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I hate you with hulking hunks of horrible hate. All I'm getting is strong wind. And I haven't had a baked been for a week.

I had poached eggs and fried mushrooms for lunch today. If I were Onetrack, I'd probably be in orbit right now 😆

I can't remember if the battery bank was 4x8 volt or 5x6 volt + 1x2 volt. They were stuffed, just there for show. As soon as the genset died, the lights went out.

And mushroom lunches.

Nev, do you mean 32 volt? That's what all the properties ran when I was growing up. Still got the generator in the shed. I just wish I still had the Southern Cross diesel we ran it with.

For the same reason as with solo bikes, I can't ride horses any more unless I had a big platform to walk up an get on it's back. Probably a good idea I don't do it any more.

I think it's whatever floats people's boats. I think golfers are mad, but golfers don't.

Whopper downpour here in the Last Hour Some of my workshop flooded. That will be a day of cleaning up and WD ing. Lots of Lightning. and noise. SOME HAIL. Doggies don't like it. Solar has disconnected. Nev

It will have a sidecar on it. It's the only way I could ride it after the hip replacement, to mount something solid. You should have seen me trying to get on a mate's Deuce on the weekend, it was comical. Think of it this way Nev, when you look at a lot of those custom jobs, how many ever actually see a highway, or come anywhere near to using a lot of the power they've built into their motors. Most do it partially for a bit of show, but mainly as an engineering exercise combined with the fun of just doing it. It's all about fun.

IS this going to be a TRIKE? Nev

I don't. That 700 maxim HP is nothing to see here. I mentioned it just as an example of the strength of the motor, which also is a big advantage for those types that want to build rods and race cars. The Iron block LS1 engine blocks will handle another 300HP on that at around 1,000. Again, all theoretical, nohing to do with me.

Why do you want all that Power? You can't use it. Mass low down makes it safer. Reverse can be an Electric Motor. How far do you go in reverse? Blip that engine and you will tip the bike up sideways Nev

Another thing with car engines - there's a lot of cheap ones around with the basic motor there, but a lot of bolt-ons not included. That's ok for someone looking to replace a motor in their vehicle where they already have all the accessories. Starting from scratch, I think you're better off paying more for a complete engine, eg: most of what you need to run and use the motor. Otherwise you could get a big shock to the wallet trying to track down all those missing bits. You might pay $1,000 or $1,500 more for a complete unit, but you might save at least twice that over having to buy bits. Another thing I like on the LS1 engine is the use of reuseable O ring type gaskets on things like the rocker covers, intake manifold etc..

A few random thoughts on engines. As mentioned previously, with a plot like this, not much construction happens until an engine is decided on and sorted. About all that can happen until that point is sorting out some parts and more plotting. There's two logical choices, a bike engine or a car engine, and above all, something with a V configuration (that's not Japanese). So that's the basic parameters. None of the engines I have here are suitable. With my own restrictions preventing the use of any old engine, sorting out a motor will be the highest cost component. A Harley engine would be nice, but fairly expensive. You could probably buy a unit Sportster motor for the price of just the bare motor in a big twin, but getting a cheap and practical reverse gear setup on a Sportster engine is problematic. A fairly simple job on the later big twin gearboxes, but a bit of money involved in buying an engine plus gearbox in reasonable condition. Then there's car motors, the main issue being what will fit. You see some rat bikes with huge car engines that require a really high custom fuel tank, or fuel tanks located somewhere other than above the engine, bike style. I'd much prefer to have a more traditional style of bike tank over the motor. That brings up the issue of total height from ground clearance to where it will fit under a fuel tank. That makes it hard for carburettor motors. I think even a short block engine like a 253 would be getting too high with carburettor and air cleaner. Some people custom build tanks that have a big hollow to take that and even have intakes poking out the top of the tank. But I'd really like to use my 5 gallon Fat Bob tank rather than a custom. I've also figured out the Buick 3800 has too much bulk above the rocker boxes to practically fit. One motor I like for a lot of reasons is the GM LS1 engine. For a 5.7 litre engine, it's very compact and only about 500mm wide. They have a cast ali sump pan that's not tall, as well as being strong. On the opposite end, the EFI intake is very low profile and saves a lot of height compared to most other comparable V8s or V6s. They are also light with an ali block and heads, and combined with their efficient water jacket design, you can get away with a smaller radiator than the iron V8s. A pushrod motor, so a cam upgrade is relatively cheap and easy. Wth the lifter guides, no need to remove heads and manifolds to swap cams. A strong motor with a skirted block, 6 bolt mains, and rods and crank in standard form are good to 700HP, so they're very popular with rodders and the like. Roller rockers as standard on a rocker cradle, beehive springs, separate valley plate, a coil for each plug and lots of other good design features. The stock exhaust manifolds are close to extractors in flow. As per the attached photo, the compactness of the engine can be seen.

