*Note this is before learning hypermiling tricks on this site!*
My dad was on a big kick of buying a lot of 1992-1995 Toyota Camrys (about 12 total bought in around a year including parts cars etc lol). Anyway, we drover there in my Mom's 1995 Camry @ 70-75 mph there (probably ~28mpg) to get the prized jewel:a 1994 Camry from the U.P. in Michigan with around 170k miles on it, the most rusted one we bought (very little rust lol) for $400. The Craigslisting told about the key not working (was stolen in the past and the lock pin was changed) and the front strut was so bad on the passenger's side that it was litterly hitting the hood. My dad fixed box of them issues on site and planned to drive it home. Well he quickly found out the OTHER strut was just about as bad and he didn't feel safe diving it over 60mph so we drove the experess way for ~300 miles at around 60mph with minum stops and good traffic. When he hit over 300 miles and it wasn't past 1/2 a tank he thought the guage was broken and stopped to fill it up. Of course it was working fine, didn't take only around 8 gal or so to fill it and guessimated around 35mpg. Of course I was a lead foot and only got around 31 mpg in the 95.
Long story short, that was the best we have seen with these cars are were amazed! I have been looking around for a while on different ways to mod cars to get them MPG up, and over a year or so I finally hit this site and seeing amazing stories.
The trip above was about a year ago, and we were not trying to save gas in a major way, only the idea of try to keep the RPM gauge under 3k. New rule for me is under 2.5k and hoping to get near 35mpg with no mods, and hopefully 40mpg with a few small mods similar to the work here:
showthread.php/azs-96-camry-wagon-build-up-thread-13406.html
and here
showthread.php/getting-frustrated-lack-prior-aero-modded-camrys-13185-4.html
Planned mods are:
- Turn bottom part of bumper purely into an air dam
- Possibly extend air dam down a little (under body pannel would remove this need?)
- Possible upper raitor grill block or partial block depending on cooling needs
- Possible over sized tires (my winters have flat spots from hiting a deer @ 70mph and slamming the breaks on just prior and freezing)
- Some sort of hubcap mod to make moon capes that don't look so odd (I like the factory ones) Maybe some clear plastic
- Under body Pannel - Factory it isn't bad, mainly needs an under engine pan and rear end pan and match it to the rear bumper (big scoop lol)
- Cone filter and delete air box (or mod airbox to make it breath better)
- Convert ALL lights on car to LED - Project started out from house lighting at night for very little cost, <3 leds the light the entire room to walk though for a mear 7ma at 13.8v (acorss 4 leds + resister) with a total draw per room being around 100mw.
- Hypermiling in the flat lands of Michigan
Always open for suggestions, I just don't want to be driving the rocket ship to work. Also going to read more up on truck areo modding for my new business I started - Recycling E-Waste since NO ONE does it for the public in my area.
Sorry for the long winded post.