The beginnings of Eco modding. (What car should I get?)
 

Hello! I'm new to the sight! I just barely discovered it and I have to say I am in love with this web sight. It's great to see a bunch of guys getting together to maximize and help others also maximize their fuel efficiency. It always kinda bugs me when you get on a forum of sceptics that have never tried anything so it's super refreshing to see you guys actually trying stuff out in the field! So I currently have a Nissan Xterra which is terrible on fuel and I kinda drive the hyper mili g style but something is wrong with it and even with all the coasting and sometimes even drafting I can only ever max out at 17.28 and I usually get 14-15 mpg and I drive that thing super nice. There is something wrong with it but the goal is 20-24 mpg. I think that would be a miracle. I've already done electric fan ac cat and egr delete which has helped a lot. My mileage did actually used to be worse. But my main question is what is the best car to get to start off Ecomodding? I was looking at a 1995 civic hatch because they're light and have a small engine and the after market is incredible for weight reduction high compression Pistons and adjustable can gears. What do you guys think? If you were to start over what car would you get?

Welcome to the site.
Which forum had all the sceptical people on it?

If you are looking for a different car go Asian for sure. The European stuff costs a premium to repair.

Ah just a bunch of sites as the years have gone by. But yeah I've mostly been looking at Asian cars. They seem to be reliable, light weight and fuel effieicent. What have been some of the more successful cars to Eco mod around here?

Go to the home page here and look at the top left corner of the page.
It used to be the top 10 most fuel efficient were dominated by Hondas and metros but the demographic has changed in the last year or 2.

#1 car for MPG, in stock configuration, is going to be a 2000-2006 Honda Insight unless you got the dough for a 2016+ Prius C. Main drawback is it only has 2 seats. A big bonus is it is all-aluminum, so you can usually find one without any of the body problems you're likely to see on the older civics.

The #1 Civic in stock configuration is going to be the Civic VX from the 1990's because of its lean-burn engine and light rims, but again that kind of age usually indicates rust up in Canada. The Civic VX does have more room than the Insight.

If you went with the Prius-C you could probably mod it for more MPG, but a 2000-2006 Insight with manual transmission (all Canadian ones were sold with manuals) can probably be modded to achieve way higher MPG numbers more easily than the Prius-C because of the drivetrain. My best tank in my 2001 Insight was 78MPG without use of the hybrid battery. And there are some guys on here who regularly do 90+ MPG tanks in their Insights.

With the question framed that way, my response is an off-lease Nissan Leaf in the $8-10K range. The later model, with the cabin heat pump.

Then I'd chop off the rear fenders and boat tail it.

Welcome to the forum, Ni87!

People have done really well with older Civics. For newer non-hybrid Hondas, the Fit has essentially replaced the Civic, but the gearing is low, which hurts highway MPG. (I don't know if anyone has re-geared a Fit yet.)

What will your typical use be? (Highway / urban driving?)

The original Insight is the king of the efficiency hill. But they're getting hard to find in Canada, and the steel components in them still rust -- I've even seen one with corrosion in the aluminum body panels!

I assume if you're going with a conventional drivetrain you would stick with a manual transmission. It's usually much easier to beat a vehicle's ratings (and by a wider margin) with a stick than with an automatic.

What your normal vehicle use looks like will help determine what you'll want to buy. The Insight is a great car. An EV can easily beat it efficiency wise, but there is the range to deal with.

I couldn't be happier with my 2004 Civic, it rides well...great actually...it has sort of a bigger than it is car feel ride, yet it is still very responsive. The EX I have has (had..I just changed mine) a shorter geared transmission, the LX & DX have non-vtec engines but lower geared transmissions. Anyway, a clean lower mile manual has a surprising amount of room and the 2001-2005 is a sweet spot for a sturdy reliable car. Mileage is rated at 32/38, mine has gotten 35mpg avg for 150,000 miles. My 2¢, worth more or less!!

