Thanks, Treehugger! Last year, we won editor’s choice, and this year we got to take home the readers’ choice award for best transportation website. The editor’s choice winner this year was Green Car Congress, a fabulous blog that gives in depth looks at all the technical aspects of modern fuel economy, so congratulations go out to Mike over there as well.

To check out the results, visit Treehugger’s Best of Green.

It’s that time of year again, where Treehugger lets readers choose the best green sites on the web in various categories. As usual, EcoModder has been nominated along with our prestigious peers.

Unfortunately, however, we’re currently lagging in the votes! While each of the sites on the list is great and offers a unique set of information to a unique audience, EcoModder is the only one where you can get great DIY projects, advice, and information from fellow members across the world.

We’re really appreciate your vote, so please head on over to Treehugger!

Sure, while we like to call it ecomodding (with no hyphen), we’re still happy that the term is poised to jump the shark as it is begins to be used by mainstream media companies. Not only are we glad to see PM picking up on the term, but they’ve applied it to factory changes made GM on the Chevy Cruze, as opposed to the usual aftermarket modifications done by the dedicated ecomodders you find both on and off this site.

So cheers, Popular Mechanics, for picking up on the best automotive trend in the last several years.

EDIT: I’ve been told I don’t know what “jumping the shark” means. This is true. But let’s just pretend I meant we’re so cool we don’t want the mainstream media catching on to it, .

This year, for the first time ever, EcoModder has been nominated Best of Green by the wonderful site Treehugger. From now through April 2nd, you can vote on your favorite green things here, and EcoModder can be found under the transportation category.

It’s always nice to be nominated, but it’s even better to win. So please vote for us!

In the pantheon of very efficient production cars, there are perhaps three Hondas that truly stand out: the first generation Insight hybrid, the lean burn Civic VX, and the CRX HF.

Recently, a CRX HF owner further cemented that car’s status on the list by achieving a stunning 118 mpg (US) in a fuel economy rally in New York state.

The rally, organized by the Adirondack Motor Enthusiasts Club (AMEC), took place August 23 over 104 miles of scenic, lightly travelled, winding roads through the southern Adirondack mountains (with admittedly very MPG-friendly speed limits of 45 to 55 mph).

It’s fair to say the 118 mpg performance that Chang Ho Kim coaxed from his modified 1989 CRX surprised event officials.  The marshalls – who observed each of the 25 competitors’ vehicles being filled to the brim both at the start and finish for the most accurate MPG calculations – brought Chang’s CRX back to the pump several times at the end to ensure they’d squeezed as much fuel as possible into its tank.

(For comparison, the next highest scores were 106 mpg (US) from an ecomodded 1998 Geo Metro/Pontiac Firefly and 90 mpg (US) from a 2000 VW Jetta TDI – more details here.)

In stock form, the 2nd generation Honda CRX HF is a good platform for fuel economy. It’s light (1830 lbs), has a small 1.5L 62 horsepower engine, and relatively tall gearing.  It’s rated at 41 city / 50 highway / 45 combined mpg (US) by the EPA’s  revised 2008 ratings.

Modifications, mechanical & racing experience helped secure win

How did Chang Ho Kim pull a 118 mpg rabbit out of his hat?  EcoModder recently spoke to Chang to shed some light on his background, his CRX and his driving techniques.

EM: Let’s start with a bit about yourself.  What you do for work & fun?

CHK: I am a mechanic in my own shop, FunHondas, in Maynard, Massachusetts.  I mostly do general repair and maintenance of Honda/Acura cars.  I do a lot of tire work as I am a preferred installer for www.tirerack.com.  You can type in zipcode 01754 to see what is said about me and my shop on their website.

For fun I like to travel and go camping with my family. I also enjoy photography.

EM: Is it true this was your first fuel economy competition?

CHK: This was my first fuel economy run.  I had never even heard of it before I saw the post from the AMEC organizers on the New England Region SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) web site.

EM: So you’ve got racing experience then?  That would explain your skill behind the wheel.

CHK: My passion has been for autocross.  I started autocrossing in 1991.  I have placed as high as 3rd place at the SCCA Solo Nationals in a HS 89 Civic Si.  Last year I campaigned a DS 00 Integra Type R.  This year I am running my ST 89 Civic Si.  I also have a STX 89 Civic Si that I have trophied with at the Solo Nationals.

