Krayzie: Mod My Civic Log

[Krayzie]

so i started hypermiling around summer time and started at about 31MPG. Now that i have my scangauge ive been consistently been hitting the 36MPG and got 37MPG today... and this is in temperatures that are hovering around the freezing mark and no aeromods. Ive been telling myself that i need to do a grill block and today i finally stopped being lazy and did something about it!!

i was just surfing one of the civic forums and saw a front 3/4 shot of someones ride and i got an insane idea. I found a roll of 6Mil Poly Film in the garage yesterday and put it to work...i think the pictures speak for themselves, what do you guys think? this is just V.1 and will be looking to improve the design and make it even less noticable.

If you look at my mileage log there's a huge gap from when i got lazy of keeping track and i could be getting better mileage but my sister borrows my car when i dont need it. And yes, theres also a FSP in the garage.

Yes my car is filthy but thats what snow does

[Christ]

Looks like it could work. It will be "lazy" though. It's not technically rigid enough to handle what you're asking it to take on, and will get "pushed/sucked" back into the grille. You'll still see aero gains, but not as much as a rigid piece of plexi might get you.

[TomO]

Quick and dirty mods are the gateway to more and more tinkering. Good start!

[Deezler]

Uhhh, what if you need to open the hood?

[Christ]

Well, duh! You just... umm... wait. How do you open the hood? LOL.

[cfg83]

Christ -

Originally Posted by Christ

Well, duh! You just... umm... wait. How do you open the hood? LOL.

Actually, once you have transitioned to a rigid form, you could attach it at the bottom and use magnets to hold it to the top of the hood.

CaroSW2

[MetroMPG]

I like TomO's take on things. Slippery slope, slippery slope....

[KJSatz]

I've thought about doing something like that with my 2008 Civic Sedan for a while now, especially since most of my driving is on highways, and at this time of the year, in the very-cold. Post back results when you get them for sure!

[Krayzie]

Originally Posted by Deezler

Uhhh, what if you need to open the hood?

well ummm, you rip it off and just tape it back on remember this is just temporary, experimental, as you would say.

So the grill block made it through the day, first it was snow then rain. I couldn't get an accurate measure of if it did anything because i had to go to school early for a little field trip and hit traffic, but one thing i did notice is that i didn't overheat (probably nothing to worry about in freezing temps anyways).

Right now what i want to figure out is which of my 2 possible routes to school are the most efficient, $$ dollar wise. Route 'A' is 30KM/19Mile and about 50/50 city/hwy driving. Route B is 25KM/15.5Mile and 100% city but there's a a stretch where the speed does get high 80kmh/50mph. Both ways are hilly so there's no way around that they take about the same amount of time around 30mins. The last couple days I've been testing my mileage on route 'A' and been getting 36MPG, broke into 37 yesterday. i know i can get better mileage on "A' but need to figure out which one costs less cause 'B' is a shorter drive.

[Krayzie]

Just a quick update on the grill block. Seems like it works, well at least for aero...i need to cover more of my HUGE bottom grill to get any faster warming of the engine. Highway testing to and from school these last three days I've seen about a 0.2L/100km or 1MPG difference, for the better. Im sure it would be a tiny bit better if the block was more rigid but its not too bad because you can barely see it which i like!!

I filled up today and saw the scangauge was off by 2%, im actually using less gas than it was saying which is an instant increase in mileage! This is only the second time I calibrated it so it should be pretty close to my real mileage now. I also added more air to the tires. Somehow one of the tires was so low in air that my gauge wasn't even reading it, I might have a slow leak.

I have a huge board of coroplast and i might make an attempt at an engine belly cover this weekend!