Eco MercOwner
 

Hi there!

I have been reading the forum for quite a time now and finally decided to start posting. My cars are not what You'd consider a typical ecocar. Nevertheless I want to get everything that's possible from every fuel drop.

My most FE car is 89' MB 250D with 2,5 l NA diesel.

I managed to get 5,3 l/100km in the best Highway run and 6,5l/100km average (36,4 MPG).

My daily driver nowadays is 93' MB 300E 2.8 l petrol. It averages 10l/100km (23,6 MPG) - that is the one I would like to improve most.

The other car is a classic, but if it can be more efficient and less poluting - why not do sth about it?

It's a 71 Cadillac Eldorado 8.2l averaging about 25l/100km (10 MPG)


I don't really know where to start. On the diesel Mercedes I have a K&N air filter and carbon fiber fenders. Also it's running on fully synthetic 10W40 oil.

To the petrol Merc I did similar things, that's K&N filter and synthetic 5W50. Still I think it's drinking too much.

What is it about the ignition timing? Here in Europe the normal petrol is 95 octane and what You can get is 98, 99 and even 100 octane.

How much can I advance the spark (ei. on the Cadillac) when running on 95 or 98? What possibly are the gains?

Enough of that. It's good to be here. I'm really keen on hearing some good advice.

Welcome to EM.

I'd focus all modding on the daily driver. Thats the car that'll be drinking the most liters of gasoline, so that is the best place to start. Look through the 100+ hypermiling tips first off. This is usually your largest area of gain. After that, look at the ecomods list for things you can do to improve mileage.

Of course I will concetrate on the daily driver :) However the big classic can use in one day what I use in a month on the daily driver. It's a good idea to tune it since I don't really know how it should behave. Generally I am more used to diesel.

Anyway, when I encoutered the hypermiler tips I thought - wow! There more people who do these things I do! I use most of the tips. What I'm more interested in right now is mods.

I haven't found it anywhere. Is it true that changing the catalytic converter to a one allowing more flow saves fuel?

welcome MaxMatt!

Nice cars! How did you source an Eldo in Poland?

Although I'm sure the MB's could see an improvement in consumption, I'm not so sure about the Cad. If it's got the single exhaust, I'd do a true dual exhaust swap first. Then just make sure everything else is in good tune. Does it still have the original Q-jet carb? If not, try to get one as on the older GM cars it gives you the best possible FE for a carb system. If it's got one already, make sure it's in good shape. They do need rebuilds occasionally, if it needs reconditioning make sure it's done right by someone who knows them. A swap to an HEI type ignition versus a points distributor might help with efficiency slightly. Just a sidenote, the best I've ever seen an old Cad like that do is about 14 mpg, and that's highway mileage.

Once again, welcome and enjoy the stay!:D

Aaron

Hello MaxMatt and welcome on-board from western Europe.

Denis.

The Eldorado is an import from the US :)
It has the quadrajet carb, which I don't want to touch since it's not kinda popular stuff here :) The idle is a little bit rough in comparison with V8 Mercedes for example.

The best fuel mileage I have ever got on the Cadillac was 17l/100km (13,8 MPG). Since then I changed the oil to fully synthetic 10W60 and as always the air filter to K&N.

I got interested in the EFI conversion along with the ignition :Mass-Flo Fuel Injection Systems It's costly and I don't know if it's worth it. They claim wonders.

A pic:
It's not what You'd call aerodynamic ;)
http://img184.imageshack.us/img184/5971/male1aa9.jpg


Hi groar,
looks like You have patriotic approach to choosing the cars ;)

At least you have rear wheel skirts. The worse is the windshield, you should delete it ;) Seriously I find your cadillac beautiful.

About my cars, the first has been bought before we left Paris and we didn't know yet where exactly we were going to leave, we chose one of the big 2 in France to permit to have a mechanic not too far from home. I have 2 renault at less than 10 km and more than ten at less than 50 km while there is only 3 toyota and 1 honda. For the second this was the only possibility with our money, delay, size and warranty extension requirements.

Before ecodriving I wanted to change the older car by a prius. Since then, we bought solar panels and we learned to ecodrive/ecomod, so the requirement to change a car has disappeared, but the wish to have an hybrid is always here. As the prius is noted as the more reliable car of its category since years, the near mechanic requirement will certainly disappear :)

Denis.