Recently I started to rallycross a M2 90 Civic GSR and have been having lots of fun playing in the dirt and snow and ice.  I am currently the season points leader in M2 for NER/SCCA.  That is mostly due to the winter events where my studded Nokian Hakka5 tires do really well.  I still have a lot to learn about driving in gravel.

I have ice raced my 01 Integra Type R, autocross style, using Nokian tires and have done very well, beating the AWD cars in the studded tire class with my FWD car on studded Hakka5 tires.

EM: OK, so you’ve obviously got experience with car control & precision.  Where did you pick up your fuel saving techniques?

I spent a lot of time on the internet before the competition starting at the AMEC site and linking to many others: Aerocivic.com gave me a lot of ideas for aerodynamic modifications.  EcoModder.com gave me many tips on driving technique.

EM: Before we talk about your driving techniques, tell us a bit about your car preparation and mods.

CHK: It’s a 89 Honda CRX HF with about 150,000 miles on the odometer that I got from a client.

General maintenance before the fuel economy rally included:

• I had the AC fixed, I hate hot and muggy.
• Redline MTL in the tranny and Mobil1 0w20 in the engine.
• new Honda airfilter, cap, rotor, wires.  They all needed replacing anyway.

Modifications before the rally included:

• Tires: low rolling resistance 155/65/14 Nokian HakkaR snow tires, brand new for the event, pumped up to 50psi mounted on Honda 14×5 alloy wheels
• Shocks: Konisport, revalved with SPSS1 valving, double adjustable, shortened body, set to soft
• Springs: Ground Control coilovers with 350 front 250 rear springs.
• Lowered car 2 inches, front camber at -3.5, toe set to zero front and rear, zero thrust angle
• Front wind deflector and rear wheel skirts made from thin polycarbonate, aluminum duct tape, self tapping screws and 3/4″ aluminum band
• masking tape to cover all panel gaps / seams, passenger door handle (forgot to do the driver side door handle)
• removed passenger side mirror
• I added lightness by removing the passenger seat, spare tire and tools, floor mats
• 6 pound race battery.

EM: tell us about the driving techniques you used.

CHK: I had a small cooler with a little ice and a small towel to cool myself off as I drove with the windows closed and the AC off.

The race type suspension meant I had better momentum coming out of the turns so less need to gas after a turn.

Where safe, I took a classic race line to maximize momentum.  If I had to gas in a turn, I took the shortest line to minimize distance.

Pulse & glide where appropriate.

EM: Did you use fuel economy instrumentation?  Navigation?

CHK: The HF has an upshift light that I find annoying.  I used a Garmin Nuvi 760 to keep track of my average speed.

EM: Any plans for future economy competitions?

CHK: I suppose I have to come back in 2010 to defend my title with AMEC, but we will see what next year brings and if I still have the CRX.  If I do come back, it will probably have a boattail and I will be more careful with the fillup at the start and not spill any at the finish fillup.

EM: Chang, thanks for the interview and congratulations again on your win!

—

For more coverage of the AMEC event see the complete forum thread.

This weekend marked the third annual Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club’s fuel economy competition, which takes place on the beautiful back roads just to the west of Albany, NY.

This was the first year that EcoModder came out to the event, and it was definitely a great time. Event organizer Mike Kamm included, 7 EcoModders came to the event and competed in two of the three categories.

The course was a 104 mile loop through the Adirondacks on winding roads that challenged not just the average ecodriver, but would challenge any driver. Unlike many fuel economy courses, this one had huge hills that challenged drivers to work hard and pick up mileage wherever they could.

All told, EcoModder took home 4 of the 6 awards its members were eligible for. In the diesel/hybrid category member tasdrouille took home first place in his 2000 Jetta TDI with an astounding 90 mpg. Second place went to Matt Herring in his new Toyota Prius, with an impressive 76 mpg over the course.

In the gasoline non-hybrid category, EcoModder had four competitors. Though Robert Smalls and Wonderboy did not take home prizes, they both got well over 200% of their EPA ratings. Robert drove his Subaru Legacy to a very impressive 47 mpg while Wonderboy made a record run of 65 mpg in his Civic EX.

I took home the 3rd place prize, with 83 mpg in my 91 Honda CRX, with my EcoModder co-founder Darin taking second place with a very impressive 106 mpg in his Pontiac Firefly (Geo Metro). The 1st prize went to Chang Ho Kim in his aeromodded 89 CRX, which shocked everyone with 118 mpg in his first fuel economy competition.

