Fuel Efficient Mud Truck - EcoMudder
 

Hey all. It's been a really long time since I posted here on Ecomodder. Most of the old school guys may remember me anyway :thumbup:

I wanted to share my project with you guys. I have 2 hobbies in life and one of them is my addiction to the fuel efficient Geo Metro cars and the other is my addiction to mudding and trail riding with my mud truck. it's great to save money on fuel with my first hobby, but my second hobby can become quite expensive with a full sized mud truck, so I built this............

http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/...um/diff4sm.jpg

Here are the specs and mods............

1991 Geo Metro 4 door Hatchback with massive weight reduction.
1.0L 3 cyl bored .020 with 3Tech Performance parts.
Auto trans with welded differential and 3200 stall torque converter.
Triple Stack header exhaust exiting hood.
97 Metro Sedan Suspension swap for lift.
25X8X12 Kenda Executioner 6ply ATV Tires.
Air Intake snorkel and relocated trans vent.

If you are totally bored, you can see the entire build thread on this project here........
Project "ECOMUDDER"

Or you can check out this quick compilation video..........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25aMUGRICfY

I have not had the chance to try it out at the local mud parks yet, but taken through a few fields and played in the snow with it and it works really well. I am not sure what the fuel mileage is going to be either since it will be towed to the mud parks and used totally off road, but it should be a lot better than my full size 4X4 truck.

cool project....way to think outside the box

Am i going to see this at yankee this year?

You will see it at Yankee Lake this year all summer long :)

Must be having fun with all the snow we have had in ohio lately!

Sure have.............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3eArZ3qgGU

Pretty dinged funny. Looks like real fun!

I'd like to give a 4WD Tempo that treatment...

You say you tow it to the mud-are you licensed for road use, and if not could the Metro be made dual-function on the cheap? I think it would be fantastic if you could measure FE for Highway, City...and Mudhole!

It looks funny to say the least. But there's only one thing I'd not do, to weld the differential, since it makes unsafe to drive over paved surfaces. I've already seen many RWD-only trail rigs with auxiliary individual controls for the rear brakes, allowing to lock only the slippy wheel, a cheap way to provide a similar effect to an automatic locking differential.