Today I've needed to be somewhere 150km from home, so I was planning to put back the original hatch. To do that I've needed to sand xps panels the way to don't need to put new ecomodded hatch back again before I'll fiberglass it. So I've spent few hours sanding it, cutting, gluing, filling gaps etc. After few hours of work, my new hatch started to look as it should. So I've decided to not change hatch yet and make a test drive. So today morning I've started my trip. First impression? A bit louder, because there aren't any panels covering new hatch. Just bare metal and xps. Don;t know if that was a placebo effect or my expectations but car was "lighter". Of course new hatch is lighter by few pounds from the original one, xps is much lighter than glass after all, and all those missing parts adds up.
Anyway during my trip I was watching MPGuino screen like a maniac. I was averaging somewhere around 27km/l at my usual speeds, Now I was able to see 29-30 without any special effort. Of course that's not an A-B-A test but I don't think I'll do it anyway. I can't imagine changing hatches somewhere in the middle of nowhere just to test the difference. But my last 5 fill-ups were very consistent so I'll just take a closer look at few future fill ups and I'll get the difference. I presume it'll be somewhere between 5 to 10%
Another thing I've noticed was much longer coasting time, and speed was decreasing much slower during a coast down. Sometimes I just needed to use brakes, because I was starting to coast down to late to drive without using them. I just need to get use to the parachuteless Berta
On the last part of my trip (153km) MPGuino was showing 27,5+ km/l and that was achieved without any special effort from my side in heavy traffic. In those conditions I was averaging somewhere around 26km/l with a bit more effort.
Now it's time to fiberglass my new hatch, put some bondo and paint it. Don't know what color I should use... I'm thinking of some nice stencils
So It's kinda success story, but I've decided to write it here. I'm in the middle of not the best tank (for now), I need to see the difference on a long trip then I will know how big is the success
That was a good move anyway. I should do it long time ago.
To be continued