Also notable was event organizer Mike Kamm‘s 77 mpg Datsun B210. He would’ve easily taken the top prize in the historic class but instead decided to compete in the gasoline class and came in 4th place by less than  one-tenth of a gallon of gasoline.

Definitely an event we will be attending again next year!

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voYLttw-N0E

Let’s face it, many of us have older cars. And cars, as they get older, develop all sorts of little, painful annoyances. One of those annoyances, which has gotten to me even since I first bought my 1991 CRX, was how the windshield wipers never really seemed to move the water off of the glass. It was like it stuck there, just to annoy me.

I finally discovered Rain-X, and while I don’t often sing the praises of commercial products, this is definitely one of the rare times when I will. Rain-X has done more than any other modification to make my car feel like new, and even allowed me to remove my rear wiper.

So, if you’re interested in just how easy it is to give your car a makeover, check out the video I made on the subject. Just wash, apply, rub in, repeat, and you’re done in no time flat!

Carbon Rally is a great site with a great idea: banding together to reduce our carbon impact on the planet. To compete you sign up, join a team, and take challenges, eventually posting up bigger numbers on the impact you have had.

Besides being a motivated bunch of green car enthusiasts, ecomodders also make their impact across the spectrum, so we thought it might be cool to set up our own team to band together and make a difference.

So, please check out our team and join up to make a difference.

This past weekend EcoModder was in Madison, Wisconsin, attending the ever-fun GreenDriveExpo powered by HybridFest. Though EcoModder was also in attendance last year, this year marked the first time members had competed in the MPG Challenge.

The course was challenging rural/downtown loop of approximately 25 miles that took the drivers on both low and high speed roads, which were peppered with with stop lights and stop signs. It was the sort of course that is perfect for hybrid owners with auto-stop, but less perfect for those of us with traditional gassers.

To ensure that drivers completed the loop at normal speeds without annoying the heck out of other drivers, a time limit of 51 minutes was imposed. Both of the competitors from EcoModder came in well below this time limit, but not so much as to suggest it is unreasonably slow.

In the end, the two EcoModders in attendance came in at 62 MPG and 65 MPG, which were a bit low due to rain and wet roads that affected the drivers that went out later in the day. Because the competition was run based on percent over EPA rating and not standard MPG, the 1991 CRX with 65 MPG came out on top, scoring something like 160% over EPA due to some advanced ecomodding.

Overall, a fun competition that brought out the best mileage in some cars and drivers. Hopefully we will see some of you in attendance next year!

For those of us that bought fuel efficient vehicles in the first place, it can sting a little bit to know that the people who made bad vehicle choices in the past are getting $4,500 dollars for a new car while we get nothing.

Well, worry not. This may be of little consolation, but you can now decorate your beautifully used, fuel-efficient clunker with a bumper sticker showing off how great your mileage is.

Personally, I can sport the “My Clunker Gets 60 MPG” sticker. What about you?

This Saturday in Watkins Glen, NY was the annual Green Grand Prix, an event which celebrates fuel-efficient and alternative fuel vehicles. For the first time this year the event was split into two separate categories: the fuel economy competition and the time-speed-distance rally.

EcoModder had four vehicles come to represent the site in the fuel economy rally. Of those 4 vehicles (in three different categories), we took home three victories and posted the 1st and 3rd overall fuel economy numbers for the event.

The EcoModders

• 1998 Pontiac Firefly (aka Geo Metro): Darin Cosgrove (MetroMPG) took home 1st place in category 10, which housed all the out of production and weirdo vehicles. Although there was not a prize for it, he and his heavily ecomodded Firefly were recorded at 99.7 mpg and got the best fuel economy of any vehicle at the Green Grand Prix.
• 1991 Honda CRX: Benjamin Jones (SVOboy, author) pulled down 88.5 mpg, making it the third highest vehicle overall and winner of the 27-32 mpg (by EPA rating) class. The vehicle was sporting some hastily added ecomods as well as a lean burn engine swap and MPGuino.
• 1998 Honda Civic EX: Will Meredith (Wonderboy) has a lightly ecomodded Civic EX equipped with a Scangauge II to help tune the nut behind the wheel. The EX model was the least efficient Civic in Honda’s lineup that year, but Will still managed a very impressive 57 mpg with the car.
• 1993 Toyota Tercel: Tim Sullivan (McTimson) drove an unmodified 1993 Toyota Tercel. With only an MPGuino to guide him, Tim was able to ecodrive his way to victory in the 33-38 mpg class, rounding out the three victories for EcoModder.

