Family of 4 "vacation"--85.6 MPG over 678 miles

[funkhoss]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

What are your vehicle plans as kids get bigger or you get more of them?

Well...the Metro only has four seat belts. We don't have any plans, per se, of having more kids--but of course we'll have to see what providence has in store...

In terms of the kids getting bigger, we plan to run the Metro as long as we can. I'm 6'3" tall, and I can fit comfortably in the back seat. So our two boys ought to be good for a while.

Originally Posted by 19bonestock88

In theory his wagon could have been equipped with a third row?

The wagon does indeed have a third row, and eight seat belts (which we use for carpooling from time to time). We try to drive it as little as possible, though.

One of my planned mods is to increase the seating capacity of the wagon from eight to ten. Currently, it has three belts in the front and middle rows and two in the rear; I will make it three front and rear and four in the middle row. There's plenty of space for this, as the wagon is cavernous on the inside--I'll just have to modify the seats themselves somewhat and add the extra belts.

We have no intention of having six more kids, however...

-Funkhoss

[Magician]

I'm sure you know this, but for others the weight really doesn't affect fuel economy much on highway trips. Once you get up to speed, added weight is pretty insignificant. But.... in the city driving, added weight is going to make a noticeable difference. It takes a lot of energy to get that vehicle moving down the road and city driving requires a lot of accelerating. (Even with majorly hypermiling it.)

[HHOTDI]

Incredible, absolutely incredible job Sir!! :{)

[funkhoss]

Another year has passed, and our family made this trip to the beach in Chincoteague again. I feel like this is becoming a “thing” for us…

However, instead of renting bikes once we were there like we did last year, we decided to take our own bikes with us. So this year, we took the “big car” (Caprice wagon) instead of the “little car” (Metro). A lot has changed with the wagon since I wrote about it on here three years ago. I’m planning to update the wagon’s build thread here in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, I’ll summarize briefly what has changed. Basically, the wagon is now mechanically equivalent to a three-quarter ton truck. It has:

-An NV4500 (heavy duty) manual transmission
-9.5” 14-bolt rear end
-4.10 gears with an Eaton E-Locker differential
-LT-metric Load Range “E” (10-ply) tires (LT215/85R16)
-Heavy duty brakes, springs, suspension components, etc.

I figure the car should be good for towing 9,000 lbs., and I’ve done close to that a few times. However, I’ve also continued to do more engine tuning, areo mods, and reduction of parasitic losses over the last few years, and I’ve been looking forward to doing a “long trip” to see what it can do now. This vacation proved to be a good chance to do just that.

Long story short: we loaded up the car with two (700c) adult bikes, two kids’ “tag-along” bikes, a bike trailer (for carting all of our gear to the beach), luggage, toys, books, etc.—and the four of us. It was mostly a long, hot, clear highway trip both there and back (with lots of P&G), but we did have a bit of rain both ways, some wind on the way home, and we did do a few short trips once we were there. We drove a total of exactly 750 miles and used 14.837 gallons, fillup to fillup, resulting in 50.55 MPG.

Sure, it’s not nearly as good as our Metro would have been, but the money we saved on the bike rental more than made up for the difference in fuel costs, and we still did better than many other Metro drivers would have done on the same trip.

[Silent Blood]

90 mpg / 2,6 l/100 km? Very impressing, same as my scooter (Daelim S300) needs, when I drove very cosy, but this one has only 25 hp from 1 cylinder / weighs 260 kg with me. What speed did you drive?

And 4,6l/100 km on the Caprice - are you sure? Normally a V8 this size can´t be driven below 7,5l/100 km.

[funkhoss]

Originally Posted by Silent Blood

90 mpg / 2,6 l/100 km? Very impressing, same as my scooter (Daelim S300) needs, when I drove very cosy, but this one has only 25 hp from 1 cylinder / weighs 260 kg with me. What speed did you drive?

The average speed was most likely between 40 and 45 MPH.

Originally Posted by Silent Blood

And 4,6l/100 km on the Caprice - are you sure? Normally a V8 this size can´t be driven below 7,5l/100 km.

Absolutely sure.

See the build thread here: https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...mpg-33961.html

Our Caprice wagon has been modified, on a shoestring budget, to seat 9 people, tow 10,000 lbs, and get fuel economy approaching that of a Prius (...of course, not all at the same time). It's a pretty sweet ride.

-Funkhoss

[Silent Blood]

Very interesting! I´m very curious for technical details, for example gear ratios, axle ratio, and further modifications. Can´t find a Chevy Caprice with manual. Are those datas in the big thread, you showed me?

40-45 mph? Oh, that´s very slow (65-73 km/h). If anybody in germany would drive that slowly on a autobahn or even a country road, he would pull over by police soon.

Nevertheless, your fuel consumption is stunning! In the united states you can drive over such long distances that slowly without any problems? Are you driving behind trucks? Here in germany we usually drive not below 100 km/h (62 mph), usually even faster - way faster.


My car (BMW 523i, 1997) reaches 5,5l/100 km (about 43 mpg), when driving a average speed of 56 mph. Only modification: A rear axle with a ratio of 2,65 (stock: 3,15). Manual of course.

EDIT: Are those ratios correct?

1. gear: 3,46
2. gear: 2,14
3. gear: 1,38
4. gear: 1,00
5. gear: 0,73
final gear: 2,14