Quote:
Originally Posted by sendler
That and all you guys must have magic Insights.  Those charts are fun to look at. I have an Insight. I have put 150,000 miles on it over 7 years. I know the car. My best two tanks were 69 mpgUS at 65 mph even with safe drafting of large trucks. More usually around 66 mpg summer and 58 in the winter slush. That chart is way high on the slow end. That is some brief optimum on a computer that is very optimistic. Highly modified plug in Insights can do 100mpgUS tanks (with unaccounted for wall power) at 30 mph which is stupendous, but fall right back to 70 mpgUS at 65mph on a long highway trip. |
Mines not magic ... A 2000 I've had for ~10 Years ... I stay close to the posted speed limit ( +/- 5 MPH ) ... and other small tweaks ... and getting between 75 MPG to 80MPG is the norm for my current commute.... YMMV.
Without knowing more of your details I can't give you specific tips for improving ... but in general I would say the Gen-1 Insight is a car that will show significant differences from what would otherwise be small influences in other cars ... any vehicle benefits from a driver experienced with it ... but the Insight in particular I think benefits more than the norm.
I don't see how MetroMPG's chart can be optimistic when it is the data he collected ... nothing optimistic about documented results ... those are not estimates ... but reasonably controlled test results.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sendler
Speed vs consumption charts are only possible with an onboard computer or a scan gauge. Neither of which works with most motorcycles.
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Then I have an idea for your next assume / fantastic project
Think of all the other bikes out there that would love to have it too.
You already have the speed and distance information via the vehicles on board vss signal ... can't have a speedometer without it.
The other missing piece ... you need to also log the vehicle's real time fuel consumption ... with known information about the ICE , fuel pressure , and fuel injector ms ... that real time fuel use can be calculated ... and if the bike is running with no idea of how much fuel it is injecting ... than you might have to get a flow rate sensor.
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The really low tech ... option... not quiet real time , but can give similar type of useful data about the vehicle fuel consumption at various average speeds.
Use Mile markers on road for distance ... stop watch for time ... and a finite known amount of fuel ... 1/10 gallon , etc ... Go some distance (ideally flat and level road) at some time ( this determines average speed ) ... and if you only had ___ Gallons in the tank that it used ... then you know how much fuel it used to cover that distance ... repeat with different average speeds to build up a chart.
The only part this method would loose would be the fuel used to accelerate up to speed ... but that itself could be quantified with various runs of small known amounts of fuel as one accelerates up to various speeds.
And with less mass ... a motorcycle should need fewer joules to accelerate up to any given speed.
