Hi to everyone! Old XP10 joined.

[J4nn3R]

Pardon my english, as I'm not a native speaker.

I've been reading this forum for a while, but decided to join for few question now when I have old and cheap enough car to get my hand dirty.

Living in a small city we don't have to commute car as a everyday basis, our 2004 Yaris 1.3 (Toyota XP10, also known as Echo or Vitz hatchback) get bit over 10tkm(like 600 miles)/year, with fuel consumption varying from 5,5l to 7,5l (35-45mpg) depending on conditions and if it's been mainly highway or city driving. This is our fullsized family vagon, as we ride bikes or walk a lot.

Car is so cheap and already quite fuel efficient, so I'm not calculating any paybacks for investments, just having some fun in the carage and trying to keep the car going. So far its been only repairing and maintenance. All of the mods are going to be minor to moderate, first full lenght belly pan + diffuser, then something else, who knows. Making it run with E85 fuel to avoid fossils is on the plans too.

[elhigh]

Your english is better than a lot of people I've known, so no worries.

The Yaris is pretty light and if you're mostly using it for longer trips, there's probably not a lot of point in any lightweighting. Aerodynamic improvements like you describe are probably going to be your best bet.

Don't forget about wheel skirts. Anything to reduce aero load will reduce the engine load. The belly pan is subtle and people won't notice it, but I think Europeans will give you less hassle than Americans might, if you decide to do something more visible.

Evidently flex fuel and E85 mods for your car have been done, I just read some entries in a couple of forums; those were on a quest for power but I reckon you could tune for efficiency. The parts and software won't be intended for it but I don't see why they couldn't be pointed toward minimum consumption instead of maximum output. They're just opposite sides of the same coin.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by J4nn3R

Making it run with E85 fuel to avoid fossils is on the plans too.

I am also favorable to ethanol, even though I don't remember seeing a Yaris like yours running with more than E27. This generation of the Yaris was never available in Brazil, yet I have seen some in Uruguay and in my hometown Porto Alegre, and when the exchange rate is favorable it's common to see Uruguayan people fuelling their cars in the Brazilian side of the border, and seemingly they don't have any trouble handling a quite high ethanol content.

[J4nn3R]

Standard ECU won't handle high amoumts of ethanol, but there is a Finnish company that produces flexfuel kits for almost any car, except direct injection. I'm most propably going that way, even if it's quite expensive, because the kit includes all of the harness, control box and a ethanol sensor. It's widely adaptable and car is still capable to run with more common petrol.

It's already a bit wierd to have a car of that size and age as a only car for a family of four, so having a full fender skirts is not a problem that way. To be classified as a normal family man, you should have a STW or SUV. But anyhow, I'm not a big fan of wheel skirts aestethically, they fit fine for cars that have been designed that in mind like Prius or Insighr, or cars from 40's, so that's not on my plans at first. I'm trying to make the gap smaller by lowering the car a bit and maybe growing tyre profile from 55 to 65 when it's time for new tyres. Lowering and better aerodynamics hopefully upgrades highway stabilility a bit.

All in all, this is not going to be a full out ecomod-car, so I'm not going to sacrifice all of the comfort and handling. For example, a/c stays in it's place for hotter days, it's not used a lot but is very nice when you need it. Belly pan + diffuser are high on the list of modificadätions, because improving aerodynamics is good for many aspects: fuel efficiency, noise and stability. Double sealing the doors, hood, lights and front bumper should help in same manners, less in fuel efficiency but more in noise. Changing to led-bulps too.

Nice partial kammback could be nice too, but needs a lot of time to mold and paint to look stock enough for my taste.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by J4nn3R

Standard ECU won't handle high amoumts of ethanol, but there is a Finnish company that produces flexfuel kits for almost any car, except direct injection.

There were times when similar aftermarket flexfuel conversions used to be quite popular in my country too, until flexfuel capability became mainstream and ethanol once again became too expensive to actually justify this feature. Odd enough, direct injection is often reported to be more suitable to flexfuels because it won't require cold-starting aids, and is also better suited to higher compression ratios which would lead to knock while running on gasoline yet are better suited to exploit the higher octane-equivalence of ethanol.

It's already a bit wierd to have a car of that size and age as a only car for a family of four, so having a full fender skirts is not a problem that way.

If you could see how many families of four in my country I see on small cars such as Opel Corsa B, Fiat Uno, among others, you'd be surprised.