The Green Grand Prix

The Green Grand Prix started at the Glen Motor Inn Motel outside of Watkins Glen, NY, a town well known for its racing heritage. The 77 mile course takes the drivers up Route 14 to Geneva and then down Route 96 back to Watkins Glen.

The course is mainly over roads with a 55 mile speed limit, and the drivers had 2 hours and 5 minutes to complete the fuel economy competition before incurring a penalty. Also included in that time was a mandatory 10 minute stop at a halfway point in Geneva, NY.

The course’s rolling hills were great for fuel economy and offered drivers and navigators a great view of Seneca Lake, one of New York’s famous Finger Lakes.

At the end of the competition drivers were monitored as they filled up in town and had their mileage recorded. These numbers were then used to calculate the fuel economy for the overall competition. Due to a number of factors, the most salient of which was fuel expansion, the numbers were a little high, but consistently so (except for the Priuses with their bladder gas tanks).

After the show all the competitors headed out to the local high school for the awards and vehicle show, which also included representations from local high schools that had competed in the Shell EcoMarathon competition.

Overall, the Green Grand Prix was a well-organized and great event. EcoModder will definitely be in attendance next year, hopefully with even more drivers. For more, check out the thread on the forums.

Ever wanted to wear a hat matching your new, favorite small car, the Scion iQ? Well, this is your chance! We have one to give away, right here on the EcoModder blog. The rules of this contest are simple:

1. Leave a comment on this blog post
2. Make sure your email address is valid

That’s it! At the end of a week, I will randomly pick one person to get the hat, which will be put in the mail free of charge. So go ahead, leave a comment (and tell your friends)!

This year, we started a contest on the fuel economy forum to highlight great ecomods and fuel economy projects. Right now, our Mod of the Month contest is in full swing, with voting soon to close on the February nominations. There are some great projects, so take a look and then go ahead and give them a vote:

• Paul & Sabrina’s open source electric motor controller
• Ben Nelson’s Electro-Metro
  
• Tim’s Arduino controlled actuated grill block
• Binger’s LED tail light conversion
• sepp’s nissan kingcab aerocap
• captainslug’s “NEMO” – <$1k DIY Neighborhood Electric Motorcycle
• ncs’ smooth front undertray

Good luck to all the contestants!

Hi all. I don’t know how many of you are Twittering these days, but EcoModder has finally decided to jump in the ring and see what it’s all about. I’m no expert on Twitter, but I’ll be using it to share links and interesting news, and hopefully I’ll get some back from you! Feel free to send in thoughts, ideas, questions, or blog tips via twitter anytime! Looking forward to seeing you there.

Follow EcoModder on Twitter

If you’ve read the EcoModder blog for a while, you’ve definitely seen Ben Nelson’s Electro-Metro as well as some of his other projects. If you’ve been on the forum, you’ve definitely been a party to some of his zany antics, but this is just about as good as it gets.

A few months ago Ben was pulled over for doing 25 mph in a 15 mph zone, and received a ticket for $83.80. But Ben wasn’t about to go down without a fight. He scheduled a court date and even though he had lost his ticket, went in defiantly at 8am hoping that a treehugging judge might nullify the ticket, or at least reduce the points on his license.

You can read the full court story, but I will summarize for the sake of those without such a sizeable chunk of time to spare. Like many of us who have been to court to fight a traffic ticket, Ben waited nervously as the judge ran through the list of names on the docket and one by one handed out his judgments. Because Ben had lost his ticket he ended up last, but he still got what he wanted:

The judge and clerk both comment to each other that they have never heard of anyone speeding in an electric car before. He changes the charge from speeding to “Defective Equipment: Speedometer”. The fine is still the same, but there are no demerit points involved.

I guess they’ve not heard about the Tesla Roadster yet! But it gets better…

Not only did the judge reduce the ticket (but not the cost, hence the Electro-Metro Legal Defense Fund), but he took our hero Ben across the street to talk to the editor of the local paper about Ben’s story, which squarely landed him on the front page.

Here’s Ben telling the story himself:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBWeayMOIIU&eurl=&feature=player_embedded

Feel free to check out the thread and donate yourself! Who’s ever heard of a 15 mph speed limit anyway?

