Horsepower junkie goes on the wagon, so to speak

[Arragonis]

Welcome to the group.

<evilCackle>
Want to keep your cake and eat it at the same time ?

Let me entice you to the dark, sooty side.

Where we combine 300+ lb/ft with over 50 MPG.

Where we embarass more expensive machinery in cheap hatchbacks.

The payback ?

A powerband of only 3000 rpm and your car will sound like a tractor.
</evilCackle>

The power thing is addictive though. I sprang the equivalent of over 3000 USD last year on mechanical upgrades (clutch, flywheel) and was about to spend on other bits (suspension, brakes etc.) in prep for a power upgrade via remapping, FMIC, uprated intake, exhaust and so on.

But I saw the light before going down that route and now look for better FE. At least I have stronger and hopefully more reliable parts - I ditched the standard Dual Mass Flywheel for example just like local Taxis do, and they go to the moon and back in terms of mileage.

You will start to get competitive in other ways though, you will start trying to beat your last tank every time. It will be a never ending quest. Soon instead of being annoyed when you get stuck behind a dawdling oldie you will physically feel the loss of FE each time your instant reading drops below your target.

Its like the oil company is just reaching in and removing the notes from your wallet.

Or maybe thats just me.

[janvos39]

It is not only you.

[gascort]

You should buy a separate car like many of us have... then mod the heck out of it for economy. funny thing is that I hardly ever drive my "good" car anymore. It has a dead battery right now because I didn't drive it for several weeks,lol.
Welcome to EM, from another jekyl / hyde driver!

[Mifunego]

Wow! Thanks for the support. Like many of you, I too grew up as an old-school gearhead (mantra: "There's no replacement for cubic displacement!") who built and enjoyed (and still does) nothing more than a proper Chevy small block under the hood. I dallied in Ford and Mopar engines as well, and eventually expanded my interest to German NA and forced induction engines and even Japanese straight 6 and (gasp!) four bangers. Of course what was common to them all what prodigous amounts of go, and not much efficiency. I have been expanding the brood lately though and I've found that adding kids to the mix tends to reduce the number of toys in the garage. I still spend a fair amount of time at the autocrosses and track though (although not the drag strip anymore), and as I explained before, that Mazda does a great job of balance between grocery getter and track star. Not having an excess of funds to pull from at this point (and trying to rehab a 3 flat in the city) pretty much cancels out the idea of an additional toy car. So, I'll do the best with what I have. Can I really have an eco-friendly wagonette during the week and a speed demon on the weekends? That's my challenge for 2010. I hope to find some tech tips here to help on that quest!

[Mifunego]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Welcome to the group.

<evilCackle>
Want to keep your cake and eat it at the same time ?

Let me entice you to the dark, sooty side.

Where we combine 300+ lb/ft with over 50 MPG.

Where we embarass more expensive machinery in cheap hatchbacks.

The payback ?

A powerband of only 3000 rpm and your car will sound like a tractor.
</evilCackle>

The power thing is addictive though. I sprang the equivalent of over 3000 USD last year on mechanical upgrades (clutch, flywheel) and was about to spend on other bits (suspension, brakes etc.) in prep for a power upgrade via remapping, FMIC, uprated intake, exhaust and so on.

But I saw the light before going down that route and now look for better FE. At least I have stronger and hopefully more reliable parts - I ditched the standard Dual Mass Flywheel for example just like local Taxis do, and they go to the moon and back in terms of mileage.

You will start to get competitive in other ways though, you will start trying to beat your last tank every time. It will be a never ending quest. Soon instead of being annoyed when you get stuck behind a dawdling oldie you will physically feel the loss of FE each time your instant reading drops below your target.

Its like the oil company is just reaching in and removing the notes from your wallet.

Or maybe thats just me.

Ooh, tell me more. I'm easily enticed into dark sides. We're actually looking at the new TDI Jetta Sportwagon as a possible replacement for the current Jetta turbo sedan. It's currently out of warranty and I'm assuming, based on my previous experience with working on German cars, not cheap to fix and mod. Of course, I doubt that is the dark side you are talking about. What little oil-burner monsters are you talking about?

Yeah, I too know the financially irresponsible, yet addictive habit of auto mods. I would guess that, pre-kids, that was my most substantial income drain. At my old house, I actually carpeted the garage, since I spent so much time on the floor wrenching. Boy I miss that garage!

[pgfpro]

I know for fact with a gasoline engine you can have your cake and eat it to.LOL

With my project I started out running a 11.3 @ 130mph in the 1/4 and
0 to 60mph in 3.17 seconds.

