How to build a muscle car for better fuel economy?

[Ecky]

I'm sorry to say, that video is total bullcrap.

Starting your car feels like crack smoking zombies are attacking, under the hood.

Seriously? It's just the damned starter motor.

This is just a ploy to game the fuel economy test. And, the official numbers are almost always better than you can achieve out there on the road.

Members on this site regularly achieve 20-100% higher than EPA rated fuel economy numbers. Maybe this is true in Australia, but EPA numbers tend to be pessimistic, if anything.

He then goes on to admit that wear and tear is only ever high when you start the engine cold... and most auto-stop systems are not enabled until the engine warms up.

The (additional) wear rate then, is essentially zero.

You really don't use any additional fuel on a hot start with a modern engine either.

You need a rich fuel air mixture for a cold start, but that doesn't apply restarting in traffic.

Going back to the original quote,

As an apprentice, 30 years ago, we were taught that starting up an engine comprised about 80% of the total wear and tear on that engine. Also, that idling for 10 minutes used about the same amount of full as starting the engine.

The narrator debunks this in modern vehicles, but this wasn't even true in the carburetor era.

Considering most modern 8 cylinders idle at ~0.40-0.60 (?) gallons per hour, that would imply that starting the engine takes about a tenth of a gallon of gas, or ~12.8 ounces. This is absolutely not true.

In my car, auto-stop is disabled when outside air temps drop below 40 degrees. When auto-stop is disabled, my city mileage tanks, so I use a resistor to fool the outside air temperature sensor.

In my previous car, I would average about 28mpg driving around town normally, and might see 35mpg if I was very conservative with it. Once I started practicing cutting my engine off when coasting toward a light, I started seeing numbers like this:




51mpg, in a car rated for 25mpg city.

So ultimately, his argument is that, "There's no extra wear on the engine, it doesn't use any more fuel, but it's unrefined to hear your engine not running and I don't like it."

[freebeard]

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...

You could drop $10K in the motor, leave off the low-rider pearlescent lace paint panelling and have enough to add KERS invisibly. Given the weight of your F-body, inline at the driveshaft might be more appropriate than a similar alternator upgrade. My 1-ton lift-back with a slant-four diesel is a perfect candidate for the La Crosse/Impala part.

If you would look into the subject a bit (I suggest evtv.me) you might find that VFD motors and OEM components have changed the equation in the last decade.

On to the video: You could have suggested skipping the first minute.

I put him on 2x at about 2:00. Half-way through he got onto reasonable argumentation that didn't support the premise. Did you watch the whole thing? Once he got over his Tourette's, all he had was the Restart is jerky.

Any reasonable KERV system would restart the engine at about 20-25mph, not when you lift the clutch. WTF.

Look at his other titles:

• 10 worst[] Mistakes...
• The Truth About...
• Idiot's Guide...
• Why You Should...

Ex-spurt indeed. You might try KYLE.Engineers. He also has an erudite-sounding accent.

Have you thought about cryogenic tempering? You can do whole engines. The only place I've used it is for brake parts.

[Xist]

I watched a few videos from AutoExpert. I stopped when he ranted off-topic. I honestly do not remember my opinion of his arguments, just his tirade.

[oil pan 4]

I only encourage relatively easy to do mods that are proven to work. Things like:
Oil coolant heat exchanger
Lean burn
Turning off the engine when you don't need it.

I wouldn't bother with an auto start stop just do it manually.
I'm not sure if any individual has adapted a kers to an existing vehicle. The cost seems really high for an unknown return.

Almost forgot another one of mine is the switchable thermostatic to cold air intake.
The thermostatic air intake actually allowed me to tune the carb for lean burn and have it always be consistent.
This is another one of those mods that will increase fuel economy with no loss in power when you need it.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I only encourage relatively easy to do mods that are proven to work. Things like:
Oil coolant heat exchanger
Lean burn
Turning off the engine when you don't need it.

I wouldn't bother with an auto start stop just do it manually.
I'm not sure if any individual has adapted a kers to an existing vehicle. The cost seems really high for an unknown return.

Yeah, I appreciate all the advice but some of these mods are entering the realm of EXPENSIVE and then to have my engine builder and custom shop try to incorporate them is expensive. The learning curve to do this is also going to be problematic. Honestly, to set my car up for start-stop, I am not sure if it can safely be done and more likely than not it will result in more wear-and-tear simply because the motor was never intended to operate this way and I have a custom shop trying to figure out how to get the system to work. I don't see the benefit and if I am using a cleaner Bio-Fuel anyways, who cares about emissions, mine will be lower from the get go!

[oil pan 4]

You don't need an engine shop to install a heat exchanger or build a switchable thermostatic intake. We already figured out how to do it. No need to pay them to reinvent the wheel.
Well probably what they would do if they were smart is google search thermostatic cold air intake which would bring them here and copy my design.

The small block Chevy engines on the hybrid Silverado trucks have stop start. Didn't wear them out any faster.

Getting some shop to figure out auto stop start is just going to be a waste of money. Just do it by hand and eye.

Last time I looked butanol cost around $7 a gallon to produce. So retail would be at least $10 a gallon.

[Hersbird]

Sorry if this has been said, I don't feel like reading 9 pages. IMO trying to make one car do everything is going to cost a fortune and in the end have a bunch of compromises. You would have much more fun building your muscle car to be a muscle car and then go find a fuel efficient car and have a blast making that get REALLY good mileage. You might find taking a $2000 budget, buying a $1500 car, and then doing $500 in inexpensive if not free mods to it, learning how to hypermile and getting 50+ mpg is pretty cool too.

Or drop $40,000 on a used Tesla model S and have it all with no duct tape and coroplast.

[freebeard]

Another option: Dump the big-'n-littles esthetic for something slipperier, like the Blowfish:


E85 Hoonies and the Blowfish

According to the linked article, it won awards on E85!

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Well probably what they would do if they were smart is google search thermostatic cold air intake which would bring them here and copy my design.

The small block Chevy engines on the hybrid Silverado trucks have stop start.

There ya go, OEM parts.

[Frank Lee]

So I finally decided to take a peek at this thread since I saw it was so popular.

I want my 30 minutes back.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

So I finally decided to take a peek at this thread since I saw it was so popular.

I want my 30 minutes back.

I somehow was in active denial this thread existed until today, I read page 1, 8 and the last one, seems I didn’t miss anything.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

Yeah, I appreciate all the advice but some of these mods are entering the realm of EXPENSIVE and then to have my engine builder and custom shop try to incorporate them is expensive.

Seems like he should just do this

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...mpg-33961.html

That motor is quite nearly an LT1 and I don’t recall a bit of cam nonsense or expensive mods to achieve the results