But it started up on the first try and ran so quietly that at first they didn't believe it was really on
And they're like, 'Is it running? Yeah, you can hear the fan going.'" One engineer turned and said, "GM said this wouldn't work."
Remember -- Detroit tells us it's impossible to increase gas mileage without taking a hit on horsepower. Yet here's Goodwin -- with an eight-grade education -- able to design motors that blow the doors off the conventional wisdom.
More from here
Two years ago, Goodwin got a rare chance to show off his tricks to some of the car industry's most prominent engineers. He was driving a converted H2 to the SEMA show, the nation's biggest annual specialty automotive confab, and stopped en route at a Denver hotel. When he woke up in the morning, there were 20 people standing around his Hummer. Did I run over somebody? he wondered. As it turned out, they were engineers for GM, the Hummer's manufacturer. They noticed that Goodwin's H2 looked modified. "Does it have a diesel engine in it?"
"Yeah," he said.
"No way," they replied.
He opened the hood, "and they're just all in and out and around the valves and checking it out," he says. He'd filled it up with grease from a Chinese restaurant the day before and was worried that the cold morning might have solidified the fuel. But it started up on the first try and ran so quietly that at first they didn't believe it was really on
And they're like, 'Is it running? Yeah, you can hear the fan going.'" One engineer turned and said, "GM said this wouldn't work."
Remember -- Detroit tells us it's impossible to increase gas mileage without taking a hit on horsepower. Yet here's Goodwin -- with an eight-grade education -- able to design motors that blow the doors off the conventional wisdom.
More from here
Labels: Energy-Environment-Engineering, Logistics-Transportation-Engineering
PermaLink - Johnathan Goodwin - an Auto Mechanic Does What Detroit Says is Impossible posted by Ecacofonix : 10:35 AM
