[H-Man]

Preface:

At career fairs and interviews, my fuel economy project seems to gain a lot of interest. I'm an Electrical Engineering major so I've been emphasizing the gains that are to be had from working on the electronic and control side of things instead of aero gains. So far this has worked well, but I want to go higher. I am currently in my fourth year of the fuel economy project. Currently I attribute 80% of my gains to my technique, 10% to tires, and 10% to my airdam.

Summery:

I'm going to pursue improved technique via improved sensor readout, reduced parasitic loads, and aerodynamic mods with an EE twist: Sensors everywhere. I had a precatlyst melt down and I don't know why, as such I'm going to have sensors in places that may get hotter with restricted cooling air. The upside of this is that I can optimize things more and free up more fuel economy. I ultimately plan to have an automatic shutter that opens preemptively before the fans kick on such as if the engine is under heavy load without a large positive change in RPM, logic being that the only time that happens is on a hill. Some of things I have planned may not be strictly needed, but I'm going to use this to show off my skills as an EE major.

Limitations:

• No LED or HID in Halogen housings.
• No defeating emission controls.
• No P&G (worn CV joints and poor fine motor skills).
• Nearly no money. I predict many consumer electronics will be torn down for free parts.
  

Road map:

16/3/27:

NOW. I'm going to adjust my tire pressure to known values.

16/3/28

I'll pick up a fuel pressure tester and start working on implementing the injector balance test process outlined in my Prizm's Factor service manual.

16/3/31

I hope to have datalogs from my commute so I can see how underutilized the cooling system is.

16/4/2

I will start work on thermal monitoring. Need to figure out how to monitor existing sensors and add new ones where I don't have them. I plan to use donated I2C sensors from some dead HP laptops. Will allow me to determine how I can keep various parts at operating temperature. Eventually I'll likely have a sensor network on this car.
Points of interest:

• Transmission, likely too cold.
• Exhaust manifold: Tends to crack due to heat and stress points due to the precatlyst on the California model, aftermarket replacements have a vented heat shield to reduce operating temperature.
• Engine Oil: I'm not sure how the engine oil temperature is regulated. I have managed to degrade conventional 10W30 enough to force an early oil change before. I suspect a leaky injector at play here, but I'm playing things safe since this is my only car and the most efficient car I have access to.
• Fuel tank: Exhaust runs close to my fuel tank.
• Battery: Has a cooling air supply sourced from driver's corner lower grill. Heat degrades lead acid batteries.
• Alternator: Right next to exhaust.
• Radiator outlet temperature vs inlet: Will allow me to track thermal headroom.

16/5/15

The project will be on hold first due to finals and then while I'm on an undergraduate research project.

16/8/10

The project will be able to resume with the ending of research project. I will attempt to set a record trip on a 110F day somewhere around this time. I know for a fact that under the right conditions, I can break 60 MPG with a geo prizm. At this point, the car will have nearly 300,000 miles on it with 40,000 of them being miles I have put on the car. Being a high mileage, high gas mileage car seems to attract a lot of questions.

Stuff that I have already done:

• I have installed my MPGunio and made a workable approximation of how ECU software behaves so that I can abuse every quirk in the software.
• I have reattached my airdam.
• I have switched to LRR tires.
• I have a massive spreadsheet I use to keep track of maintenance items by counting how many miles since the last time each maintenance item has been done. This ends up being key to keeping the car running well.
• I have made a timing diagram for the data output of the ECU (TDCL) so that I can code an ardunio sketch to decode it so I don't need to use a laptop for it. Took an afternoon of decoding poorly translated Russian forum posts to get the details right.