How to build a muscle car for better fuel economy?

[Daschicken]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I will have to research it but it is hard to believe. The motor oil is cycling through the motor long before the coolant starts cycling through after warming up, I don't see how it is possible for the coolant to warm up faster than the motor oil...

The coolant surrounds the combustion chambers, it is there specifically to absorb excess heat of combustion, the oil will touch parts that get pretty hot, but not hot enough to warm it up quickly. The oil probably warms up the quickest when it is in the heads, but it isn't there for very long.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

The only issue with an oil-to-coolant heat exchanger is that in below freezing weather the engine oil will likely warm up faster than the coolant, which takes a good amount time to get up to temperature while letting the car idle for 15 minutes.

First of all, you seem to care about your car a lot, but letting it idle for 15 minutes is not doing your car any good. When you idle, ESPECIALLY when it is cold out, you are diluting the oil with fuel, which destroys the capability of the oil to lubricate. Get a block heater, plug it in a few hours ahead of time, unplug, start engine and start driving. I have a block heater that I use any time I drive the car when I have at least half an hour of warning. It is truly awesome to start your car in 30 degree weather and already have the coolant at 80 degrees. I even use my block heater when its 80+ degrees out. Coolant temps start out around 110-120, and the engine idles smooth and at 700rpm instead of 1000.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

The question then becomes, do I really need one for my application? It could be beneficial if I were to use lower viscosity motor oil than my recommended 5W-30. The lowest I could go is 0W-30 but I am not sure if this is too thin of motor oil to use in my motor, even with an aftermarket low friction ceramic coating of the motor internals and even if I am using top tier Amsoil Signature Series or the European Formula, and changing it out every 3 months like it were conventional motor oil.

There is no reason to change your oil out every 3 months unless you are doing an F-ton of short trips, especially using Amsoil's signature series. Oil does not deteriorate over that short of time. I did an oil change after 10K miles and 19 months on my accord using Penzoil Platinum 0W-20, here are the results.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by Daschicken

First of all, you seem to care about your car a lot, but letting it idle for 15 minutes is not doing your car any good. When you idle, ESPECIALLY when it is cold out, you are diluting the oil with fuel, which destroys the capability of the oil to lubricate. Get a block heater, plug it in a few hours ahead of time, unplug, start engine and start driving. I have a block heater that I use any time I drive the car when I have at least half an hour of warning. It is truly awesome to start your car in 30 degree weather and already have the coolant at 80 degrees. I even use my block heater when its 80+ degrees out. Coolant temps start out around 110-120, and the engine idles smooth and at 700rpm instead of 1000.

I do care about my car, but my ever improving maintenance has been the result of learning from mistakes with poor maintenance. So, with regards to my anal three month oil change interval, well, there is a reason for it!

I have thought about a block heater for my LT1 come the day I get the motor and entire car overhauled to like new. The problem is, I won't be able to hook up a plug to the car where I park, and I certainly can't run an overly long extension cord when we get deep snow! Furthermore, at work, I can't ask the company for an overly long extension cord to be able to use the block heater on my car while it sits for eight or ten hours in the frigid cold! So, this is where the block heater idea won't be so useful for my situation! This is why I am using Amsoil motor oil and changing the oil every three months! Just because the motor oil can last a year before requiring a change doesn't mean you should wait that long, and once the oil turns dark brown, you have to change it, high quality expensive motor oil or generic motor oil!

Originally Posted by Daschicken

There is no reason to change your oil out every 3 months unless you are doing an F-ton of short trips, especially using Amsoil's signature series. Oil does not deteriorate over that short of time. I did an oil change after 10K miles and 19 months on my accord using Penzoil Platinum 0W-20, here are the results.

Even so, when I saw how black my motor oil was after literally waiting a year to change it using Amsoil Signature Series, it was disturbing! Furthermore, I was using 0W-30 motor oil when my motor called for 5W-30. I am not sure if I was doing harm to the motor or not by using a motor oil much more thin than was called for. Suffice it to say, one bad winter later, having a cracked radiator and overheating the engine, possibly destroying the head gaskets, I had lost oil pressure and I needed to replace the motor with a remanufactured version. So, BELIEVE ME I am going to be anal on maintenance and I put my order in for tire chains so that I don't have worry none about trying to drive uphill in snow that my car loses traction and momentum in!

Now, I just need to figure out if a tow version of my LT1 camshaft with a lobe separation of 111 will be alright for my application. They say lobe separations of 117 are better for fuel mileage but the tow cam version is spec'd to perform the same as my LT1 with lobe separation of 117, it just produces the torque sooner rather than later in the RPM band.

[Ecky]

I sent in an oil sample from my Insight to Blackstone Labs at 10k miles, and mentioned I was concerned by how black the oil was. Their response was:

"It may appear dark, but that just means it's doing one of its many jobs. In this case, that would be 'cleaning'. The oil is capturing dirt and combustion byproducts so that it's removed when the oil is changed."

They suggested that based on the wear materials found in the oil, there was no unusual wear, and that there were still plenty of detergents and wear additives left, so I could try a longer oil change interval.

So, in other words, color is not a good indicator of whether your oil needs to be changed. And, I have reason to believe this, since I have 225k miles worth of 10k oil changes, and compression is still within margin of error from what it should be from the factory.

EDIT: Given how frequently you're changing your oil, you stand to save real money by getting an analysis done by a lab. You may find out (just as an example) you can go 15k miles / 18 months safely, in which case you can still very conservatively change it at 10k/12m. Base your decisions on real data!

