the "Daily Drive" thread - December 2007
 

My brother called me up to help with a job just outside of town this afternoon (self-employed natural gas technician / HVAC guy).

So I got to fire up the Blackfly and take it out to try to get the most recent layer of rust off the brake rotors. :)

25 miles, 74.6 mpg (US) round trip. -3C, partially snow covered/wet roads, but fairly ideal traffic conditions (mid afternoon).

This was on a cold start - he was planning to pick me up, but had a change of plans, so I had to go without having had the EBH plugged in.

The "cold car penalty" was clear: I was having a really hard time getting it over 60 mpg until about 1 third of the way into the drive.

You people with short commutes & cold weather must be hurting.

Oh, and that's with the alternator on.

Uh oh! Alternator on...

You ever going to rig something up to charge the batt? Solar schmolar?

That really outstanding when you consider the temp, cold start, road condition and driver rustyness (is that a word). You could probably figure a conservative 15% handy cap. That would put you in the mid to high 80's.:turtle:

Still mid 70's in winter that's fantastic. :thumbup:

It's not really the battery concern right now - it's the belt. I made up about 4 bungee belts this summer. They usually don't last very long, and I used up my last one a couple of weeks back. I just need to make a new batch.

Ideally, I need to put in an electric motor to drive the water pump - it'll be much easier on the belt.

Laz: only possible today because of the trip length that let the car warm up & loosen up. Check my fuel economy last winter: it was 59, because the majority of the trips were short - let's say about 5 km each way.

Let's not forget you have the FS now as well, :D

yea, I have a question. What type of battery are you running on?

In which car? ...

The ForkenSwift runs on 8 golf cart batteries: 220 amp hour, 6v, flooded lead-acid.

When I run without the alternator in the Blackfly, I use 2 of the same type of batteries in series (for 12v), then paralleled with the stock 12v starting battery.

I was just wondering if you used a high performance battery that's designed to run for many hours. I don't know if it's the same for batteries, but when you wire (DC wiring) 2 things together in series it cuts the amount of power in half. The opposite for Parallel.

Well, a flooded lead-acid batt is designed to run for many hours, but I don't think anyone would call it high performance (relative to other battery chemistries).

---

Today's fuel consumption: 26 mpg (US). You read that right.

Ironically, that abysmal number is the result of the car's emissions test, running up and down on the dyno a bunch of times, and from idling while they were doing their thing.

The only day I had worse FE was when a vacuum line split, and the engine stuck in open loop.

OK, I'll admit I had a big part in the lousy numbers: I drove it super-inefficiently on the way to the garage, because it's only a couple of km away, and I needed to make sure it was hot for the test. So, I went in 2nd gear, at high rpm, with my left foot on the brake the whole way there. It was good and hot when I arrived, but my mileage was in the 30's.

Pulled off an even 100 mpg (US) on the way home (hot car, dry roads = easy to do), but even that couldn't salvage the day!

Nice job! I feel like I pulled a 60 or so on the way home from school today. Bet I could use some aero mods, :D

Feel like? Are you not MID-equipped?

Sold it before I went to japan, :p

Filled up
 

I actuall filled up a couple of weeks ago, but seeing as how we were busy moving into these new digs, I just entered my fill data tonight.

3.4 L/100 km ... 68.4 mpg (US) over 1165 km / 724 mi.

Considering most of that was highway DWL, it's not terrible.

Got 64.5mpg on the way into work (distance 54 miles, speed 55to 60mph, temp 40F, light traffic)
78.8mpg on the way home (distance 54 miles, speed 60 to 70mph, temp 55F, moderate traffic).

OK, relative to the Aerocivic, it's terrible. Nice going, basjoos.

When is the blackfly going to get pretty?

I'd be working on the permanent partial Kammback (platform for an extended boat tail) right now if I had a heated workspace.

I had a pretty good drive today considering the temps were in the mid 30's. I finally got to break 100 on a segment again.:)
1. 64.5-5.8(home to wife's work)
2. 73.9-9.6(wife's work to my work)
3. 37.2-1.2(my work to pick up my mom)
4. 61.5-8.9(mom's to wife's work)
5. 71.9-7.7(wife's work to grocery store)
6. 65.8-12.2(grocery store to mom's)
7.103-5.1(mom's to home)
Average for today was 68.4 and the tank is at 65.4 after 172.2 miles.

Man. somebody post some numbers in the 30's for the rest of us mortal:eek:

This week in drivin' around...
 

Winter has set-in, and for folks in the Midwest, you know what I mean. Freezing rain, cold temps, and harsh road conditions. Amazingly, Tessie remains at 29.5 with shuttling the fam in crappy weather and carpooling.

Honestly, I'll be lucky to break 31 this tank in Teggy. Loss of traction doesn't fare well for FE. Cold, slushy roads and variable traffic patterns don't help. The block heater and radiator-block has kept temps very manageable under the hood, and the TC happy -- which helps. Odd, slight surging issue -- too windy the other day to notice. Collected some data to run.

Rental vehicle for the week: 2007 Chevy Impala LS / FlexFuel 3.5L. The goal is to break 30 mpg, combined, for the first half-tank (done before with this car). Visiting the fam in Ohio over the weekend (Columbus, Akron, Cleveland) and driving to Indy on Monday.

I may try Ethanol again, but with experiments of the past, I may take Laz' advice and fill-up at half-tank. The car has 22K miles, and it's likely that it hasn't seen the Moonshine yet. FE tends to drop like a rock!

More next week.

Happy Hypermiling,

RH77

Try putting in about 6 gallons in the tank and then top it off. That should bring it up to a E30 blend or so. That worked well with the 3.0 l maxima. What's the price breakdown for E85 and regular there?