Welcome aboard!

14-15 mpg is actually good for one of those pigs. I was killing myself to get not much better, after years of hypermiling on the same roads under good conditions. When I finally got out of it, gas and payments on the Fit were right about where gas alone had been on the X.

My advice is to get anything small with a manual.

We've all got our needs and preferences, and here you're going to get advice for what works for people who aren't you, with goals, skills and conditions that aren't yours. But if you get something on the smaller side, it'll take less energy to make it move. If you get something with a manual, you'll be able to get more than just the performance an automatic decides to let you have (as well as being mechanically simpler and more reliable).

Yeah those xterras are brutal. I'm going to try drafting on my trip home I started doing that the other day and I gained 5 in hg on my vacuum gauge. So we will see how that goes. But no I agree with you guys some thing small simple and standard. Yeah that is the one thing that bugs me with the Hondas is the gearing. I think the states threatened to nuke japan again if they made too good of a car. True or not I sill believe there's some sort of conspiracy behind it. What are some of the mods that are good to start off with and do right away?

The low gearing is a marketing decision, it makes them peppy.

This is what I got on my wife's old Xterra with a calibrated UltraGague and years of hypermiling under my belt on a commute I've been doing for even longer. I like to think of it as the theoretical maximum one of them can get.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/fe-graphs/graph7678.gif

You're so close to my numbers that what you need to do is get out of it as soon as possible. Anything mid sized or below with a manual is going to pay for itself immediately in driver satisfaction, and pretty quickly in gas.

Might also have been a decision to keep the Fit's highway MPG from getting too close to the Insight's, thus cannibalizing sales.

I wasn't even thinking of the Fit. But manuals tend to be geared more for 0-60 than mpg.

Honda and Toyota hybrids do very well. Honda hybrids tend to have more battery problems, but may achieve higher highway fuel economy and can often be driven without the battery, whereas a Prius cannot. I've seen as high as ~70mpg in good weather with the Civic hybrid in my garage, and it's nearly 3000lbs and, by my standards, a pretty big car. My Insight delivers about 100mpg cruising at 50-60 once it's fully warmed up and in good weather. I haven't owned a Prius, but I have the perception that they do relatively better in stop and go conditions due to the difference in the way the hybrid system works. At this point, 2nd gen Prii, 1st gen Insights and Civic hybrids have all just about depreciated as far as they'll go, and can be picked up for similar prices to gasoline-only cars a decade older.

I think if I were to get any other vehicle, I'd be interested in trying either an EV, a Chevy Volt, or perhaps the 2nd generation Accord hybrid. These are all far more expensive options though.

If you're looking for something newer... and left field... Steve Lang (used car guru who now does web content for Car And Driver) posted on FB that he found a 2014 Mirage for just $3k.

That's a 60+ MPG car with modern crash protection and a sub-ton curb weight. One that just happens to be sitting at the top of the current leaderboard.

Team Mirage could use some more members. :D

$3k is unusual for a Mirage (unless it's damaged). I've seen a couple of undamaged ones between $4-5k recently, but even those are outliers with higher than average km.

(NOTE WORTH REPEATING: despite the ratings, the 5MT gets better fuel economy than the higher-rated CVT in the real world in the hands of an attentive driver. No "extreme" techniques required. But add in the techniques and silly numbers are possible.)

Is your XTerra fitted with the 4-cyl or the V6 engine? Anyway, even though it's quite heavy, and the aerodynamics are disfavorable, you might still find ways to improve its fuel-efficiency in case you would eventually want to keep it. BTW my dad also has a XTerra, but it's a Brazilian-assembled one with a 4-cyl turbodiesel.

$3.6k at auction prices.

4-5k sounds about right for a private sale.

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I use pulse-and-glide and EOC with ours constantly. Odd bump-starting with the super-light clutch, but you get used to it.

