groar's 1997 Megane Modding Thread

[groar]

Piwo, about the technical inspection I don't want to have any risk of reject and my wife wouldn't be very happy...

It seams all my mods are legal. While I was testing the uglyback Friday, I drove by 2 policemen that where looking at the cars driving through a roundabout. One of them looked at the other one and the latter seamed to tell that there was nothing wrong.

Removing the mods would cost me only "power tape" which wouldn't be a really high price. It may permit me to improve something, but also to wash the car.

Denis.

[Istas]

Around here, there are no small number of inspection places that, if you don't pass, they will let you fix whatever didn't pass and come back within a certain amount of time (two weeks or a month) to get re-inspected for free. If you find somewhere like that to get your car inspected that would let you try it without removing the mods, and if it fails because of them just remove them and go back and pass.

Your ambition towards modding this car is admirable. Keep up the good work.

[groar]

Originally Posted by Istas

Around here, there are no small number of inspection places that, if you don't pass, they will let you fix whatever didn't pass and come back within a certain amount of time (two weeks or a month) to get re-inspected for free. If you find somewhere like that to get your car inspected that would let you try it without removing the mods, and if it fails because of them just remove them and go back and pass.

The only free thing I know is coroplast but only in limited quantities

I removed everything Wednesday and the car passed the inspection the day after

For information, at the opacity test megane obtained a score under 0.6 without and with the turbo. For information a turbo car must have under 3.0, a non turbo car must have under 2.5 and any car newer than 2008 must have under 1.5.
In fact my mechanic cleaned the turbo before to send the car to the inspection, so the turbo score was only a few % over the non turbo score.
A few days before my wife's car passed the technical inspection too, and the opacity scores were worse : the turbo score was twice the non turbo score, but far from the limit.

Your ambition towards modding this car is admirable. Keep up the good work.

Thanks

I should be able to put back the aerohelps on soon. Hope I'll have time to do a coast down testing, but I haven't found a long and flat road yet to do a 90 to 60 km/h (56 to 37 mph) coast down testing. May be should I attempt a 110 to 80 km/h (68 to 50 mph) one, even if I rarely drive at these speeds.

Hope my 1000 miles tank will give me wings to continue the improvements.

I'm also working on minimizing the load on the battery, by adding an old (50Ah) battery on board, plugged to a solar panel (bigger than the little one connected to the car's battery), to feed the (GPS) navigator and the rear view camera. This will also permit me to have my computer connected during several hours to do wardriving (its internal battery doesn't permit so) or simply to record GPS coordinates (thing about coast down testing per example).

About the rear view camera, I tested it and it works great, but the wide angle if it permits to see more things that an classical mirror, changes the distances by so much that I'll need a looong time to get used to it.

Denis.

[Istas]

What is the opacity test?

Yes, it's a good idea to do the coast-down test at as high a legal speed as you can: even if you don't drive at that speed, the higher speed helps to show small changes in air drag.

Nifty idea with the battery and solar panel, too. Hope it brings you net savings.

[groar]

Originally Posted by groar

I should be able to put back the aerohelps on soon. Hope I'll have time to do a coast down testing, but I haven't found a long and flat road yet to do a 90 to 60 km/h (56 to 37 mph) coast down testing. May be should I attempt a 110 to 80 km/h (68 to 50 mph) one, even if I rarely drive at these speeds.

It took me much more time than I thought so I only coast down with the following configurations :

• A = standard config
• B = A + upper grill block
• C = B + removed wiper blades + folded passenger mirror
• D = C + rear wheel skirts

Sorry, no final A test...

I found a long enough road to do 110 - 70 km/h coast down testing, but the road wasn't flat enough and too much traffic so I had to remove :

• all the legs to East
• several points to West

Here are the results :


I have a lot of respect for all coast down testers (Darrin and all). After this experience I have even more respect. Before doing CDT with the uglyback, I'll try to find another road and a light-to-no traffic moment.

Note #1 : with upper grill block I confirmed 2 differences over 75 km/h vs no upper grill block :

• I could feel air while the internal vents are opened and the ventilator is off
• I could hear noise from the wiper blades, noise disappearing in tests C & D

Note #2 :

• 110 km/h = 68.4 mph
• 100 km/h = 62.2 mph
• 90 km/h = 55.9 mph
• 80 km/h = 49.7 mph
• 70 km/h = 43.5 mph

Denis.

[PaleMelanesian]

Looks to me like the rear wheel skirts give the biggest improvement.

[Istas]

Nice to see hard numbers showing improvement. Thanks for doing coast-down testing, it's motivation for others too.

[cfg83]

groar -

Thanks for doing this. I'm too lazy to fight traffic to make this work. I keep imagining the perfect hill with the perfect slope with the super-long flat straight road at the bottom with NOBODY around for miles and miles and miles.

CarloSW2

[MetroMPG]

Nice to see this data, Groar. Thanks for taking the time.

[Piwoslaw]

Wow, this is great data
Denis, could give an idea as to how long the stretch of road was, and how much time did the testing take? I'll be doing coast downs soon, so I'd like to know how early I'll have to get up.