2014 Mitsubishi Mirage 5 speed build thread

[Daox]

Last night I fixed my terminal location issue with the deep cycle battery. I basically made extension cables for the car with an extension cable with a female battery post connector on one end, and a flat connector with a hole on the other. Then, I bolted a male post connector to the end with the flat connector effectively making an extension cable.







A few zip ties tidies it up okay. Once its warmer I'll probably do a bit more work. My fingers don't last too long when its near 0F out.





One step closer to an alternator delete.

[Daox]

Snow day today! Just not the kind you stay home for... Nothing bad, but everyone was driving slow. Bingo, time for some good mpg. Despite being only 16F out, I managed 50.2 mpg in to work today on snow covered roads! Pretty psyched about that. I did a lot of P&G with the engine on to do it.

[MetroMPG]

Nice!

I drove the Metro for the first time in a while yesterday. Didn't even break 40 MPG in local driving. It was cold though ... -20C / -4F. Coolant never got above 145F.

[Daox]

Slapped a coroplast grill block on the Mirage the other night. Looks pretty good to me. Its held on with some zip ties.

Before. As you can see, Mitsubishi did an alright job of blocking almost half the grill already.





After.

[Daox]

This morning I forgot to plug in the block heater. It took a full 1 mile (of my 7 mile commute) to get up to the temperature I typically start at with the block heater. I tried very hard, and got lucky and got 'stuck' behind a bread truck doing 0-5 mph under the speed limit. I used P&G with engine on coasting. Still, I only managed 45 mpg. Lately, I've been getting 47-48, and really not trying hard at all (very little P&G). So, I don't think its unreasonable to say that the block heater probably gets me close to a 10% increase in fuel economy on my daily commute.

[Daox]

In contrast, today I remembered my block heater, and I tried to get good fuel economy coming in. The result was a hair under 51 mpg on the MFD.

[hackish]

Pulse and pollute is a bad deal on the 3A92. I had over a week on the engine dyno with one and the size of the engine is well matched to the optimal BSFC. The downside is with such a small engine you lose cat light off and it takes a while to get back. Stick an EGT probe into the cat and you can monitor this. A 5 gas analyzer is a bit spendy for a tinkerer, but you can see how bad the emissions become.

With the cat off, you're releasing huge amounts of pollution and I feel that P&G will most likely clog your cats in short order. The factory design was centered around 65mph, so maybe changing the final drive would help a bit, but it will be expensive.

If you have the tools to read and write the ECU, then I can give you a calibration for increased fuel economy. I never finished validating it for emissions, but I suspect it will improve efficiency with minimal increases in NOX emissions.

-Michael

[Daox]

Very interesting!

Why were you doing dyno testing on the 3A92?

Any additional insights into the engine would be great!

I am working on finding a way to program the ECU. I'll keep your offer in mind. Thanks!

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by hackish

The downside is with such a small engine you lose cat light off and it takes a while to get back.

Also interesting considering the Euro & JDM versions of the car come with engine stop/start. I wonder what temp value those cars monitor to determine whether the feature is active or not.

Originally Posted by hackish

The factory design was centered around 65mph, so maybe changing the final drive would help a bit, but it will be expensive.

The Euro cars also came with taller final drive gearing than everyone else gets. But the difference isn't huge. (They also have the option of a 1.0L engine in the car, but that's another story!)

[Daox]

It was a bit warmer out this morning, 27F. I managed a very nice 55 mpg. I'm really interested to see what this car will do come summer time.