I'd get a beater first gen Insight five speed instead of a nice one, as cheap as they are. Plus keep the truck.

Insight parts are stupid expensive vs a 95 hatch though. Headlights for example. I wanted to do an HID retrofit. They don't make cheap (any?) reproduction lights. I luckily found a supposed "new" set that were layed on the ground with small scuffs, for almost $300. You can't just go to a junkyard and grab stuff since they aren't there. It has three o2 sensors in my 2006 and they are all pricey.

Buy one with a bad battery and recondition it. If the battery can't be saved it might just be one bad stick of cells. People also disable the ima, but I'll tell you, I lost my ima and stopped on a hill at the end of an off ramp. The light turned green and I barely went forward on motor alone.

I saw you mentioned an EGR delete - wouldn't that make your fuel economy worse?

I'm not a genius, guys, somebody help me out here. I thought part of the point of the EGR was to help fill the cylinder with neutral gases, reduce pumping losses and cool things off a tad.

That is true. Cooling things off a tad allows for advancing ignition timing which improves efficiency and even power.

Too bad the O.P. hasn't logged in since he started this thread!

So many questions & suggestions.

Man a diesel swap on Xterra! Man I want to do that so bad! What engine and transmission did he use? And I actually got 3 more miles to the gallon when I deleted my egr on my truck. I was on a trip o Utah and I was getting 12-13 on the highway. Deleted the egr then I started getting 15-16 mpg strictly high way. i always thought the cooler your intake was the more efficient your engine would be because when the cool air enters the combustion chamber it expands when it heats up giving it more power but I'm not an engineer and I don't have all the tools to test that properly.

But yeah I am thinking of getting the civic hatch. You can usually get them super cheap which won't make me feel so bad when I do the areo mods and weight reduction. Which ones have the lean burn mode? Does that system work good at all?

The VX is the lean burn Civic hatch. It's the only one ever sold in Canada (HX was the coupe also sold in the U.S.)

Lean burn works amazingly at light/moderate loads. EG. highway cruising. Lean burn, good aerodynamics, tall gearing, and low rolling resistance are why the 1st gen Insight can get 75-100 mpg US on the highway.

Oh okay that makes sense. I wonder what transmission is in the insight and if it would take a d15 �� That would be interesting to find out. Yeah that's the one thing that kills those Hondas is the gearing. Has anybody successfully swapped out the 5th gear or done the spur and pinion? Insights are super hard to find around here. Even online. If I could find one I'd probably go that route.

Pretty sure it's unique to the Insight. It *might* swap with the 1st gen Civic hybrid, but I'm almost certain it won't mate to a D series.

On that note though, the 1st gen Civic hybrid has gearing nearly as tall. It's almost identical to the Insight's drivetrain, except it's a 4 cylinder 1.3 w/lean burn rather than a 3 cylinder 1.0.

Actually it's not a swap. Nissan offered the XTerra with a Brazilian MWM Sprint 4.07TCA (TCE for the common-rail versions) 2.8L 4-cyl turbodiesel, backed by a 5-speed manual Eaton FSO 2405 transmission, for the local Brazilian market and regional exports to Argentina. There might be more of it in other countries such as Paraguay and Bolivia, presumably stolen in Brazil and Argentina. The same engine had also been fitted to the S10 and the Blazer in Brazil until 2011.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LXmH_8_jC...Photo18962.jpg

Wow that would be so great! I want to do a diesel swap in this thing so bad. It's probably pretty hard to get that engine and trabsmission in Canada eh?

Not so sure if that would be so hard to get that transmission there in Canada, but I'm sure it would be easier for you to get a JDM Nissan YD25, QD32 or ZD30 engine.

Looking at engines on eBay, it looks to me like the bolt patterns, ECA1 (Insight) vs. D15 are wildly different. You would have to come up with a custom adapter to make the Insight tranny and D15 engine play nice with each other.

