Engine Cooking?

[chrisl]

Anybody try cooking on their Cmax engine yet?

 

I'm going to be doing support for a long bike ride (3 days of 160-200 miles) where I'll be in the middle of nowhere for 10+ hours/day and was thinking about heating up food on the engine.  Has anybody tried that on their Cmax and are there preferred locations for putting things?

 

I'm regretting now not hacking into the cooling system to put in a heat exchanger to make espresso...

[ptjones]

With ScanGaugeII you can monitor intake air temps, but you normally see only 10*F above ambient air temps when moving.  When you stop temps can rise another 10-20*F in the ICE compartment. :)

 

Paul

[chrisl]

I have an oven thermometer that has a temp probe on a cable-- I brought it along on another similar trip with a rental van where I was riding and others were doing support, but nobody tried using it.  You should just be able to put a foil wrapped burrito somewhere secure with the temp probe inside and stick the readout on the dash...  Depending on how cold it gets at elevation and how bored I get, I may try it.

[fbov]

You can cook on an engine. V-8's are great; lots of heat between the heads. I can't see anything more than warming in a C-Max, and you'd likely need some disassembly to access anything hot enough to be useful. Then it depends on your driving mode; we try to keep the ICE off most of the time, so the engine may spend a lot of time below normal operating temperature. 

 

You might be better off with an electric warming cooler. 

 

Have fun,

Frank

[chrisl]

I'll be driving ~200 miles/day over the course of 9-10 hours, it's possible the engine will never get that warm.  It will be leapfrog support, where I'll hand up water bottles and occasionally food, drive 6 to 10 miles, then do it again.  On the uphills the engine might run enough to warm something up, but there will be some long downhills (30+ miles) where it won't.  I was looking at water heaters to make coffee and most of them look a little sketchy like they're going to blow a fuse on me in the middle of nowhere Utah.  I have to have a functioning lighter socket for amber flashers in case the rider doesn't finish before dark and I have to follow.  The other alternative since I'll be stopping a lot is to just bring a camp stove.

[scottwood2]

I'll be driving ~200 miles/day over the course of 9-10 hours, it's possible the engine will never get that warm.  It will be leapfrog support, where I'll hand up water bottles and occasionally food, drive 6 to 10 miles, then do it again.  On the uphills the engine might run enough to warm something up, but there will be some long downhills (30+ miles) where it won't.  I was looking at water heaters to make coffee and most of them look a little sketchy like they're going to blow a fuse on me in the middle of nowhere Utah.  I have to have a functioning lighter socket for amber flashers in case the rider doesn't finish before dark and I have to follow.  The other alternative since I'll be stopping a lot is to just bring a camp stove.

Sounds like a fun trip.   I just started getting back into biking a little this year.   Is the trip going to be updated on the internet along the way?   I would like to follow.  

 

Good luck

[chrisl]

Is the trip going to be updated on the internet along the way?   I would like to follow.  

 

Good luck

 

It will be webcast here: http://hoodoo500.com/webast-2016/

 

And they're apparently issuing the riders satellite trackers so you can follow them live here: http://hoodoo500.com/live-tracking/

 

I'm driving support in the 500 mile "stage race" so we start friday morning.  We have a friend who's doing the 500 mile straight-through as part of a 4-man clydesdale team (they're self-supporting-- they'll take turns riding and doing support) and I know one guy who's doing the 300 mile solo-self supported race, which is kind of crazy-- basically you carry everything you need or get it in stores/gas stations along the way.  The stage-race version is the most civilized version with a reasonable driving/riding ratio- the first day is a little over 200 miles, and the next two are ~150-ish, and you get to sleep at night.  Four person teams you spend a lot of time in the car for not a lot of riding.  I've also both ridden (as part of a team) and done support for the Furnace Creek 508 on the old SoCal course that goes through death valley, not the new Nevada course.

[chrisl]

The Cmax engine is definitely not a good choice for cooking on.  I didn't get around to doing prep to do it, and it's good that I didn't.  I was generally too busy doing rider support to spend much time thinking about cooking, but on the way up one of the climbs (where the ICE would be doing a lot of work) I popped the hood an hour or so up the climb and felt around, and it was barely warm to touch.  That's after hauling the car up about 4000 ft of elevation gain, and the ICE was often doing a lot less work than that.  On the second two days there was enough descending that I was getting about 50% EV/charging miles.