[elhigh]

Instead of starting and running for 15 minutes, get an oil pan heater and a coolant heater and hook those up. Wire them together so you just have one pigtail to plug in and set up an outlet on a timer in your garage (I hope you have a garage). Set the timer to energize the outlet an hour before you leave in the morning, and when you go to fire the car up it'll be halfway to operating temperature already, with no fuel wasted.

If you don't have a garage or at least a nearby outlet to hook up to, this suggestion is moot and I apologize.

I see you're willing to really dive into the deep end to make your fast car a thrifty car, and I strongly recommend you dig into PGFPRO's threads on what he's done to make his Eagle Talon a penny pincher when he isn't burning rubber at the strips. A lot of what he's doing engine-wise won't help you much, he's a turbocharging maven but when it comes to tuning, I think you and he could see eye to eye on a lot of stuff. For one thing, he's burning nontraditional fuels and for another, he's dug deep into lean burn in a car that never had it before. If you're willing to jigger the numbers on your ECU you could do similarly.

[oil pan 4]

There is always lean burn for cursing.
That's worth a 10% to 20% boost in fuel economy according to my own testing.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

There is always lean burn for cursing.
That's worth a 10% to 20% boost in fuel economy according to my own testing.

Well, I would be afraid of possibly melting the pistons and doing horrible damage if the car is set too lean, this added to if I can increase compression to 12 using the Iso-Butanol I plan on using in the future.

I think fuel deactivation for deceleration may be the only trick I will be tempted to use to help improve fuel economy. Aside from this, I have to test the theory on better low end torque to permit very low RPM driving for fuel economy.

I am not expecting to have the mileage rating of a four cylinder car, but I would like to approach or meet the EPA fuel rating of the 2014 LT1 in the Corvette!

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by Ecky

I sent in an oil sample from my Insight to Blackstone Labs at 10k miles, and mentioned I was concerned by how black the oil was. Their response was:

"It may appear dark, but that just means it's doing one of its many jobs. In this case, that would be 'cleaning'. The oil is capturing dirt and combustion byproducts so that it's removed when the oil is changed."

They suggested that based on the wear materials found in the oil, there was no unusual wear, and that there were still plenty of detergents and wear additives left, so I could try a longer oil change interval.

So, in other words, color is not a good indicator of whether your oil needs to be changed. And, I have reason to believe this, since I have 225k miles worth of 10k oil changes, and compression is still within margin of error from what it should be from the factory.

EDIT: Given how frequently you're changing your oil, you stand to save real money by getting an analysis done by a lab. You may find out (just as an example) you can go 15k miles / 18 months safely, in which case you can still very conservatively change it at 10k/12m. Base your decisions on real data!

Well, what helped me to make my decision about changing the motor oil every 3 months was seeing the inside of my heads after my motor broke down and I was forced to buy a Jasper remanufactured motor. My stock LT1 heads were so coated in black deposit and dirty that it was amazing that I had not noticed it while driving, and this was using Amsoil 0-30 Signature Series! I slowly began to lose oil pressure over the years although I didn't notice until my needle one day dropped to zero. I got a manual oil gauge to verify that it wasn't just a malfunctioning gauge but my motor oil pressure was too damn low! I played as much of a role in the failure of my stock LT1 motor as did having too old of a factory radiator with a crack that I was unaware of bleeding off my coolant and leaving a massive air bubble in the system, overheating the engine and doing further damage with time...

It don't matter if the motor oil is tested by a lab to still be able to provide lubrication with carbon deposits in it, you still have carbon in the motor oil and you have gasoline and they are slowly working to alter the chemistry of the motor oil to make it more acidic which damages gaskets, and ultimately becomes more abrasive. I will never allow my motor oil to get as pitch black as I was used to seeing it! One year is INSANELY TOO LONG to change motor oil, let alone 18 months! I refuse to let my motor oil get that bad, not with my newish Jasper motor!

The mechanics and engine builders in the know use conventional motor oil and change it every 3 months and their engines have lasted beyond 200,000 miles and they are so clean on the inside! My stock motor didn't even last 100,000 miles and it was PITCH BLACK AND DIRTY on the inside! Nope, no lab will tell me it's okay to keep the motor oil in my car longer than 3 months...hell no!

[Ecky]

Easiest way to improve city economy is a kill switch, and run the engine is little as possible. Kill it at traffic lights, while coasting, etc. and you'll get considerably more benefit than improving the engine's efficiency.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

The mechanics and engine builders in the know use conventional motor oil and change it every 3 months and their engines have lasted beyond 200,000 miles and they are so clean on the inside! My stock motor didn't even last 100,000 miles and it was PITCH BLACK AND DIRTY on the inside! Nope, no lab will tell me it's okay to keep the motor oil in my car longer than 3 months...hell no!

Perhaps you had a malfunctioning EGR?

This is a picture of my motor at 220k miles, having used 10k oil changes, generally 12-18 months apart:

[freebeard]

How to build a muscle car for better fuel economy?
[snip]
So, what do you any of you think about these ideas to modify my second-generation LT1 motor for better fuel economy and a good enough increase in the "seat of the pants" performance.

You could do all that.

I think you would see the most benefit if you make it a mild hybrid. And you could do it with GM parts.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tor-35003.html

HaroldinCR hasn't posted in the last month, but he's working in the jungles of Costa Rica so progress is likely slow.

The Buick La Crosse and Impala hybrids have a 20hp altermotor with a serpentine belt that passes the 20hp bi-directionally. The part is probably the same length with 1-1.5" larger diameter compared to the alternator you have now. The toothed belt has a massive turnbuckle to apply tension.

Beyond that a controller (HaroldinCR is using a Honda part) and a 72-120V battery pack.

Then you switch off when the light ahead turns red, wait it out, and then proceed across the intersection and fire up the engine at 20mph.

And you can use the battery pack for a block heater.