Plus, on low boost 8psi it autocross very well.

Its fun to run a car at the track that will beat ZO6 Corvettes and some all out drag cars.

From there I thought if this 1.6L Honda engine can perform like this at the track, I wonder how much of and improvement can I get from the stock fuel mileage??? So far a personal best of 74mpg.

I have some friends in the Honda community that are running 9.40 second 1/4 mile times and getting as good as 45mpg.

You will see more and more of this in the coming years. Utilizing small displacement engines with today's EFI turbocharger technology is the new performance of the future.IMHO

[NiHaoMike]

Maybe it's time for an EV?

[mcrews]

Mifunego,

Welcome from another reformed speed adict.
("Hi, my name is mark and I haven't had a speeding ticket in 4 yrs, 223 days.......and 5 hours........")
several yrs ago when I first got my Garmin GPS (it tracks true mph) I got my Q to 129mph. I backed down when I realized it was still pulling!!!!

Now days I'm obsesed with mpgs.....

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Mifunego

Ooh, tell me more. I'm easily enticed into dark sides. We're actually looking at the new TDI Jetta Sportwagon as a possible replacement for the current Jetta turbo sedan. It's currently out of warranty and I'm assuming, based on my previous experience with working on German cars, not cheap to fix and mod. Of course, I doubt that is the dark side you are talking about. What little oil-burner monsters are you talking about?

Yeah, I too know the financially irresponsible, yet addictive habit of auto mods. I would guess that, pre-kids, that was my most substantial income drain. At my old house, I actually carpeted the garage, since I spent so much time on the floor wrenching. Boy I miss that garage!

Welcome.

TDISport - Car club for the diesel car enthusiast. For TDI, HDI, TDCi, JTD, SEAT, Skoda, Audi, VW, VAG, Ford, Citroen, Renault, Peugeot and all other diesel engined variety of cars! is a good place to start with knowledge. Do you know the type of engine in the Jetta ? I suspect it will be the older 1.9 rather than the newer 1.9/2.0 if its old enough to be out of warranty ?

Mine is the 1.9 PD engine (130hp as standard). A friend (cackle in the distance) pursuaded me into this by modding his VRS first. He went for a remap of the ECU which pushed power from 130 to nearer 170, 303 lb/ft. But then his clutch started to slip in the higher gears because of the torque so he swapped it for an uprated one with a single mass flywheel. Then he went onto suspension and brakes.

IMHO that was the wrong way round so I went for the clutch first (it was going anyway) and was about to go suspension and brakes next BEFORE the power hike. But then I started getting competitive with MPG and haven't mapped it yet. And maybe I won't unless I get an economy oriented one.

On my friend's furby (Fabia) his standing start times are much better than mine but the real treat is in gear pulling power. The ability to scare BMW 330s in a cheap hatchback is just too much fun, and overtaking is just effortless. He suggests that MPG is slightly down (about 5%) but I suspect that is partly down to the fact he drives much harder than before.

You may find if yours is an auto then you casn safely go for higher torque without much worry. The manual / dual mass flywheel combination seems especially weak. My local expert says they can fail between 10 and 100K miles randomly and local taxis using VWs tend to have the DMF replaced with an SMF from new - and they seem to go to the moon and back every year.

As for costs, I find parts not too expensive but spannering modern cars (especially my everyday one!) is not for me - I stick with my old MGB which is probably why it doesn't work at the moment As a result though I end up paying garage labour rates but moving to a local specialist has cut the costs and improved the service levels 100%. This may change in the future but I don't have a decent garage at the moment and the one I do have is full of dead MGB.

Going by Mrs A's Octavia 2.0 TDI (basically a VW Jetta TDI 140hp with the badge changed to a Skoda one) maintenance is about 1k GBP a year but she does 30K miles in that time. Neither car is covered by any warranty so we pay for anything ourselves. Mrs A's is on 60K now and still does >55 MPG even though she uses the right pedal like a switch - full on or full off, mostly on.

Some RR graphs from some TDIs here : Awesome - Performance Car Parts

Enjoy.

[SentraSE-R]

The choice for me was playing the mileage game v. the speed game. No matter what I did for speed, there were plenty of other cars out there faster. Now that I play the mileage game, there are a lot fewer people beating me. No one in the hypermiling community beats my xB with their xBs, and no other SE-R driver beats my SE-R. In fact, darn few Sentra drivers beat my SE-R even with 1.8 L engines, and only a handful of Yaris, Echo, and Tercel owners beat my boxy xB mileage-wise.