Quote:
Originally Posted by dcb
Accelerate efficiently.
Use the clutch and kill switch and glide to all stops, leave engine off till time to move again.
Try and glide down the hills, and in slow parts of town.
Put a smaller rear sprocket on it.
Lower it.
Streamline it.
Put fuel consumption feedback instrumentation on it.
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This is all great for EFI bikes, but my '81 is carburated, so the fuel consumption feedback will be almost impossible, and I've heard that starting a carburated engine blows a ton more fuel through the engine than just letting it idle for 30-60 seconds. I kill mine, coast to the stop, and pop the clutch to restart the engine as part of my braking.
Also, I'm working on an LED headlight (should save 35w) and front turn signal mods (should save 56w) and have already switched the taillight to LED (saved 28w). Will change the rear turn signals at the same time to go with an electronic flasher, but they won't account for much because they're only on intermittenly. It's still only about 120w, but that's 10 amps! Using numbers from another thread, 1hp = ~720w, so I should be saving ~1/6 hp. My 400cc makes 35 hp at max, but probably more like 10-15 where I run it and let's assume it gets 50mpg (I've only ridden it 100mi so far, so haven't had to fill up yet). By my math this works out to about 1mpg improvement, but that seems low and I know I don't have concrete numbers by any means.
Sorry, don't mean to threadjack. It seemed appropriate, and then I just kept rambling.