2008 was the first full year of the forum, and pretty much the time when everything that’s happened yet happened, so there are quite a few warm memories and good discussions from 2008. Here’s 10 of my favorite:

1. MPGuino Release One: The MPGuino is a DIY, fuel economy tool that grew up right here on EcoModder and has helped a lot of people improve their fuel economy.
2. Aerocivic: It wouldn’t be unfair to say that the aerocivic changed the way people look at DIY aerodynamics modifications.
3. Project ForkenSwift: EcoModder Co-founder Darin Cosgrove’s own electric car build thread.
4. 5th Generation Civic Hatchback Aerodynamics: Another great aeromodding thread on a Civic Hatch.
5. Electric Motorcycle Conversion: A great DIY thread from Ben Nelson on building his own electric motorcycle.
6. Reviving a Honda Insight: A great story of one guy bringing an Insight back to life.
7. Dream Prius: If you could hack up a Prius for fuel economy, this is what it might look like.
8. Aero Truck Bed Cap: Trucks are one of the best candidates for aeromods and the bed cap is number one on that list.
9. Electro-Metro Build Thread: Another sweet project from Ben Nelson.
10. List of Aero Mods: A good collection of aero mods for any car.

Hope you all had as much fun as I did this year!

Not only was 2008 the first (nearly) full year that the EcoModder blog existed, but it was also a year full of great stories, interesting DIY projects, and the occasional heated debate. It has been a pleasure to sit at the helm of this blog, and as we get ready to move into the new year, I thought it would be fun to reflect on just how much we did over the course of the last year.

Here’s our top 10 posts from 2008:

1. A $672 Electric Car: EcoModder’s own Darin Cosgrove’s ForkenSwift is easily the top post of all time on the blog.
2. America, Don’t Buy a Harley Because it Gets 50 MPG: A controversial post about a Harley ad. I don’t think many commenters understood that the post was as tongue in cheek as the ad!
3. 16-year-old Builds Electric Truck: Sometimes it takes a fresh face to take on new ideas.
4. Who Needs A/C with an Ice Cold Shirt?: A fun post on alternatives to traditional air conditioning.
5. DIY 100 mpg Car Hits the Road After 20 Years: It’s been over 20 years since it was first built but it’s still pulling down 100 mpg.
6. Gas Prices Taking Effect: A timely post on the effects of high gas prices on driving in the US.
7. Super Mileage Competition Nets 7,148 mpg: Ecomodding isn’t just for the weekend warriors.
8. 10 Electric Cars You Can Buy Today: A roundup of the pre-recession electric car market.
9. DIY Electric Motorcycle: A bit on a bike from EcoModder’s own Ben Nelson.
10. Think Motorcycles are Great for the Environment? Wrong!: Probably the most controversial post of the year, but still a hot topic.

Well, there you have it! Which posts were your favorites? Let us know in the comments, and thanks for making it a great year!

We certainly hope so! It was just a little more thna a year ago when my partner, Darin, was coming up with all sorts of names for what to call what we’d be doing for years: modifying cars and driving styles for better fuel economy. Famous among the reject pile was “ecorodding.” We don’t have anything against the old guys, but no one really talks about hotrodding anymore.

Even though ecomodding has been become a part of the lexicon for most ecomodders, that doesn’t mean that anyone else knows what the devil we’re talking about. However, it seems like that has been changing, first with ecomodding hitting the Wired Jargon Watch, and then with the term making it onto NPR’s Science Friday.

I’m not sure how many people really know what ecomodding is, but the population is certainly growing. So don’t feel shy about saying it anymore, pretty soon it will be in the dictionary!

It seems Harley-Davidson doesn’t want to be associated with good fuel economy. They’re certainly not eco-friendly, so they don’t have that to worry about, and as far as motorcycles go they don’t really get the best gas mileage, but I guess if too many people start riding them they will lose that “Bad Ass Mid-Life Crisis” image they’ve worked so hard to build up.

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You may not know it, but long before Darin Cosgrove was the co-founder of our little site here, he was chatting about fuel economy related to his car of choice, the Pontiac Firefly (a clone of the Geo Metro/Suzuki Swift). He started MetroMPG long before fuel economy was cool, and since then he’s noticed the same trend that we just talked about on EcoModder yesterday: fuel efficiency is driving up used car prices and prestige.

Today, Darin talks about how Metro prices have gone crazy and even the news media is picking up on the car as an icon of thriftiness. Back in the day, when the car was new, it seemed that no one wanted one, too the point that it was ridiculed on the Simpsons as Flanders’ nerd-car extraordinaire. The only difference is that the car holds its thrift-icon status, but without the “hey, look at that loser” edge to it! Check out Darin’s article for more on the Metro’s prominence in the media.

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