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Old 10-09-2011, 03:13 PM   #9 (permalink)
California98Civic
Cyborg ECU
 
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
Posts: 6,299

Black and Green - '98 Honda Civic DX Coupe
Team Honda
90 day: 66.42 mpg (US)

Black and Red - '00 Nashbar Custom built eBike
90 day: 3671.43 mpg (US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5 View Post
Cooking on an engine is a waste of time. Microwaves use little power and they are much more efficient at heating.
I have been having some success heating food on the engine mornings while I drive to work. I wouldn't try to "cook" really, and I wouldn't recommend driving around instead of using a more efficient oven. But I get a warm breakfast when I reach my destination. Kinda fun, actually.

EDIT: Oh, and I tried a crude estimate of energy "savings" in such a heating-up of leftovers scenario. The savings were miniscule. If I remember the rough and approximate numbers correctly it is something like this: if a stove burns on average 15,000 BTU/hour that might be equal to about .12 gallons gasoline per hour in your car. Make it 10,000 BTU/hr and .08 GPH. If 3 minutes to warm-up food on the stove then .004 gallons? My quick math-from-memory probably won't persuade... so correct or debate my estimates as needed/desired--or if there is even interest

Conclusion: not a significant energy saving strategy.
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See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.




Last edited by California98Civic; 10-09-2011 at 03:43 PM..
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