I live in the Orana Region NSW. Over the past four years I have only had one or two blackouts. They were due to thunderstorms. Otherwise, the only power outages I have had have been due to infrastructure upgrades. The power company gave ample forewarning of these outages to allow for making alternative arrangements. And the outages were usually on Sunday.

Yeah I'll have to get a generator and some solar panels, the mains power supply has proven to be unreliable and too costly. There's one more thing I can try. My provider (AGL) suggests on my bill, to change my plan, so I'll research that and see what I come up with.

You'd be Mad to go onto the grid and why would they want you as a customer IF you don't use Much Power? Have you got enough Power to weld? 240 V is a dangerous voltage. 415 more so. Make sure your compressor unloads for starting or the genset might struggle. Some of those early gensets were 36 V DC. Pretty useless today. Maybe for safety? Nev

In THIS case it's against the LAW.. Generally the Boss can do what he Likes in Industry unless a work contract says otherwise. Like Pilot seniority lists. Nev

I've got a small industrial block in a small country town, in the Wheatbelt of W.A., about 130kms NNE of Perth. Despite having a 3 phase powerline only 50M away at a T-junction, the power has never been supplied to my block. The worst part is - if I want mains power, I have to submit a usage plan, pay $450 application fee to Western Power, plus about another $1300 for them to investigate, doing engineering studies, and provide me with a quote for running mains power to my property. It's highly likely that quote will come in anywhere between $10,000 to $20,000, just to run the powerline 50M to my property. Such are the joys of our W.A. mains power supply being a Govt-owned monopoly. And if I reject their quote as too costly, I lose my $450 application fee. If I go ahead with the proposal, I'm then looking at a monthly supply charge plus power usage costs. Likely to be at least $30-$50 a month bare minimum. To top it all, the area suffers from frequent blackouts - as a result of a long power line supply. Apparently some of those blackouts have lasted for up to a week. Accordingly, I bought two excellent condition small diesel gensets - one single phase 6KVA, and one 3 phase 19KVA. They cost me less than $5000 in total. I use about 20L of fuel a month, probably less than the cost of the supply charge for mains power. I can run them when I want, and not run them, if I don't need the power. I'm shortly going to invest in a solar and battery setup, utilising used solar panels and used lead acid batteries. I reckon that setup will cost me no more than a couple of thousand dollars. That will then give me a constant power source for fridges and lights, and if I want to do some welding, grinding, tyre changing, or run my big air compressor, I fire up the gensets for the necessary period required. You have a multitude of options in todays world, unlike people in the fifties. But even back then, most rural people had small Dunlite gensets and batteries - and Dunlite even built small Wind turbines, which turbines are still sought after today for their durability.

The good thing about today is that modern technology supersedes candles, etc. Modern LED lighting, cheap solar panels, lower cost batteries mean that even without a full-on rooftop system with battery, you can cobble together quite a good backup power system. Action is better than whinging.

Is that an insult? Are you getting me mixed up with someone else? The topic is Solar/Wind power and what it's costing us.

No, I'm in Mid-West NSW, with a supply of candles in my pantry. They get used at a rapid rate because four are used at a time for lengthy outages. Memories come flooding back how my Grandmother, living by herself, in the fifties, without electricity, just candles after sunset in the evenings. And here I am, living the same way on many occasions, in 2026 modernity. Although, now I have small portable LED lights as well as candles.

Nev - Nothing new about nepotism in politics, and private industry is worse.

Solar and wind is the cheapest form of electricity but it also needs a lot of backup, extra transmission, storage and artificial inertia which makes the whole package expensive. Snowy 2 was quoted at $4B currently at $12B and they are talking $20B. I know a lot of you won't like the host(some of his views are a bit out there) but his guest has a pretty good explanation of what is really happening. it can be seen by those inside the industry as well.