[Unheard]

Hey people hows it going?

Another member from England here, two members in as many days, must be a record for this forum.

I found this site a few months back when googleing vortex generators
i think it chucked up a topic somewhere on here. I am the type of person that likes to improve on any thing i can see flaws with so i will be right at home here.

My first car back in 2001 was 1989 mini 998cc. To make the most of the small engine i decided to fit a full fiberglass front end and remove the metal bumpers, i also removed the back seats and spare wheel then replaced the mechanical fan for an electric item.

the difference in weight was very noticeable the car felt much faster and in normal driving returned a much better MPG, from then on i could see the benafit of making small modifications.

In 2004 i got my current car. a VW Lupo 1.4 Sport. some of you may know of the lupo. The lupo 1.2 TDI 3L edition one an award for the worlds most fuel efficient production car. Unfortunately the same cant be said for my sport. Iit has the worst consumption out of the whole range even the more powerful 1.6 gives a better return. The only explanation is the cams. There is almost no power below 3000rpm then all the 100 horses start to come alive. unmodified i was getting a constant return of about 30 uk mpg. That is very poor for such a small car. Just 2 weeks ago I took the back seats out and my sub all weighing in at 6 stone thats 84 pounds. So far I have not been able to do a good run to calculate the difference.

I had to make a few 70-80 mph trips on the fastest flowing motorway i know it can have an flow speed in both lanes of about 80mph an its very hard to stick to the 60mph sweetspot for mpg. Despite the fast driveing last return was 33mpg, better than i had been getting. Now i am driving slower again things look good. On the weekend i blanked the grill and taped up as many seems as i could, The window surround had quite a lip around it so that is much smoother now. I also taped over the bumper joins front and back and the rear light cluster where it joins to the body. just from that i can notice less wind noise from around the window and water tends to flow off the screen rather than just jump about. i have more mos planned and lots of ideas. once i can get the material i am going to make a full belly pan and i want to test out vortex generators as the lupo is quite flat ended.

My dad has a KIA carens mkII 2.0 diesel for english standards its got very bad MPG for a diesel at about 37 sometimes just touching 40 if he is luckey. The new Carens MKIII is much better on fuel at 45mpg so he is thinking of trading it in to get the newer model he drives it as a taxy the engine is super reliable in them and my dad has just hit 140,000 in 2 year of having the car without a single problem. The Carens is marked in the US as the KIA Rondo but the engines are totally different the top spec here is a 2.0L diesel where as you get 2.4L I4 and 2.7L V6 the 2.0 diesel has a much higher torque than the 2.7L v6 but you dont get to enjoy it. Unfortunately the pleasure of a modern Diesel has not yet been discovered in north america but they are the perfect answer to the US addiction to muscle cars. The US has a history of large capacity low revving high torque V8s, you can get the same muscle form a diesel in a smaller engine with much better fuel consumption. win win situation and they are so nice to drive now

Merc have already got there first VW second then the market in 2009 will be stormed with 50 state compliant diesels so something for you all to look forward to!

As the SUV market has totally crashed i would expect sales of European spec cars to boom and hopefull soon after we will get some good US exports into the European market. My mum has a Daewoo matiz tiny little car with a 800cc engine more of a shopping cart than a car but its a fantastic town car getting 45mpg Daewoo no longer exist as they were taken over by GM and named Chevrolet. I am not really sure on there choice of name given the history of the brand but they seem to be bringing out some quite nice cars. They have still kept the matiz as the bottom end car but
the rest of the range is new. I have always had an eye on my mums car as a good starting point for an EV conversion given that the car is very light. I think i better stick to improving my car at the moment though

I have to say that in the UK people love to moan about fuel price but they are not really bothered with actually doing anything about it other than moaning to the government, i don't agree with the amount we are taxed but my theory has always been to try and use less fuel in the first place. i am heavily into researching HHO at the moment. For my engine it could give me exactly what i am after. more torque lower down the rev range meaning that i could drive in a higher gear as slower speeds without problems.

I am really impressed with some of the ideas that are on here namely driving with a vacuum gage seems a fantastically logical idea i had never though of, its something I will be looking into. I am keen to learn more about hypermileing. All though its slightly harder to do some of the things on uk roads but generally i may be able to modify my driving.

My main focus for my car at the moment is finding some one that will make me a stainless exhaust manifold around the south east of England. Its an impossible task no one is interested. I have a pre-cat on the stock manifold that does nothing more than restrict the engine so i want to get rid of it as soon as i can to free up the revs

I am sure i will be asking quite a few questions and putting some of my ideas out there to get your thoughts on them.