Hey guys, long time lurker, I forgot my username for a long time. Anyway, I wanted to share some finds and ask for any info I can get from this knowledgeable forum. I'm active daily on the ford escort forum, which is also full of knowledge, although gear towards the frugal art of keeping ford escorts running.
My car for the last four years is a 91 ford escort with California emmisions and an automatic transmission. It has a tcc lockup, and a very tall final gear ratio. I have also deleted the power steering, and I run my tires with extra air. I have experimented foolishly without an MPGuino or even a wideband o2. But I have seen tank averages ranging from 15% over EPA, all the way to a full 100% over epa for long trips. This is not due to the other mods, I THINK!!!!
I'm under the impression that ford and Honda were using the same ideas in the early 90's, as far as lean burn and high swirl heads. I spent a couple weeks straight researching lean burn, in hopes of running a megasquirt, but when I found out the EPA fined ford for the 1.9l SEFI CVH engines, and the 300-i6. They were fined for "inappropriate enleanment" and cycle beating. The 4.9's had their ECU's reflashed after a TSB. The escort's seemingly made it away with their illegal ecu logic. Here's a link to the court papers:
http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production...rdmotor-cd.pdf
It is also very important to note that these engines have *IDENTICAL* kidney shaped lean burn heads.
Interestingly, while searching for more info, I learned that the escorts were running very efficiently at high loads, and then entering lean on cruise (edit: mpg mode, not lean on cruise) after doing 58 miles per hour for 30 seconds. Around the time the EPA was investigating, ford issued a tsb for the original pcv valve to be replaced because it could freeze at -40°f. I immediately called B.S. on the pcv valve. I say this because alot of MAF fords have an idle calibration sticker, where you disconnect the idle air control, hold a certain rpm for a certain amount of time to calibrate load and warm the cat, then you let off the throttle and adjust the throttle stop screw until your idle is at the specified speed. This then calibrates fuel trims, timing, MAF voltage etc etc.
The new pcv flows MUCH MORE under all conditions*
The increased airflow during high vacuum times makes the car eventually use the egr valve less and less. I'm guessing this is because ford was cycle beating. Some different studies I read, which unfortunately I don't have links too.. They show ALOT of egr flow on the escorts under aggressive daily driving, i.e. more than the EPA test cycle.
After away more hours of trial and error than I would like to admit, I have restricted the atmospheric vent on the EVR (egr vacuum regulator), and I lie to my ecu by fudging the numbers during the idle calibration test. I generally rev it slightly higher, and set the idle lower. This is what makes it run well in most weather, and drastically affects the way it runs.
(I think) this is showing "high load" so possibly richer fuel trims? And egr dilution? So my o2 sensor sees something near stoic?
My best tank ever was 64mpg, it was done by *never* going under 58, and riding semi's like they were towing me, as well as loading all the way down hills, and doing "hang time" on the way up.
My symptoms are, timing is obviously way advanced by the way it idles, the injectors tick very loudly during good mpg runs, and my shift points are laughable. During my trial and error, yes... It knocked, it spark knocked, it threw every CEL in the book.
I don't know if this whole post has been a question or a statement.
I guess my closing remarks would be to please comment, or help me build a science word vocabulary for whatever this is, or how to make it more streamlined.
And, can anyone tell me what my restrictions to the breather on the EVR is doing? Also, I port flowed my egr with a dremel, leaving where the valve seats untouched. This actually made the car more drivable once it stalled the engine a few times, and I think the KAM accounted for it and in turn advanced the timing, or just richened the mixture.
Also, with all of the EVR restriction, egr porting, and lying to the MAF during that procedure... I can manually engage full egr by hand, and the engine doesn't even try to stall, it just sounds muffled.
I can't tell where my results come from, or even what the improvements would be called.
Here's some ford proco info, I always kept this strategy in mind when I was experimenting.
The Ford PROCO Engine Update
Please don't roast me too badly, I know how profound and unscientific this has been.
My ford escort owners association link that has more aimless, paranoid ranting about these experiments.
58 miles per hour, for 30 seconds | Page 2 | Ford Escort Owners Association (FEOA)
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