European Yaris 2000 Ecomodding

[Jyden]

I have some thick wowen fiberglass cloth covered on one side with shiny alu-foil. Mount with shiny side out.

Alternative you could just use ordinary alu-foil, glued on - shiny side out.

[Laurentiu]

Originally Posted by Jyden

I will replace the cooling fluid with a special one, that has much better heatremoving capabilities. It also has a 5 year life time.

Ya...you must tell us, I'd like to know also more details like where you bought it from, if available online somewhere, etc.
I doubt I will be able to find it in CY though

[Domman56]

Originally Posted by mchlbk

What kind of reflective material are you going to use?

I might look into K&N filters for my Getz again after reading your "rambling" above. Will have to check with Hyundai first though - don't know if it'll void warranty...

Read the K&N boxes they say right on them The use of K&N filters will not void your vehicles warranty

[mchlbk]

Originally Posted by Domman56

Read the K&N boxes they say right on them The use of K&N filters will not void your vehicles warranty

Yeah, but perhaps the car dealer doesn't agree.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Especially in this country where cars are extremely expensive. My Hyundai Getz cost 170.000 DKK (~33.000 USD) two years ago. I guess Jyden's Yaris must have cost about the same when it was new.

[Jyden]

Today I put alu-foil around the air intake. Didn't have enough of the usual fiberglass cloth.

Also I jumpred the fence at the lowest point, as I only covered the intake tube, and the front part of the airfilter box.

I was freezing, and heavy wind, so I wanted to get it done as quick as possible, and the rest must wait until summer / warmer wheather.

Pictures can be seen in my public album under my profile

[Jyden]

My fist ½ tank gave an avarage of 33.14 mpg.

Today after having finished the mod on the airintake, I went and gassed up.

The avarage has improved to 36.54 mpg, which is a 10% increase.

Wheather this is due to the mods, or me paying more attention to driving style is to early to say. Proabably a bit of both.

More milage is needed before the mods show up in the FE.

Somehow I find that the car dosen't freewheel too good. Either the winter tires give a lot of resistance, or there's something else wrong.

As the cars service history is not too good, I will have to take the car for a full service next month, and have the garage going through the car with oil change, greasing all places etc.

Still a lot of room for improvements. But then again, I drive a lot of small trips in town.

The jury is still out on the FE.

[Jyden]

I'm not at all satisfied with the FE of the Yaris.

I suspect, that since I got it from a small used car sales place, non Toyota and the service book was not kept, that things and service record at bedst would be dodgy....

Well - gues that thats the risk when dealing with such places. I read up on things at the internet, and it seems that early Yaris /Vitz sometime could have problems with the air mass meter /flow meeter, causing the ECU to give to much gas.

In bad cases this causes the engine to break down as the excess amount of gas whases the oilfilm off the cylinders.

It came to my mind, that when I replaced the old airfilter with the K&N it was dirty on the INSIDE..... First I didn't reflect on this, but tonight I thougt that if the filter is dirty on the inside, the air mas cencor could also be dirty. A dirty sencot will lead the ECU to give too much petrol.

Also, when getting the car to the a proper service, I will have them chek the charcole cannister and valve, as I suspect, that it must be responsible for the dirt INSIDE the old air filter.

Air mass censor cleaning:
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Disclaimer: DON*T DO THIS YOURSELVES !!!!!
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Be extremly carefull, in my country a new one is about 300 USD....

I dismantled the whole airbox, and took it in into my workshop. I dismantled the air mass meter.
Right enough - in the bottom of the small pipe is two thin metal strings. And they were DIRTY.....

So was the airbox inside. Cleaned airbox with rag.

Air mass censor end temperature sensor I cleaned with an artists bruch with VERY soft animal hair dipped in pure alcohol (Isopropyl alcohol). I did this repeately until there was no more dirt.

Remounted the whole thing....

