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Geo Metropolis 01-27-2011 03:17 AM

Ecomodding on a boat
 
Hi everyone,
My name is Matt and I just bought a manual 96 3cyl Metro on Craiglist with 99k mi for $1100 :thumbup:. Even though I'm 30 years old I had never had the opportunity to learn how to drive a MT. Thankfully like many in my generation and no doubt nearly everyone on this site, I have found that one can learn anything on the internet ;). I literally youtubed how to drive a stick shift - watched a video then went out and played for a couple hours. Now I know what all the fuss is about.
I had heard about metros winning mpg contests by altering their driving (something I now know as hipermiling) and googled this shortly after buying the car. This quickly led me to metroMPG where my entire world changed. I spent two days locked up on the boat (I live on a boat in San Diego) during a crazy winter rainstorm and was completely fascinated as I read about hipermiling, mechanical mods, and what I found most fascinating: aeromods. As soon as the rain quit I began my aero mods :).
went to San Diego Plastics where I bought a sheet of 1/8in ABS (in green to match the paint) and the scrap metal place where I picked up an old aluminum roadsign that I cut into long aluminum strips and tabs that I bent into small brackets. My first mod was rear skirts almost exactly like the blackfly only I went ahead and drilled self tapping screws rather than make copper clips. Then I made a complete lower grill block, leaving the upper hood gap as my functioning grill. My latest creation was completely smooth hubcaps (I simply cut 14" discs out of the plastic and ziptied them to the rim spokes).
You can see my tank to tank progress in the fuel log which represents every tank since I got the car. My best so far is 44mpg but I hope to significantly improve this. A buddy is going to help me put in an ignition kill switch and I just ordered a scanguage II. For my first equipment mods. My next aero mods will be: some sort of miror(s) deletion and I really really want to do a full bellypan. I'm also dreaming of a cambak extention.
Sorry I don't have good pics of the mods up. I took pics but then deleted them off my phone not realizing they were still being sent via email at the time. The result was emails void of attachments. I'll try to take some pics asap.
edit: I just realized I don't have the ability to post pics until I participate in forums more. Alright, good thing my lurking days are over. Pics to come soon :)

MetroMPG 01-27-2011 09:51 AM

Welcome to the addiction! I mean, to the forum!

Geo Metropolis 01-27-2011 05:00 PM

Here's a pic of the mods so far: http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/z...oddedmetro.jpg

MetroMPG 01-28-2011 11:48 AM

Cool. Looks familiar. :)

How'd you attach the rear skirts? Did you drill the wheel arch for brackets?

Geo Metropolis 01-28-2011 01:20 PM

Yep, I took pics but i can't find them. You can see where the top three screws are. Each of those represent an L bracket with a screw securing it to the inner lip of the fender. I used aluminum bar just like you did and it is secured to the fender lip via 2 screws and to the bumper lip via 2 screws.

I am basically planning on building a green version of the blackfly :). I want to do a camback that will be almost identical to yours accept the plastics place near the marina has clear corplast so I'll probably do a portion of it in clear. Also a belly pan is something I'd like to do soon but I hope to do a kill switch and miror delete prior to both those.

fun fun fun :D


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