How to build a muscle car for better fuel economy?

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by spacemanspif

It's hard to look good (in the classic muscle car sense) and get good mpg. You're planning on a drag pack look but for mpg you'd be better off with skinnies all the way around using LRR tires inflated on the high side. Wide tires don't help mpg and most likely don't come in a LRR version.

EOC doesn't kill starters because if you do it right, the tires are used to start the engine.

You have no money for exotic fuels so where will the money come from for exotic metal treatments and race car style mods?

Well, this is where I balance fuel economy with performance and looks! I refuse to put skinnies on my car when wider rear tires will help with cornering performance and traction for those times I do gun it from a green light. Its a balancing act!

I am leery about the start-stop technology! Why should the car shut off everytime it comes to a dead stop? Furthermore, doesn't starting a car use more fuel than idling for a certain amount of time?! It is better to tune the PCM for a lean air-fuel ratio while it is idling!

Once I start working again, I will look into buying that Iso-Butanol for my car! I just can't do it now, not when I am voluntarily unemployed as I deal with the disappointing aspects of a "college education". Once I have my college loan paid off, and it will be soon enough with double payments or more, I am going to have to take out a loan to get my car restored and modified to like new, with some painful efforts to try to have it corrosion coated and given corrosion resistant nuts/bolts/screws/clamps/fasteners. The rest of the corrosion control will have to rely on frequent Delta Sonic trips with Super Kisses.

Hey, I have everything planned out! Everything I am taking away from car forums is helping me to come up with the modifications that will eventually go on my car.

[oil pan 4]

Japan has been using stop-start since the late 1990s.
Stop start has been proven to give an easy 2 to 3 mpg improvement in city driving.

[Ecky]

Running a starter uses a few hundred amps for a few seconds. The engine might run slightly rich for a few seconds. The break-even point is probably less than 5 seconds.

[spacemanspif]

No extra fuel is burned on start up when the engine is bump started. A warm engine is easy to start and even if the car reverts to closed loop on key starts, it will be there a very short time before getting back in closed loop. I think I'm going to switch my scangauge to read loop status and see if it ever goes back to open loop during an EOC and key start.

It's a 97 F-body man, I hope it has sentimental value because those cars are definitely not worth the cost of a restoration. How about buying a beater car so that you can keep the bird in the garage in winter and not subject it to salt and snow? Darin is doing great things with a Miata which can be bought cheap and are a blast to drive. Keep the V8 for the weekends, that's what I did and I never regretted it.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Japan has been using stop-start since the late 1990s.
Stop start has been proven to give an easy 2 to 3 mpg improvement in city driving.

Originally Posted by Ecky

Running a starter uses a few hundred amps for a few seconds. The engine might run slightly rich for a few seconds. The break-even point is probably less than 5 seconds.

Originally Posted by spacemanspif

No extra fuel is burned on start up when the engine is bump started. A warm engine is easy to start and even if the car reverts to closed loop on key starts, it will be there a very short time before getting back in closed loop.

Okay, okay! You have me curious, I will also look into this technology to see if it is possible to put on my LT1. Damn, the engine builder and custom shop are going to hate me!

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by spacemanspif

It's a 97 F-body man, I hope it has sentimental value because those cars are definitely not worth the cost of a restoration. How about buying a beater car so that you can keep the bird in the garage in winter and not subject it to salt and snow?...Keep the V8 for the weekends, that's what I did and I never regretted it.

Well, this is purely your opinion! I am not impressed with today's cars and I certainly don't want a touch screen computer in my center dash serving as a distraction! GM does not build cars with the option to to delete the center dash computer screen, that I know of, giving it the technological look of my late 90's car!

Also, it is getting harder to find cars with reliable stick shift transmissions. Screw those paddle shifting autos, only a true manual is safer and better for daily driving, including the winter!

No car has the styling of my F-body, except for the Corvette, but I won't drive something like that in winter, it's too low to the ground!

The F-body has proven to be winter drivable, so why would I mess with driving a beater that is unreliable in winter after all the money spent on my F-body?!

Yes, it is foolish to drive a car such as this in winter after I have spent so much money to restore it like new, but the added expense of storage, going to the DMV to take the car off the road, put the beater on the road, and then contact my insurance to switch coverage to the beater, it is too much of a royal pain in the butt! I have been there before in 2007 when I tried to do the same thing with my Trans Am at that time but the economic depression of 2008 would not allow me to spend that kind of money juggling with two cars. So I had to sell my then 6-cylinder Firebird (beater) and use my more reliable and immaculate Trans Am for winter driving... (Sigh)

Nothing is perfect and no car is supposed to last forever, but you can restore old cars and I would prefer to give those guys my business then buying newer cars that are overly tech and hardly as fun to drive as my F-body!

