Ecoscort - 98 Ford Escort ZX2 ecomodding thread

[BabyDiesel]

The temperatures have taken a tumble here in NC the past couple days. What were the morning lows have now become the daily high temps! And the mpgs are hurting I had my worst drive to work yet (47.1 mpg) because lean burn was not wanting to cooperate with the temps this morning (mid-30's) till after halfway to work.

I had my worst commute in over a year last Friday! Here is the results


How could this have happened? Well... I left for work over 20 minutes late and arrived only 3 minutes late! I was driving normally, I guess you could say. Hard throttle after every turn and stop, 75-80 mph on the Interstate 95, almost zero lean burn time. This brought my tank mpgs from 52.3 down to 48.4 almost 4 mpg lost from one bad commute!

Crazy thing is that with all the flogging, the trip was still over 40% EPA

The only mod I have accomplished recently is cutting a 1"x6" strip out of my lower grill block. This provides the perfect amount of cooling for this time of the year, surprisingly.

I have been looking at transmissions and really like the looks of the 2nd gen 1.9 Escort's automatic transmission's gears. It has a 3.55 final compared to my 3.74 final. It is the only transmission that will give me the rpm reduction needed besides a Fuel Saver 5-speed (very rare) or 3rd gen SPI with a custom 5th.

Going out on a limb here... there might be a chance that I could get the TCC to stay locked up through out all the gears to improve mpgs and acceleration. The TCC would have to be upgraded to handle the extra use, no doubt. But the auto should be comparable to a manual's efficiency if/when this mod takes place

For Escort gear ratio information -> www.feoa.net/threads/the-escort-gear-ratios-thread.66007/

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by BabyDiesel

The temperatures have taken a tumble here in NC the past couple days. What were the morning lows have now become the daily high temps! And the mpgs are hurting I had my worst drive to work yet (47.1 mpg) because lean burn was not wanting to cooperate with the temps this morning (mid-30's) till after halfway to work.

I had my worst commute in over a year last Friday! Here is the results


How could this have happened? Well... I left for work over 20 minutes late and arrived only 3 minutes late! I was driving normally, I guess you could say. Hard throttle after every turn and stop, 75-80 mph on the Interstate 95, almost zero lean burn time. This brought my tank mpgs from 52.3 down to 48.4 almost 4 mpg lost from one bad commute!

Crazy thing is that with all the flogging, the trip was still over 40% EPA

The only mod I have accomplished recently is cutting a 1"x6" strip out of my lower grill block. This provides the perfect amount of cooling for this time of the year, surprisingly.

I have been looking at transmissions and really like the looks of the 2nd gen 1.9 Escort's automatic transmission's gears. It has a 3.55 final compared to my 3.74 final. It is the only transmission that will give me the rpm reduction needed besides a Fuel Saver 5-speed (very rare) or 3rd gen SPI with a custom 5th.

Going out on a limb here... there might be a chance that I could get the TCC to stay locked up through out all the gears to improve mpgs and acceleration. The TCC would have to be upgraded to handle the extra use, no doubt. But the auto should be comparable to a manual's efficiency if/when this mod takes place

For Escort gear ratio information -> The Escort gear ratios thread | Ford Escort Owners Association (FEOA)

I would try to get your IAT temps up. Your ecu is seeing the cool temps in the factory IAT tables and adding fuel.

[kafer65]

Originally Posted by pgfpro

I would try to get your IAT temps up. Your ecu is seeing the cool temps in the factory IAT tables and adding fuel.

I'm in the same boat with a hard frost yesterday. I tried a little plumbing change to get hot underhood air and 100% grill block yesterday morning to try and help this. It works very slowly, but after 7 miles I'm seeing 20F above ambient but it starts to climb steadly thereafter. Thirty-five mpg was seen way too often in that 7 mile stretch

Its going to take a very long insulated vent to get heat from the headers to my intake snorkle!

[hardline]

I'd be very careful about changing the transmission out. The ECM has a turbine input speed sensor and the differential speed sensor. If they don't match, it will freak out, declare the gear ratios are incorrect, and run in a limp mode. As far as lean burn, you may want to look into Sniper or some other ECU reflash software so that you can program the actual fuel tables to be lean where you want them to be. Therefore no trickery needed to fool the ecu.

[BabyDiesel]

Finally! A chance to update! Quite a bit has been happening, including me moving out of my mom's and in with my dad. It has been a whirlwind the past week or so.

Since I have moved, I have new routes now. It is about 3-4 miles longer to work, but there is only 1 stoplight now It is mostly country with small hills with a few miles of Interstate driving. I got 51.0 mpg on my first time out, so it looks very promising. It will be even better when I start preheating.

pgfpro & kafer65 - I have the dryer duct I use as a WAI laying directly on the exhaust manifold now. I'm seeing IAT's around 100* in normal driving.

hardline - That sucks to hear. I wonder if that can be tuned out with Sniper, SCT or MS3? I will be using either Sniper or MS3 for lean burn, though Sniper does not allow for VCT alterations....

The D molding I ordered from Ebay came in Friday! I quickly went to work sealing up my front end. To do so, I had to take my front bumper off, so I took the air dam off as well.

