EcoModder has a longstanding (2011) member, xpedro01, who hasn't posted yet, but who has done (and is still doing) some really interesting things.
Things like this:
Details, from e-mail (posted with permission):
- In the early 1970's I was driving 110 miles per day so I modified an Austin Healy Sprite and doubled its mileage over a period of years to a consistent 65 MPG (unheard of in those days).
- This was a 1960 "Bug Eye" with an 850cc engine. It turned close to 3000 at 60 mph and gave 33mpg on average, originally.
- It wound up with a 1600cc pinto engine (& transmission) with the camshaft retarded 2 notches (poor man's Atkinson cycle)
- Additional (2nd) Buick transmission, reversed, to gain up to a 2.5 overdrive
- The engine cruised at 1100 rpm @ 55MPH (Nixon days).
- A slight incline required downshifting, but I had 12 speeds.
- It was made of junk yard body pieces, pop rivets and bondo. Eye level was 70's skirt level.
Here was the car mid-way through its transformation:
Here's the same Sprite in "33 mpg" form:
Ultimately (after a 250,000 miles), the modified car was taken off the road & dismantled for safety reasons. A student got the chassis in exchange for destroying the body. He had a Midget and could use the parts.
The builder says he prefers driving his recently acquired 2000 Honda Insight (
which he is also modifying with a short aero tail) compared to the Sprite. No kidding!
Hopefully he'll join the conversation, now that the cat is out of the bag. At 87, he's got most of us on seniority (by a significant margin), but I bet he'll figure out this forum-posting business if he wants to!
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Oh: the "secondary transmission mounted backwards" trick reminds me of my friend's dad's 1930's-era
aero & mechanically modified Model T.
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UPDATE - Feb 18
Reprinted with permission from April 1975
Kansas State Engineer magazine, an article about the car mid-way through its transformation to 65 mpg...