[Piotrsko]

Never had a real custom shop hate me for doing stoopid things. They usually just add a new line of $$$$$ to the bill, more dollars added to dumber things.

[freebeard]

Honestly, I need experience and I need to really know my stuff if I want to be a developer.
....
The KERS idea is a bit out of my league!

One of these this is not like the other.

The serpentine belt is similar to a supercharger drive. The battery box is half the battle and it would be very small. The electronics is being approached two different ways by forum members here.

I was fortunate to get into software development in 1980. It was a meritocracy. If you could do the work they didn't care what you look like. Heck they didn't care what you'd smell like. I sat in the corner of their office at an Apple ][ for two weeks and taught myself the OS and 30 applications, sufficiently that they put me on the phone to do sales cold-calls. Eventually I was editing people's Windows registries over the phone for Symantec.

I am leery about the start-stop technology! Why should the car shut off everytime it comes to a dead stop?

The car doesn't shut off, just the ICE. Any hot-start problems will be steamrollered by the mass of the vehicle.

[Ecky]

Thoughts on using an altermotor?

With my manual transmission hybrid, the way it works is, when you press the clutch in and pull it out of gear, fuel is immediately cut to the engine. When you move the shifter back into gear, the electric motor instantly rev-matches the engine, so it's ready to go before you even get the clutch out.

The gas and electric systems are independent, so if one fails, it doesn't disable the other. I once had an issue where some wiring modifications I did in the engine bay broke (bad solder joint) and I lost my fuel injector grounds. I pressed the pedal to the floor and dragged myself home on the electric motor alone. And, if the electrical system ever dies for whatever reason (and they don't), it will happily run on just gas too.

I haven't looked much into the aftermarket, but a quick google search revealed this:

Vehicle Platforms | XLHybrids

Looks like it goes in-line with the driveshaft, but I can't tell if it has an internal clutch. If we assume it does, then the engine can be disengaged and you can creep along in stop and go traffic using zero gasoline (no fumes) and without any clutch wear or hitting your bearings over and over. When you pull away from a stoplight or are going up an on-ramp, the electric motor bump starts the gas engine (no starter, saves weight and is one less part to fail) and gives an extra 220ft-lbs of torque (from zero RPM) on top of what your engine produces to accelerate. When you get up to speed, you can either run on gas alone, or electric alone, or use both together when you want to pass. You can use the electric motor to brake the car, which prolongs brake pad life and puts your kinetic energy back into the battery, to be used to accelerate again later with zero fuel used. You can get rid of your alternator (saves weight, one less part to fail) and instead use a highly efficient DC-DC converter and a downsized 12v battery (lawnmower or motorcycle sized) to power the 12v components in the car.

It does add complexity, but it also subtracts complexity. By assisting the engine, you prolong its lifespan - there are examples of 400k mile Chevy Volts and 600k mile Insights and Priuses on their original engine, still running great.

Maybe it would be unreasonably expensive, but frankly I don't know how much the costs of your proposed engine modifications would be, and it might not be dissimilar. I expect you'd get both more power and more economy by putting an electric motor in the middle, and you'd still have your high strung V8 noise, too.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Thoughts on using an altermotor?

I am not going to spend the amount of money it costs to purchase a top-tier Corvette or even an Aston Martin, to overly modify and possibly ruin my LT1 motor. A few percent worth of fuel savings is what I am realistically expecting after all is said and done with friction reduction by building, essentially, a race motor, but detuned for daily driving using a restrictive 1985 TPI intake! Sounds like a winner, right?!

I am not looking to dump $30,000 OR MORE on severe modifications, that money is going into subtle alterations to my car's exterior and interior! I know what I am getting myself into and for the modifications I have in mind, at most a thousand here, half-a-thousand for this, a few times over, and I have the motor I have been dreaming about, with as much internal friction reduction as could be built in, some power increase for my RPM band of focus, and tuned for various throttle positions and driving loads for better fuel economy and splurging on high performance moments.

I did look into that start-stop technology that was recommended, and despite conflicting information, I think I am going to avoid it like the plague! If worse comes to worse I can always shut off my motor if I am stuck in traffic with no movement happening due to an accident or blizzard conditions. Aside from this, this video helped to convince me to avoid it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k159M8QhCIE