66.9mpg on the way in to work at 4AM (54miles,temps 45F, 55-60mph, light traffic)
79.8mpg on the way home at 6PM (54miles, temps 45F, 60-65mph, moderate to heavy traffic)
73.4mpg average for the day

3 km by ForkenSwift. No idea how much power I used. :)

I had a very good day despite temp temps that hovered around 30F all day. Winds were from the NNW at 5-10 mph.
1. 67.6-5.8
2. 71.0-9.6
3. 66.3-9.6
4. 88.6-7.0
5. 82.5-12.5
6. 96.1-3.2
7. 71.8-7.0
8. 104-7.0
Average for today was 77.9.

Nice job larry! I'm really jealous of those numbers...mehbe if I pull off my head swap over break, :)

Larry: what's the number after the mileage. Is that distance?

Oops. Yeah, I forgot to put "miles" after those numbers.:o

How about the 20's?

21.8 mpg (that includes the part of getting out of that deep mud earlier :D)

How's that for some trauma?

You ought to put your Jeep in the garage now that you have a fill so we can track it and see what you have done to it. What mods if any have you done so far. I can't find the thread where you talked about it. I think higher tire pressures and eco driving except when mudding right? Is that about 30% over EPA. Not bad for winter although I don't know where you are located to quantify your winter.

I was able to get 32mpg in the Saturn thanks to my new thermostat. I took a long trip to go snowboarding which I am sure helped my overall mpg. I am running a full grill block now too. Sometimes i need to turn the heat up in bad traffic to prevent overheating. So, i will not be running a full grill block in the spring and summer.

Nice to hear your t-stat is helping.

I also confirmed something that helps the ForkenSwift: if I go further between charges, the overall efficiency increases (by spreading charging losses - some of which are fixed, regardless of distance travelled - over more distance).

I went 15.8 km in the last 2 days on 3.5 kWh = 94 MPGe. (Goes without saying: that's all city driving!)

After today I can see why this thread is part of the "Daily Grind." Definitely the "Grind" part anyway. I drove to Wayne's house(Wayne Gerdes of Cleanmpg.com) this morning and got a very respectable 70.2 over 155 miles. This included ~5 miles of snow so heavy on highway 41 that I couldn't see the lane markings. Wayne then drove from his house to Oak Creek, WI and managed to pull off 70.2 miles over the 38.5 mile trip. Then the weather turned really ugly.:eek: The wind picked up and the snow started coming down pretty hard. The 1 mile trip to Culver's only allowed me 25.7 mpg.:( Wayne decided that I'd better drive because he didn't want to be responsible for the horrible FE that was in store for the trip back to his house.;) The traffic on I-94 was fairly heavy and travelling a max of ~40 mph and I managed 64.9 for the 39.5 mile trip from Culver's into his drive. By the time I got into Chicago from I was over 70 mpg but the bottom fell out when I rounded the lake and headed east towards Indiana; I encountered a 10-15 mph headwind and slippery/snow covered roads and thankfully slow moving traffic. By the time I pulled into my garage at the end of the 154 mile trip from Wayne's the mpg had plummeted to 60.8. Despite all the snow and wind, I managed 65.4 for 388 miles of highway travel in a car that the EPA says should only get 51 mpg on the highway.:D SHM rocks!:woot:

Well.. my Jeep was covered in snow this morning and it's snowing right now if that's what you wanted quantified. I've got my tired inflated to the max safe level, and I drive eco anytime I can, and of course that's impossible when I'm slinging mud. I've removed the roof racks, just replaced the spark plugs, and have a "high performance" air fliter. Its too cold right now to mod the Jeep, but I'm gonna try a few things once the weather gets warmer. I'm hoping a nice and good 23 this time around, mostly because of the snow, but its also getting colder, and takes longer to warm up, and my bro likes to be warm in the vehicle.

"Filled up" the ForkenSwift again last night. 86.07 eMPG. That's for about 14 km worth of use this week. I think I've demonstrated that going further (within reason) between charges minimizes the "fixed" charging losses and raises the overal charge cycle efficiency.

That said, I didn't stay "within reason" on this charge - it was a first gear crawl from that final intersection and up the last slight grade to the waiting extension cord. Had to take it that slowly with an eye on the voltmeter to protect the batteries. In summer, I could have easily done twice that distance to that depth of discharge (meaning I would have had 172 eMPG). Winter temps & snowy roads suck!

EDIT: FYI, it was a 16 hour recharge, 3.58 kWh.

Bad problems, MPG went down from having to warm up the car longer cause the engine's been acting up from not being warmed up long enough. Also from my brother riding more using more bumpin stereo, heater, and driving faster cause he complains I drive like an old lady. Plus, I've had to do a lot more city driving for school finals. Snow made it bad cause I had to get on the gas to get out a couple times and makes things muddier. Next tank, which is real soon cause it's been 2 weeks since last fill up and I"m near empty. I'll refrain from the temptations of what's next to the road instead of the road itself and try my best to get the best fuel economy. I'll "Garage" it and keep track of everything.

That'll be cool.

As for your bro & the engine needing heat: 1500 watt 120v plug-in heater. Block heater.

As for you bro bugging you to drive like everybody else: tell him he can tell you how to drive when he pays your fuel & maintenance!

how much do those run exactly? I need to change my oil soon, The engine takes a recommended 10w-40 but I was gonna try 5w-40 this time since it's winter. I'm running Mobil 1 synthetic high-mileage right now if you wanted to know.

I just had a pretty good trip taking the wife to work. The temperature is 34F and the wind is from the SE at <5 mph. I had 68.4 there(6.3 miles) and 83.3 back. I'm at 75.1 for the day.

Next: the "Daily Drive" thread - January 2008