Hi from Down Under

[oldtamiyaphile]

A lot of Australian Toyota's aren't OBDII compliant, no idea why. You can no doubt find more advice on an Aussie Toyota forum. My Prius is OBDII though.

But I have a 2010 Proton that isn't OBDII.

[freddyzdead]

@BLSTIC The thing is, all the Copens in UK and Europe that are the same year as mine, they all have OBDII. There is a procedure I found for programming new keys, which involves shorting two pins on the OBD plug. I was fascinated by this idea, as my car came with only one key. But when I tried it, nothing happened. I have no doubt that the Australian copens have had the OBD functions cut out of them, but like I said, I have no idea why. I have wondered what would happen if I got an engine ECU from the UK and put it in my car, if it would suddenly acquire OBD. Not sure, because this car has little computers all over the place; for the roof, windows, ABS, immobiliser, and others, besides the engine one, and I believe they all talk to each other.

I always wanted a Mighty Boy. Or perhaps a Honda 'Z'. I've got a sort of fascination with minimalistic sorts of transportation. I had a 1984 Suzuki Carry, which I really liked, but I got tired of putting engines in it. My last car was an '03 Sirion, and a 1991 Charade before that. Loved them both. I've also got a self-balancing unicycle, and a two-wheel "hoverboard". The latter threw me off a year and a half ago and gave me a shredded rotator cuff, so I haven't been back on it since. I've now got about 80% function back in the shoulder. No surgery. They wanted to do a total shoulder joint replacement. Eek!

Anyway, I agree I should be getting better economy than I am, if I were to drive it somewhat sedately; although this is fairly well impossible, because the little thing just wants to go. I wondered how it would drive without the turbo, and one day a piece of the air filter got sucked in and jammed the turbo. The car drove like it was powered by 600cc - no power. Gave me a fright, I thought the turbo had failed. Fished out the piece of debris and it was fine again. I could try driving it like a granny for a tankful, but I don't think that's possible. Especially with the roof down.

@cRiPpLe_rOoStEr Maybe the turbo kei cars are thirstier because it's hard to rein them in, as I've found.

And yes, the two kinds of gallon do muddy things quite a bit. Km/L I can live with. Since the tank holds exactly 30L, and I get near enough to 400km on a tankful, it's easy to work out. But it's when the numbers aren't nice and round that I lose the plot.

I find the doings of the Europeans rather mystifying. They seem to be obsessed with Diesels. I suppose it's good, because there's been a lot of development, and diesels aren't belching black smoke like they used to. I can see a diesel making sense if the fuel is half the price, but here diesel is the same price as petrol, or even more.

[JockoT]

In the UK diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, deliberately so by taxation. Add to that the far better mpg (or should that be Km/L) and it was very attractive. Then, once the suckered people in, they removed the tax incentive. Now it is dearer than petrol. But forget about the clean exhausts. I followed a 5 year old Passat diesel the other day and it was belching out black reek.
I enjoy minimalist cars as well. My favourite car I ever owned was a FIAT 126,594 cc, air cooled twin. 23 bhp. Huge fun to drive. You had to work it like a big truck.

[freddyzdead]

Here's a picture of me and Buzz.


@JockoT They did that here with LPG. The government took the excise off it so it was about 1/3 the price of petrol. All the taxis were using it. Then, a few years ago, the gov't phased the excise back in, and now it's not worth it anymore to get your car converted. Taxis now are Prius or hybrid Camrys. LPG is very clean fuel, that's why they took the excise off. I don't know why they put it back on. Maybe it's not clean anymore. Or they'd rather support the farmers who grow corn to make ethanol from. I just found out I'm not supposed to put E10 in my car. After using it for 8 months. Grrrr.

[JockoT]

A lovely little motor.

[freddyzdead]

Hi there oldtamiyaphile. I thought all cars in Australia had to be OBD compliant from 2006. Does your Proton have the plug under the dash?

What part of Oz are you from? I'm on the Central Coast, just north of Sydney. Far enough away from the madness, but close enough if I need to go there for something. I always take the train if I can; Sydney traffic is hellish.

[puddleglum]

Originally Posted by freddyzdead

I agree I should be getting better economy than I am, if I were to drive it somewhat sedately; although this is fairly well impossible, because the little thing just wants to go.
And yes, the two kinds of gallon do muddy things quite a bit. Km/L I can live with. Since the tank holds exactly 30L, and I get near enough to 400km on a tankful, it's easy to work out.

Well, that probably explains why your mileage is poor. If you drove it like a proper 600cc gutless granny car, you'd probably get much better mileage . It's a toy though, right? Toys are to have fun with.

L/100km is no harder than km/L. I had to learn it too when I moved to Canada. Just divide the other way.

[Jez77]

Another aussie Copen owner here.

I assume you are already on the Copenworld forum (think I've seen the car on it).
Aussie Copens are the same engine and ECU as the Jap models.
Both the Aussie and Jap cars didn't adopt OB2 until 2006 and even that was only for new models so they could have continued selling them unchanged after that if Daihatsu hadn't pull out of OZ.
UK turbo ones were converted to OB2 but it's not as simple as an ECU change there was some other changes as well, fuel system was converted to return less for example.
It's better to stick with the Aussie system anyway as there are more parts available from Japan.
We can use the D-Sport ECU for example where the UK versions can't .
I had a Unichip piggyback system installed on mine and apart from the power and drivability improvements my fuel consumption on my usual spirited drive over the mountains dropped from 7.5l/100k to less that 6.5l/100k.
They are working pretty hard on the highway 4000rpm and on boost so economy will never be great even with such a small motor.

[freddyzdead]

Hi Jez, nice to see you here.

So, you were getting around the same fuel usage as I am. I guess that makes me feel a little better; I thought there might be something wrong with my engine, robbing me of fuel economy. I wouldn't expect too much from it, anyway; the extra power has to come from somewhere, where else but more fuel? I have noticed there's little difference between highway and city driving as far as fuel economy. That suggests the motor is working pretty hard all the time. More reason to keep the oil nice and clean.

I landed here after deciding to see what would happen with replacing the battery with a capacitor bank and/or lithium battery. I have confidence of success based on the research I've been able to do. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. My hope is to forget about battery issues for the rest of the life of the car.

I wouldn't mind hearing more about your unichip piggyback system. Is this something you can install yourself? I almost bought Copen from Grunt on Copenworld, but he ended up selling it to his niece. He's living in Japan now. I think he had D-Sport ECU on it. I don't know much about that, either, or whether it helps the fuel statistics.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by JockoT

In the UK diesel used to be cheaper than petrol, deliberately so by taxation. Add to that the far better mpg (or should that be Km/L) and it was very attractive. Then, once the suckered people in, they removed the tax incentive. Now it is dearer than petrol.

Considering that the Great Britain is surrounded by the sea, it does surprise me that algae-based biodiesel (which could eventually be blended with fish liver oil-based biodiesel) ain't taken so seriously as an alternative to match the demand and keep the costs at a reasonable point while also decreasing the dependence on petroleum.

But forget about the clean exhausts. I followed a 5 year old Passat diesel the other day and it was belching out black reek.

Are you sure that Passat hadn't been illegally chip-tuned and straight-piped in order to enable it to "roll coal"?

I enjoy minimalist cars as well.

Some of those minimalist cars are actually quite interesting, while povertry-spec versions of regular ones are not so attractive at all.

My favourite car I ever owned was a FIAT 126,594 cc, air cooled twin. 23 bhp. Huge fun to drive. You had to work it like a big truck.

I never drove any of those, but they seem to be quite cool.