The molding, all 36' of it


Air Dam removed




I have to admit the car looks better without the air dam Now I can't stand how tall it looks! I need to replace the struts soon so I will be cutting the stock springs when that time comes for a 1.5"-2" drop. The hardware to keep the air dam from bending was bent badly after 6 months of driving, as seen in the last picture. 1/4" aluminum bar just isn't strong enough to handle the air resistance and occasional scrape.

Front bumper off. The signal light gaps and upper grill are now blocked.




Headlights being sealed



Front bumper back on


I had to double up along the edges of the hood so that it would seal good.


With the bumper back on, let's check things out... oh no, a gap!!



Fixed



The results: In addition to the perhaps ~0.01 Cd reduction, the sealing seems to hold in heat longer in the engine bay. After the car sits for a bit and I come back to it, the engine has not lost as much heat as before the mod. So this mod is a definite win for fall/winter driving!

I'm going to try to get the wideband installed today. I have been slacking hard with regards to getting this done...

Also, removing the air dam has had next to zero effect on fuel mileage. I think at the most it has decreased my instant FE by 1 mpg, so it is staying off. I really want to do coast-down testing to see the overall effect on my Cd.

I bumped my tire pressure up to 68.5 psi last night from 54 psi and the car definitely rolls better now. We will see what effect this has on next tank's fuel economy!

[MetroMPG]

You know you're an ecomodder when one of the first things you do after you move is evaluate your new route for fuel economy potential.

[kafer65]

My WAI is on the heat shield. I had my lower grill block off to see about building shutters and I couldn't get the WAI up to temp. Put the block back on 100% closed today and I maxed out at 150F after 10 miles. I think the headers area is the path out of the engine bay. I'm going to pull the front off like you're showing above and get the shutters done.

The reason I had 100psi set on my Beetles FI is to try to fatten up the boosted air/fuel ratio. I'm going to put it back down to about 55psi when I get it running and just be satified with 3 pound of boost.

[BabyDiesel]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

You know you're an ecomodder when one of the first things you do after you move is evaluate your new route for fuel economy potential.

It was so second nature that I didn't realize it the YKYAE connection The route would have been a winner, but I got let go from my job yesterday. No biggie, I'll just go out and find another

Originally Posted by kafer65

My WAI is on the heat shield. I had my lower grill block off to see about building shutters and I couldn't get the WAI up to temp. Put the block back on 100% closed today and I maxed out at 150F after 10 miles. I think the headers area is the path out of the engine bay. I'm going to pull the front off like you're showing above and get the shutters done.

The reason I had 100psi set on my Beetles FI is to try to fatten up the boosted air/fuel ratio. I'm going to put it back down to about 55psi when I get it running and just be satified with 3 pound of boost.

Ah! I see why you went so high with the fuel pressure now. Lean + turbo usually is not good on pistons and blocks!

I'm topping out at 110F with my WAI per SG. It is actually higher, but I have 2 resistors on the IAT (1 on each wire) to advance timing, and that tricks the computer to seeing cooler IAT's than it really is. I would not doubt I am running 130-150F actual temps. I will be removing one, if not both, resistors to bring my part throttle timing back down. I have been spark knocking far too long, and this is while running 93!

On a different note, the gas station that I have been using for the past few months is getting changed from a Hess to a Speedway!



Gas - $8.88, Diesel - $9.99... I can see the future on their sign lol

I'm in need of gas, so it looks like I will be switching gas stations yet again. I will be going to the Wal-Mart that is a 1/4 mile down the road. 93 octane is the same price I might try 87 for a tank and see how that does running lean.

With regards to FE, here is what I am getting at he moment on my instant readout. These are close approximations, and they might seem to be patterned. I can assure this is how it is. I have never heard of a car dropping 1 mpg for every 1 mph over the best mpg speed!

40 mph - ~70 mpg
45 mph - ~65 mpg
50 mph - ~60 mpg
55 mph - ~55 mpg
60 mph - I assume ~50 mpg, but i never drive this fast!

[oil pan 4]

Its only a matter of time.

[pgfpro]

Originally Posted by BabyDiesel

It was so second nature that I didn't realize it the YKYAE connection The route would have been a winner, but I got let go from my job yesterday. No biggie, I'll just go out and find another



Ah! I see why you went so high with the fuel pressure now. Lean + turbo usually is not good on pistons and blocks!

I'm topping out at 110F with my WAI per SG. It is actually higher, but I have 2 resistors on the IAT (1 on each wire) to advance timing, and that tricks the computer to seeing cooler IAT's than it really is. I would not doubt I am running 130-150F actual temps. I will be removing one, if not both, resistors to bring my part throttle timing back down. I have been spark knocking far too long, and this is while running 93!

On a different note, the gas station that I have been using for the past few months is getting changed from a Hess to a Speedway!



Gas - $8.88, Diesel - $9.99... I can see the future on their sign lol

I'm in need of gas, so it looks like I will be switching gas stations yet again. I will be going to the Wal-Mart that is a 1/4 mile down the road. 93 octane is the same price I might try 87 for a tank and see how that does running lean.

With regards to FE, here is what I am getting at he moment on my instant readout. These are close approximations, and they might seem to be patterned. I can assure this is how it is. I have never heard of a car dropping 1 mpg for every 1 mph over the best mpg speed!

40 mph - ~70 mpg
45 mph - ~65 mpg
50 mph - ~60 mpg
55 mph - ~55 mpg
60 mph - I assume ~50 mpg, but i never drive this fast!

Please explain the bold text. You were knocking ????