How did I get here? Ex-drag racer turned mpg freak

[Xist]

Welcome to the site! You have an impressive start!

Racing and ecomodding both deal heavily with aerodynamics and minimizing weight. Of course, you coast longer with more weight, but you will burn more fuel accelerating. I believe you would almost always improve fuel economy by trimming weight.

You became ASE certified at eighteen? Well done!

[Jacktuned]

Originally Posted by Baltothewolf

You should have picked up insight rims and Bridgestone potenza RE92'S. It's the best rim/tire combo there is out there. Civic HX rims are good as well.

I definitely would have if these vx wheels didn't already belong to me and I loaned them to a friend 3+ years ago!

I don't think insight wheels will be very easy to find

[Jacktuned]

Originally Posted by Xist

Welcome to the site! You have an impressive start!

Racing and ecomodding both deal heavily with aerodynamics and minimizing weight. Of course, you coast longer with more weight, but you will burn more fuel accelerating. I believe you would almost always improve fuel economy by trimming weight.

You became ASE certified at eighteen? Well done!

I had the base 1-7 certs done. They've since expired since i work for myself now, and don't need them to keep a certain salary!

[pgfpro]

Welcome to the site from one racer to another.

[Coop442s]

Welcome to the site and good luck to the modding!

[Jacktuned]

Well I'm back from my trip and I have lots of information to lay out for you guys.

Short story- 2700 miles total, averaged 47.41mpg.

Long story-

The days leading up to the launch I replaced the radiator with a full size radiator from and Integra. Wow, it was not "bolt-in". I had to fabricate the lower mounts and the upper mounts. Took me like 3 hours to get it in there properly. I did this to cut down on the fan on time as it seemed to be on A LOT. Fan running = alternator dragging = engine load = Mpg loss.
Besides the overflow tank over filling twice on the trip, there were no problems with overheating and the fan rarely turned on. I know this because I have an Led bulb inside that illuminates when the fan is powered.

I decided to cut a 2"x8" piece out of my air dam in an effort to stop the overflow bottle from filling. It worked marginally.

While on the highway going through the hills of upstate New york, my intake air temps were getting out of control (140-150 Fahrenheit) and I had to use a lot of accelerator pedal to keep moving. This abolished my fuel mileage and I got my worst tank the whole trip (41.5mpg).

Day two, New York to Indiana. I removed the warm air intake and never saw temps get over 110 degrees. I turned my maf enhancer off and got an improvement of 1.2-4.9mpg the next 3 top offs.

The return trip home was were the high mpg started in. I'm not sure if it was a tail wind headed east or what but the next 3 top offs yielded 57.7, 53.4 and 45.3 mpg.

The last tank took a dent because we were exhausted and just wanted to get home, I cruised around 70mph and drafted nobody.

I would estimate that all the crap we packed including ourselves must have weighed 450lbs. So I'll guess and say the total car weight was about 2550lbs.

One thing I really want to change is the gearing. At 65mph I'm turning something like 2700 rpms! A nice vx or cx trans might be in the works. Maybe I'll just swap the 5th gear in or just the final drive? I'll look in to it.

Thanks for reading!

[MobilOne]

Welcome to the site and Good Work!

[user removed]

I'm sure you already know this but tranny swap will get you 30 mph per 1k rpm which should help especially with trip economy.

regards
mech

[Jacktuned]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

I'm sure you already know this but tranny swap will get you 30 mph per 1k rpm which should help especially with trip economy.

regards
mech

I did not know that, great info. Thanks

[user removed]

My 1994 (7-93 prod date) VX (long gone) was totalled in 1995-6. I bought it that way in 2008, with 27,485 miles and had it shipped from Ohio to my friends body shop in VA. Original tires, even original wiper blades. It had been stored inside and used to train insurance adjusters. Hit hard in the rear end, hard enough to have the right rear wheel camber at about -15 degrees (no typo). After we pulled and aligned everything, I never even checked the alignment. It even ran decent on the gas that had probably been sitting for 15 years. Original tires, not even badly dry rotted. I drove it on them for another 10k miles.

That VX would pull from 30 mph and 1k rpm. It was soo tall geared, I calculated at redline it would be doing 120 mph IN 3RD GEAR!

I think the gear ratios were the same but the final drive was much taller than the DX.

Best mileage I ever got was early summer 2008. 64 mph and 68 mpg for 300 miles.

Look at the top 2 cars in the gas car fuel log and follow their build threads to get the best possible combination of mods.

I know you posted that climbing hills was when you had a lot of fan activity. Maybe you could tie a grille block to the fan operation activity and make it so it opens when you need it and closes when you don't. Best of both worlds.

regards
mech