The LDA (HCH1) engine's bolt pattern looks a lot closer, but I'm only looking at eBay pictures - what really is needed here is a measured drawing, and those are pretty hard to come by.

We used to have a member called Old Mechanic that gave great automotive advice. Unfortunately, he felt it necessary to delete his account, so he now shows up as USER REMOVED.

He was a huge fan of timing chains.

I have had the timing belt replaced on two cars. There used to be places here where you could work on your own car in a repair shop and rent tools, but no longer. I was also crazy busy with summer school, so I paid a different shop a thousand dollars to do it for each car, although I was unsatisfied with both jobs.

One grand worth of gas would have transported me 14,000 miles in the Forester, but 22,000 in the Civic--with low compression!

So, in a car that gets 36 MPG, you would spend 22.5% of your gas bill in current prices on the timing belt.

I love my HX, but I needed to search high and low for her. It took months! I have averaged 44 MPG over 40,000 miles, but everyone insisted I needed to check my compression, my fuel economy was "horrible!"

Sure enough, two cylinders were at the minimum.

Lean burn is great, but although the 2000 Insight with a manual transmission was rated an ultra-low emissions vehicle, they redid emission standards in 2005, and the government decided it was too dirty, so that was the end of lean burn, although a few members have added it to their cars. People like to point out the CVT Insight was a super-low emission vehicle, it does not have lean burn!

The problem is that the oxygen sensors are prone to going bad (or something). I get a check engine light about once a month. I carry an old cell phone and a bluetooth OBD-II dongle. I make sure it is P1162, clear it, and keep driving. Many people consider Majestic Honda to have the best prices. I have found other dealerships with slightly better discounts, but I did not feel it was worth the extra time.

Someone kindly linked this in another forum: Honda Automotive Parts

Majestic shows the part, but my local dealership does not. The list price is $416.08 and many dealerships offer a 10% discount when you order on-line, but they ask $278.77, which is 33% off. Everyone who tried another brand sensor has said it did not work and they needed to purchase the expensive one.

Prices fluctuate, though. Autozone has the exact same one for $255, Amazon has it for $139.90, and here is one on eBay for $115.

Those are much better prices than I had ever seen, though.

Unfortunately, this might not fix the problem, and you may need a $1,000 Honda factory ECU replacement, but I am unsure there is more to the problem than the CEL.

I think it was neat how that was handled. USER REMOVED got the disassociation he sought but everything he said is still searchable. The results run ten pages.

I'm a fan of timing gears.

Me too. Their only disadvantage seems to be an eventual impossibility to match them with VVT.

Well, if you want to go New School, there's Here's How Koenigsegg's Camless Engine Of The Future Works

Not so far, I actually still like some old-school tech, no wonder I like timing gears :D

But you know, everything has its compromises, and VVT could be a valuable asset for a flexfuel engine in order to adjust its dynamic compression :thumbup:

I still like flatheads— the Fords, the BMW flat twin.

They are compact and quiet. Because they don't very breath well. :)

I still like flatheads too. Sure they have their limitations, but are still interesting to say the least. Sometimes when I look at the outdated engines still available here in Brazil, even though they're not so old-school as a flathead, I actually don't think the flathead layout would be so worthless at all. Eventually, a lower-revving flathead could remain quite competitive against some random higher-revving modern engine with a smaller displacement, and then comes also the lower stress provided by the lower compression ratio and eventually could also be easier to run leaner... But I'm sure Ni87 wouldn't be willing to do some backyard-engineering to a flathead and drop it into his XTerra :D

Compact for their size. :)

http://www.tbucketplans.com/wp-conte...cket-Kit-1.jpg
http://www.tbucketplans.com/bird-t-bucket-kit/

What were we talking about, again?

Some way to improve Ni87's ride fuel-efficiency. I'm not sure if his XTerra has a mechanically-driven fan or a thermostatically-activated electric one, but the later is inherently more efficient.