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Old 04-23-2015, 08:50 PM   #18 (permalink)
California98Civic
Cyborg ECU
 
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
Posts: 6,299

Black and Green - '98 Honda Civic DX Coupe
Team Honda
90 day: 66.42 mpg (US)

Black and Red - '00 Nashbar Custom built eBike
90 day: 3671.43 mpg (US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5 View Post
My advice is to leave the alternator in place and figure out how to switch it on and off. The pulley has so little drag as to have an unmeasurable effect on MPG. I doubt the truck would run without electricity since the "ignition" that your key controls will kill it when turned off. My truck uses an electric fuel pump, so it needs a good electricity source at all times. ....
I agree. My car is on such a switch. And I have an Odyssey deep cycle battery (excellent). The beauty of the switch is twofold: when I need more range I can just turn the alt on and (2) whenever I am breaking I can turn the alt on and have a crude kind of regenerative breaking system. I have an onboard charger and plugin at night. But I imagine you could use solar panels, though it will be hard to generate enough power quickly enough in the time you have that you are not driving around.
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See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.



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