[aerohead]

Darin,I know you'd probably like to finalize your estimator so I'll throw this last stuff at you,then leave you alone.When concrete brought up the mention of accessories,I thought I'd posted some things for that on the general ecomodding sticky,but I didn't,and was probably thinking of maxmpg. Anyway,I have a few things from SAE,they are dated now,however they may be considered a worst-case scenario.Also,they're for a "medium-size" car,about 3,500-lbs:

- Air conditioning 1.5mpg loss urban,1.0 mpg loss at constant 70 mph.
- Alternator 0.9 mpg loss urban, 0.5 mpg loss at 70 mph.
- Fan (cooling) 0.1 mpg loss urban,0.5 mpg loss at 70.
- Power steering 0.1 mpg urban, 0.4 loss at 70.
- Automatic transmission 5-15.5% loss urban.

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From a CAR and DRIVER experiment at 60-mph with a Ford Escort:

- 3rd instead of 4th-gear cruising 9.0 mpg loss.
- Rooftop carrier 6.0 mpg loss.
- Air conditioning 3.0 mpg loss.
- Windows down 1.0 mpg loss.
- Heavy load 1.0 mpg.
- Underinflated tires 0.5 mpg loss.
- Overinflated tires (no change).

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From Road and Track: Geo Metro:

- calm wind 56.6 mpg
- 25-mph headwind 44 mpg
- 20 mph in 3rd gear 84.1 mpg
- Burn/glide/bumpstart-repeat,from 20 mph down to 8 mph = 116.6 mpg.
- Honda VX doing hyper-miling= 104.8mpg.(tests were conducted at U.C.Davis,with Professor Dr.Andrew Frank).
- The little university research car with 3.8-ft-sq frontal area and Cd 0.14 got 3,300-mpg doing hyper-mileing.

Last thought,and this is about Diesels.A diesel Rabbit had a 35mpg advantage over a gasoline Chevette at 30-mph.At 80-mph,that advantage had shrunk to 9mpg.At 80 mph(legal in West Texas and elsewhere now) my T-100 gets 3-mpg better than the Rabbit diesel.It looks like the high inertia loads of the early diesels really cost them at elevated velocities.Like to think modern TDis are much more efficient!