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Originally Posted by BongoBennie
First off, Coma, MPG is a huge deal for racing cars, Le Mans, F1, Indy and NASCAR depend hugely on efficiency. Second, the reason these things are listed as off road is for liability/legal reasons, Ill bet more than half of the ecomodded cars are illegal too so that point is invalid..... and as far who cares about MPG in a performance car?? I DO..... MPG is performance just like a lap time, I doubt anyone is on here because that are poor and can afford gas, most are here to bench race (talk crap) just like the tuner crowd does in their world.
There is an old saying in racing.... "Fast IS Efficient" there is more in common with lets say an NSX and an Insight, than either car vs an accord. I'm here trolling ecomodder, not to save gas or the world, but to make my car FASTER without burning more fuel.
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First off, winning is a huger deal for racing. MPG is one factor out of many that racers concern themselves with.
Are many of the ecomodded rides illegal? I strongly doubt it. The number of guys on this forum who talk about getting pulled over to have their rides looked over at the side of the road by curious cops - and then sent on their way unticketed - is pretty high. Keeping things within the letter and spirit of the law is a much-repeated refrain when 'modders describe additions and subtractions on their vehicles. If Basjoos hasn't had his over-the-top Aerocivic impounded, I think pretty much everyone is in the clear. I've read a couple of our European friends talking about boattails and mentioning maximum legal rearward projection, and keeping their alterations within that limit. And lots of these 'modders are in California, so they're having to get stuff done under the noses of the most up-in-your-business motoring bureaucracy around.
"Fast IS Efficient," no, it isn't. Fast is fast. Faster on the same power, that's efficient. More range on the same fuel, that's efficient. Your earlier statement that successful racing teams keep a close eye on their fuel consumption and work hard to maximize it, that's right. But the above platitude is meaningless.
I'm not here to bench race. Bench racing isn't actual performance, so it does nothing for me. I'm here to get ideas, provide support and encouragement, and most important of all, challenge myself to better performance. I don't have much money to spare, so squeezing an extra hundred miles out of my tank - literally the kind of results I have achieved - over the EPA rating can't be a bad thing.
As to the guys being less than impressed with the high cost of the upgrades on the project car compared to the results, I'm on the fence. Part of the goal is to reduce weight for better MPG, but keeping weight down is also a good thing for autox. Looked at for how such an investment pays off both at the pump and the timeslip, it becomes a lot more reasonable. Another old saying in racing: "Speed is money. How fast can you afford to go?" Letting your racing mods do double duty as economy boosters isn't just ecomodding, it's moneymodding.