At $8.27/gal. it's good to be eco

[Bearleener]

Hello from Berlin, Germany!

With gasoline at 1.40 EUR/litre (which at the current exchange rate is $8.27/gal.; lots of tax!), you'd expect everybody here to be ecomodding, but they're not. I'm trying to get the most out of my old Volkswagen Golf station wagon (with a brutally powerful 75 hp squeezed out of 1.8 L; good torque, though). Been putzing around at a decent 34 mpg for a while but I'd like to get to the next level. At some point I stumbled upon MetroMPG and now EcoModder and realized I'm not the only nut out there!

ScanGauge won't work with my car, SuperMID ist kinda expensive, I sometimes use my voltmeter to monitor the fuel injector duty cycle. I use my car almost exclusively for the commute (no long highway stretches, rarely heavy-duty city), so my fuel log is pretty consistent.

What I've done so far: grill block, higher tire pressure, ditched the spare tire (auto club membership!), mild pulse & glide, and EOC about 15% of the way (starting with the last tank). Since I know my route I can time the stoplights pretty well.

With EOC I should be able to break the 6.0 l/100km (39 mpg) barrier. But I'm tired of turning the key so my next project is an auto start/stop like the newer European-model BMW's (put gear in neutral and release clutch), but not just at stoplights. That'll have to wait until after Easter, though. When EOCing I've got 3 pumps with the brake and steering stiffness is okay 'cause I'm prepared for it.

About 3 years ago I did some test runs with a 1.5-litre thermos bottle for the coolant (like the 3+-litre in current Prius). Basically worked but it was too small and I was scared of a blowout, so I took it out. Might try it again sometime.

Anyway, glad to be here!

[SVOboy]

With fuel that high, the superMID might pay for itself pretty quickly!

Welcome to the site, looking forward to seeing your progress,

[AXMonster]

Hi Eurocousin

Originally Posted by Bearleener

About 3 years ago I did some test runs with a 1.5-litre thermos bottle for the coolant (like the 3+-litre in current Prius). Basically worked but it was too small and I was scared of a blowout, so I took it out. Might try it again sometime.

Just to clarify, was this to keep the coolant hot during EOC??

Welcome to this great resource!

Steve

[MetroMPG]

Hello, Bearleener! Very glad to see you here.

- Darin

[H4MM3R]

Welcome to the community!

[RH77]

Welcome to EM!

Good to have you aboard...

It's good to see more of the European perspective.

Enjoy the site!

RH77

[cfg83]

Bearleener -

Welcome to EM! A lot of Diesel fans here, so it will be fun to see how much MPG you can squeeze out of your VW.

Fellow Ecomodders, is there another diesel VW on EM that is a close match to Bearleener's car?

CarloSW2

[Bearleener]

Hi AXmonster,

the Thermos was to keep the coolant warm overnight to make the cold start less cold. I didn't store the coolant directly in the Thermos but rather ran it through a copper tubing coil in the bottle, thus heating the water in the bottle. In the morning a windshield wiper pump circulated the then-cold coolant through the bottle with then-lukewarm (ca. 40 C) water, bringing a coolant temperature rise of about 5 C after about 5 min of pumping. Not very effective.

Why it didn't work that well:
> Bottle capacity too small
> Indirect system: didn't store coolant directly because I was too chicken to have the Thermos at coolant system pressure (1 bar = 15 psi); as it was I had 8 additional hose clamps in the system! With direct storage you could pump the warm coolant out and lock the cold stuff in the Thermos until the engine is warm, then gradually pulsing it back into the system.
> Hoses remained filled with coolant --> convective cooling all night long. That's why the bottle only had 40 C in the morning vs. 68 C without hoses or coil (operating temp. is 90 C).

BTW there's a commercial system like this available (www.waermespeicher.com), but it's bulky and expensive.

[Bearleener]

Hi cfg83, fellow Wagoneer,

my car has a gasoline engine (1.8 l, 75 hp, 140 N.m torque @ 2500 rpm). Most "normal" drivers of the Golf wagon only get this sort of FE with the diesel engines. For comparison I typed my fuel log into a German FE site (www.spritmonitor.de) and of all 246 VW Golfs (sedans and wagons) registered there with 75 hp gasoline engines, I'm ranked #16! (Although I don't know what proportion of ecomodders/ecodrivers to normal drivers that site has.)

Cheers and thanks for all the welcomes, everybody!

[MetroMPG]

Do you have access to an outside electrical outlet? Although the Prius style coolant thermos is clever, it seems like a block heater is a much simpler solution. Of course it depends on your driving habits & access to power.