The Golden Egg mod thread. Mostly minivan modding

[Bullyveldt]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Bullyveldt: head to either a sign shop, or else you might luck out at a Home Depot type place. (They carry it at H.D. where I live - $20 per 4x8.) Too bad you didn't know about the stuff when the federal election was on a few weeks back!

You aren't kidding! I just went for a drive to see if any os left out in some areas, only saw a few small ones not worth trying to salvage. I remeber some of the BIG ones that would have been great to grab. Coulda covered the swift 4 times over.

[orange4boy]

Monsoon season is here and the driveway is now a mud farm. I'm also really busy getting ready for Christmas. I'm a studio furniture maker when I'm not modding so I will probably not have time for any big mods soon.

I might have to remove the air dam and the wheel skirts for the snow season. I realize it looks like a snow plow but alas my budget did not allow for twin wall titanium.

Still waiting for my MPGuino...

[KJSatz]

Have you thought about some kind of lexan covers to extend the wedge shape over the headlights as well?

[MetroMPG]

Orange: in case you haven't seen this, minivan Kammback tested: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-6-a-6069.html

[orange4boy]

Thanks vtec-e

Just hooked it up today. Kind of blows away the MPGuino on the gadgetry scale. OOOOOHHH flashy lights!!! Just in time and clour matched for the silly season. (I still love my MPGuino though.)

Video of flashy lights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSo-yeL-Woc

The colour change is tres cool no? It even vibrates red-green when you get close to the presets. What to do with those two output signals.

My first thought was cruise control but the analog to frequency converter I found was $195. Used Ford map sensor is free.

Too much fun

[Sean T.]

Wow. how in the world did I miss your air dam building!?!?!?!?!!?

I have a question... The center of it is obviously straight parallel with the lines in the coroplast. what about the sides that wrap around? To get the slope on the front, did you have to cut the sides on an angle? Like a squished "W"

Mine is... was... a perfect rectangle, but it seemed to pull in a lot at the bottom... I want to try and slope it out like yours.

[orange4boy]

A squashed W. Heh heh.

That, I would like to see. Wait..... Yes we can.

Yes, you have to cut it upwards at the ends as it goes around the corners. I actually put mine on oversize then reached in and marked it with a sharpie, took it off and cut it. It ends up mostly parallel so the bottom edge curves up a bit too. I'm eventually going to trim the upper edge with an aluminum strip.

Nice dam back at you! As big as my dam is I think you beat me in the frontal area to air dam ratio amazing as that may seem.

p.s. I just pulled another ford part for my modding madness: A map sensor to mod the cruise control for vacuum cruise.

[theunchosen]

uhm. . . for EOC auto trans.

The only thing I can say is it may cause issues. IF the auto trans has a pump in it and you shut down the pumps will cease. The reason towing is not a problem is because the trans does not get hot to start with if its in neutral from the beginning.

IF you are at a red light and kill it no biggy because its sitting still and the trans is likely not as hot as it would be if you were Pulse and Gliding. Like revving up to 2500 and then shutting her down and coasting. The trans is going to be hot from power transfer and friction on the cradle and if you shut off those pumps suddenly you could fry the oil and then the trans parts.

Example.

If you run a turbo(gets much hotter than your trans) and shut down the engine after you pull into a parking space it will cook the oil and its parts so when you boot back up there is no oil starting out there. The pumps won't pump oil to the housing fast enough if you immediately break the boost threshold in backing out and the turbo is toast.

Same kind of thing could happen to the transmission. BUT you would have to be running her hot before the shut down and then run her rather hot right away. pulse glide and then right into another pulse might do it. The hot oil is going to stay right at the top and not mix and cool.

Not highly likely though. . .the example used a turbo which as I said gets much hotter, almost to the point where oil burns on its own. That said I would just advise caution for very short pulses, but the overall is going to come from judging does the trans jump or have issues when I do this behavior since this is not something that comes up in everday car talk.

[orange4boy]

So far the trans seems fine. I usually only eoc downhill when the everything is cool. I don't EO P+G because it's too much trouble. It's in neutral for short periods only. I know I may have problems later but I'm willing to risk it. If the trans does blow I will try to drop in a manual if I can find one which would be much better in any event.

Although now that I have the MPGuino, I can leave it running, see when fuel cut off happens and only glide at the end.

Thanks though, good to know what to watch out for.

[Sean T.]

I think it's more like "Yes we did"!

Well, today I FINALLY found the local sign shop! YAY! They want 20 bucks for a 4x8 piece, so I think I will pick one up. The pieces I have are at most the size of my current air dam, but I would like to extend it up the grille like you did. Also, I didn't have much freedom cutting it since I only had about an inch extra.

How did you attach the flat piece of metal near the wheel wells? And about how much did the metal cost?