Hey guys, decided I’d update this old post. Driven the car lots since this thread, and racked up probably 20,000-30,000 km. Car runs great! Funny enough, I went on the same road trip as this post recently, and stayed up all night doing aero-mods accordingly! These are still unpolished, but look much better than previous.
[IMG]
[/IMG]
Same trip, but different speed, and presumably better aero. I had to keep up with a friend, who drove 120-130 km/h and had the benefit of AWD. The first portion of the trip meant heading down “The Tote Road”, a place I liken to the River Styx. Terribly loose and dusty gravel road with not a shred of even surface, littered with stray rocks, logs, wildlife, and random bodywork junk from cars that didn’t make it. My light little car with wide summer tires led to constant sliding, even at 70-80 km/h. A huge rock flew in front of me from the dust cloud ahead and smacked the undercarriage like a gong; scared the life out of me. Thankfully, the front diffuser and skip-plate did their job and saved me from any damage. That terrible road meant I couldn’t break 30 MPG no matter what, and stole 1/4 tank from me. From there, I followed carefully at 120 km/h and averaged around 35-38 km/h, as the car ahead didn’t have cruise control nor a stable foot. Unfortunately, my girlfriend was scared of running low, so I couldn’t get a tank average. Got about 400km on half a tank, though.
On the way back, I drove on my own and trailed Dempster’s trucks for several hundred kilometres, averaging 45 MPG or so. I cruised at 98-100 km/h and kept good distance to be safe while still in the wake. Halfway through, we hit a hailstorm and my thermostat got stuck open. Coolant temp wouldn’t break 65 Celsius. Cost me some gas mileage, but didn’t hurt anything. I think that evened out to similar or a bit better mileage than the first trip. GPS lied to me and made me take a two hour long detour only to go down an even worse section of the dreaded Tote Road, now in pitch black, pouring rain, and with thousands of eyes glimmering in the ditches! Even worse, this road was completely uneven, and patches of gravel caught and grabbed onto the skid plate, pulling the car left and right. Infuriated me and terrified me simultaneously, but I made it out fine.
Enough prose! The mods worked great, even though the mechanical issues, tank-fill frequency, and terrible roads from Hell eliminated any proper measurements. Didn’t have a single issue with anything despite the abuse. I was genuinely surprised how the front air dam smacked into that rock full force and sprung back to shape. Coroplast is great stuff!
Since then, the car has been averaging 40-45 MPG, but I’m kind of lazy with checking the tank fills. It’s usually around 630-650km with some to spare. 500-550km when I hit a quarter tank. However there are some points throughout the week where I drive carelessly in terms of fuel economy. Scangauge tells me it’s 50-55 MPG at 70 km/h. I noticed a very large reduction in wind noise and the car is very quiet on the highway. It can hit 200 km/h very easily but the ECU seems to kick you back. At those speeds the car is remarkably stable and I don’t feel any danger of front-end lift.
In short, it works great and handles abuse! Very happy with this.