Ok, I'll admit that I'm grinning from ear to ear, I got a lot finished today:
I spliced together a lot of 24x20 inch cloroplast signs that were donated to me by the local fort here, to make a "undershell" in the place of ribs to give the plastic skin some structure.
I liked it so much, I finally finished it all of with my heatgun and here is the cleaned up results:
Then I took a trip down to a friends house in Olympia, just off of the freeway (about 25 miles each way), stopped and picked up a couple of things, and left ten minutes later to come back home. No drafting or other stranage driving (except honking at a few rubberneckers so they wouldn't wreck), but my Jeep can now NC (Neutral Coast) and not lose any speed while going down two hills on the freeway, where it would lose a considerable amount before. And even better: Normally I drive at 60-62mph with the TPS reading 16 the whole time, now I hold it at 13-14 for the same sustained speed! So, "the proof is in the pudding" as they would say, and the whole trip averaged 26.6 mpg. EPA average for my vehicle is only 14 in town and 18 on the highway. Thats just shy of 50% better than highway!
Side note: Does anyone know how to interpret the IGN number on the scangauge? the highest I've been able to see is 40, but it's been everything below that.
Ok, enough tooting my own horn (even though it is my build thread). I make another trip out to the peninsula in the next two weeks, so I'll make another comparison to that old tried and true run. Oh, and here's a picture from tonight showing the fully funtional rear hatch as promised:
I suppose next for me is figuring out a better solution for the top mounts of the JeepKamm rather than the ratchet strap currently being employed. Then it's on to doing something about my ridicoulous front end. 30 mpg is in sight baby!