[Adrian_L]

Two words of advice:  Coleman stove.  

[chrisl]

Two words of advice:  Coleman stove.  

 

The leapfrog support makes using a stove inconvenient-- typical support is letting the rider get about 5-10 minutes up, driving up a little past them, and then waiting with a bottle or food handup or whatever.  We had one both times for the Furnace Creek 508 and it sometimes left the rider without support for longer than I'd like.  For people riding hard in the desert you want to get them a fresh bottle every 6 miles or so.  A jetboil to just heat water is probably the best option - it doesn't really take time to set up and heats water quickly.  There were more little stores in middle-of-nowhere Utah that had acceptable hot coffee than I expected, so it worked out ok.

[markd]

Raw diet???

[Kelleytoons]

+1

 

(Hot food is *way* overrated :>)

[chrisl]

Ended up being mostly raw except end of the day, at least for my rider.  Turns out bananas are even more perfect than we knew.  We got them a little too early, so some were getting overripe. After the first day we stuck them in the cooler, but when they get really ripe (as in barely hold their shape with the peel off, and leave sticky goo all over your hands) they're almost all easily digested sugar and better than energy gels for uptake speed.  When they're in "grocery store yellow" state they're about half complex carb, and are good for early in the day refueling to store up glycogen for later.  I ended up supplying "tuned" bananas depending on how hard the ride was and how recently there'd been a break for solid food.

[ptjones]

Over ripe bananas don't taste very good IMO, I guess maybe if they are real cold their wouldn't be much taste. :)

 

Paul

[SnowStorm]

Agree about the overripe taste - and overripe isn't that good for banana pudding either.  I've gone off on a kick making them for some unknown reason - real pudding too, boiled on the stove.  First one was done "proper" with vanilla wafers - quite good if I say so myself.  Second one was with "overripe" bananas (recipe says "ripe but firm"), graham crackers and half the sugar.  Mushier bananas were not as good IMO, but graham crackers weren't bad at all - DW liked them better than 'nille wafers.  Half the sugar was definitely an improvement too.  Next one is going to have shredded coconut added. :)

Now that this topic has gone to mush; did you hear about the guy who had his first banana?  He said it was pretty good - but had an awfully big core! :lol:

[cwstnsko]

All this talk of cooking in the C-Max and nobody mentioned a crock pot on low plugged into the 110V power point?

[ptjones]

My wife makes Banana Walnut Bread from ripe ones, YUM! :) She puts them in the freezer to save them for later.

 

Paul 

[obob]

All this talk of cooking in the C-Max and nobody mentioned a crock pot on low plugged into the 110V power point?

 

"Our slow-cooker is a large 5-quart brand with a low cooking power of 180 watts and a high cooking power of 250 watts." from http://www.cookingmanager.com/slow-cookers-energy-efficient/  (there are lower wattage ones but that might been way to slow.)

 

As I recall, the max output is 150 watts on the inverter in the car.  My experience using a back massager is that it doesn't much to trip the circuit breaker, though it is possible I just have a bad one. Like even though a device is rated at say 100 watts it may have a surge or something that trips the breaker. (My dealer never did squat about it when I mentioned it.  I suspect that somehow dealers get points or money for not doing stuff.)

 

Perhaps a higher capacity inverter wired directly to the battery could work.  That would open all sorts of possibilities.  To quote ptjones  "YUM!"

Edited September 7, 2016 by obob

[Smiling Jack]

Around here, lately, we wouldn't need heat from the engine or power from the 110V outlet to do the cooking.

 

Most sunny days we could fry eggs on top of the hood with a cold engine - or on the roof for that mater !!

 

With the pano roof, cleanup would be easy.

[Kelleytoons]

The problem with doing that in Florida is the bugs would eat it before it got done cooking.

[SnowStorm]

Most sunny days we could fry eggs on top of the hood with a cold engine - or on the roof for that mater !!

 

With the pano roof, cleanup would be easy.

Ah... watching an egg cook from underneath!  Now that would be a first!  I knew we would find some way to feel good about spending all that money!

[IvanSpout]

Добрый вечер! увидел замечательный

сайт с читами - чит вх для кс 1.6

[obob]

Добрый вечер! увидел замечательный

сайт с читами -

 

This is spam.  Google translate from Russian =  Good evening! saw a wonderful site with cheats.  I would recommend NOT clicking on the link.

Edited February 4, 2018 by obob