While at it - I desided til reset the ECU. This is done by removing the minus lead to the battery, thus leaving the ECU without power for some time. When reconnected the ECU will reset, and load the programme, and starting to learn how the driving pattern is.

While I was allredy fitteling with the car, I desided to chek the pollenfilter, located behind the glovecompartment..... UFFF it was very dirty one centimeter of old dirt - since I could not get hold of a new one on a sunday, I cut a pice of 1 cm foam to size and mounted it.

IF the state of the pollenfilter, airfilter and airmass sensor is representative, of the cars state of maintaninse, I will have no choise, but to take it to the Toyota garage for at compleate chek-up & tune-up.

I don't want to take any risks, with anything not beeing right.

Then I drove a trip of 40 km, and it seamed to me that the car was a bit more responsive, but as it is very windy today, its difficult to say anything about if FE has improved.

Now - just for at matter of principle, I gave it a bottle of injectorcleaner in the tank - proapably first time in 10 years it has seen such a thing.

I will whact the car and it's performance closely the next weeks before diciding the next move.

[Jyden]

One of my planned mods, are to refit lightbulbs to LED's.

In my country we have to drive with lights on at all times.

Now - the headlight can't yet be replaced with LED's but side lights, backlights and also the numberplace light can.

In my view - every little detail counts - a watt saved is a watt gained.

Also LED's live much longer than ordinary lights, so changaing to LED's along the way as the old bulbs burn out is going to contribute to lower the long time cost of the car.

Today I had a burnt front side light bulb , so I changed those two to leds. Saving: 9 watts.

All in all, by changing the lights that are on constantly when driving, I can reduce the load with:

2 x front sidelight á 5 w - > 2 x0,5 w = - 9 watts
2 x Backlights á 21 w -> 2 x 2 w = - 38 watts
1 x numberplate light a´1 x 5 w - = - 4,5 watts

Total: 51,5 watts (allmost equivilant to one 55w headlight)

Blinkers, brake lights etc. are not a priority, as the are not on constantly, but will as a matter of princple be replaced by LED's as the old ones wear out.

I don't expect this to show up in FE as such, but in my mind every little detail adds up. ½% here - ½% there - in the end it sums up to something noticeable.

But offcourse - one day with a heavy foot can ruin it all

[Piwoslaw]

Jyden, there is an EU directive allowing the use of Daytime Running Lights (DRL). If you have these, then you don't need your other lights (side, cockpit, and registration plate lights). The ones I installed are 5.5W each, so when it's light outside I use only 11W, instead of about 200W.



Of course, when it gets dark I need all of the lights. I've replaced my front position lights (2x5W) with LEDs and rear turn signals (2x21W) with multiLED bulbs. The latter makes the turn signal flash faster, since the lower current makes the relay think a bulb is out. Each bulb in my car has a different socket, so I'm always on the lookout for LEDs that will fit the lights I still haven't replaced. My third stop wasn't an LED, had normal bulbs (4x5W), but the new roof extension blocked it, so I disconnected it and added an LED stop mounted lower.

Originally Posted by Jyden

Somehow I find that the car dosen't freewheel too good. Either the winter tires give a lot of resistance, or there's something else wrong.

When you go for a tune-up, or when you go to change your tires, check the alignment of the wheels. Maybe ask them to straighten them slightly more.

Originally Posted by Jyden

Air mass censor end temperature sensor I cleaned with an artists bruch with VERY soft animal hair dipped in pure alcohol (Isopropyl alcohol). I did this repeately until there was no more dirt.

I did this repeatedly until there was no more alcohol, and my vision got blurry.

[Jyden]

Piro - yes - I know - runninglights - but I find smaller light hard to see, so I'll keep using the headlights for safety reasons - but you are right - could save more there...

Thanks for the tuneup tips - tune up will bee next month some time....

Year the airmass censor was a bit exiting - snif - snif

Gosh - still trying to improve my hypermiling skills - takes a lot of practice. Tomorrow I have a 110 km trip - so we shall see....