A.M.E.C. Economy Run III - Fonda, NY 8-23-09

[blownb310]

Good stuff thanks Robert. Despite all of the things you listed that you could have done a little better, you still did great! I've never seen anyone with an AWD Suby get 46 mpg before. Most people I know get mid 20's to 30 with one of those.

[blownb310]

Gentleman,

I hope our events have inspired some of you to possibly want to put together an event of your own in the future. If you think about it, it really isn't that much work. Especially once the route is established. To create a new route one needs to coordinate a course that doesn't have huge elevation changes, has very little traffic on Sunday morning, has shoulders so we can pull over and let the faster traffic pass on the fly [if we choose to], has a multi-island fuel station [we hog one island for about 30 minutes refilling all of the vehicles after the event] and said station has to have a large lot to fit an extra 20 cars into while staging the start. But all in all, these events are not that much work for the [in our case] 3 guys putting it on once the course is set. Its a fun challenge and a great day out with your car.

I would love to see two or three more events like ours in the northeast each year. Heck, I'd be up for a winter event if there was one being offered, but of course the numbers would be low. Break out the extention cords and block heaters!

I am starting to plan a fall event today. I will start from scratch with an all new route. I have some racing dates planned for most weekends in October so I am tentatively planning for a November 1st date. What I would like to know from you all here is:

1. Are you interested in another event this fall?

2. Do you think November 1st is too late in the year?

3. I'm not sure how available Dave Burnham and Mark Long will be to help me run a fall event. Is there anyone here that would help me out with officiating the event [recording fill amounts and topping off tanks after the event]?

Mike

[MetroMPG]

FYI, for those who haven't yet seen it, we posted a blog item about Chang and his 118 mpg CRX:

>> Modified Honda CRX HF Scores 118 MPG in Fuel Economy Run | Hypermiling, Fuel Economy, and EcoModding News - EcoModder.com

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My techniques were predominantly P&G - roughly in the 2200-3200 RPM range, per the Metro BSFC map, minus 300 RPM for the XFi cam's lower torque peak (guessing). With my tall gearing, that meant 3rd gear most of the time.

On the extended climbs, I simply aimed for lowest RPM without lugging - OK sometimes a bit of lugging. Going for best BSFC zone on those long uphills would have had the engine producing too much power and the car going too fast. Remember: best BSFC does not necessarily equal lowest fuel consumption!

My car's got manual steering as well, so EOC isn't a safety issue, plus I've got an engine kill switch on the gearshift, so no chance of locking the steering.

[blownb310]

Mark Long has just posted the official results on our A.M.E.C. site here:

AMEC*2009*Enonomy*Run

He formatted it a bit differently from the [results by class] order that I had posted earlier in this thread. He set the order from highest mpg to the lowest overall, regardless of class entered. Very interesting.

Also, the details of how much time each driver took to complete the course and how much fuel they used as well.

Looks excellent, thanks Mark!

[Matt Herring]

Very cool to see everyone's stats from the run...thanks to Mark for putting it all together!

[blownb310]

Originally Posted by blownb310

Gentleman,
I am starting to plan a fall event today. I will start from scratch with an all new route. I have some racing dates planned for most weekends in October so I am tentatively planning for a November 1st date. What I would like to know from you all here is:

1. Are you interested in another event this fall?

2. Do you think November 1st is too late in the year?

I sent these questions out to my email list and got more than enough positive replies back to move forward. I spent most of yesterday mapping out a proposed new course on google maps. Two of them in fact. I used the "terrain" function to check for elevations and such. I will drive them both of them to check for any undesirable characteristics, make necessary tweaks, and figure out fuel station[s] and start/finish point[s]. Economy Run IV is well on it's way at this point fellas.

So you see? You can literally put one of these events together in about a week.

I've got some new ideas about instrumentation too. I think any car with mpg instumentation should be using it during the event as a backup for any wild numbers that come up at the pumps. This really saved the day for us with Ben's CRX, who's top offs [for some unknown reason] were simply impossible to do accurately.

[Wonderboy]

I'm up for a fuel economy run ANY time... although I will mention that a good time spread between events gives more time for modifications other than those involving coroplast and tape. I want to be sure that everyone is as ready as they want to be for the next run (ie I'd like to see Robert come with his Insight, Ben finish his.... Insight, an even taller 5th gear on the blackfly, perhaps my revived XFi project, and any other projects people had in mind for the short term future). I'm not going to complain about coming up with the same setup though as it is a fun social event, and a nice break from being hunched over a keyboard when it comes to interacting with other ecomodders.

[blownb310]

Originally Posted by Wonderboy

I'm up for a fuel economy run ANY time... although I will mention that a good time spread between events gives more time for modifications other than those involving coroplast and tape. I want to be sure that everyone is as ready as they want to be for the next run (ie I'd like to see Robert come with his Insight, Ben finish his.... Insight, an even taller 5th gear on the blackfly, perhaps my revived XFi project, and any other projects people had in mind for the short term future). I'm not going to complain about coming up with the same setup though as it is a fun social event, and a nice break from being hunched over a keyboard when it comes to interacting with other ecomodders.

Thanks Will, and your point is well taken regarding the time frame between events. Last year we had an August and an October event, and our plan to repeat that again this year. I plan to run a different car completely this time, so I am really looking forward to having another go this year. We will understand completely if some of the long distance competitors decide not to make the fall event. I am just days away from making the formal announcement of Economy Run IV.

Mike

[blownb310]

Hemmings is interested in doing an article on our last event and has requested some high resolution pictures. So I am working on that for them. One of the people I contacted was Bill Clark, who with his son Nathan, took lots of pics at Economy Run III.



Bill ran his convertible at Economy Run II and his equally impressive hard top at last month's event. I didn't realize it, but Bill informed me that both of his pristine Metropolitans were recently featured in Hemmings Classic car magazine. There is a link to the article HERE. Have a look. I didn't know that Bill is the Eastern United States technical advisor for the Metropolitan Owner's Club of North America, which has close to 6,000 members. No wonder he was able to coax 44.64 mpg out of his '57 Met on bias ply tires!

[blownb310]

I just received a great picture cd put together by Nathan and Bill Clark from our event. Here is a sampling of some of the action from our event not seen before on the forums.


Here's the enthusiastic group of hypermilers.


Robert's AWD Subaru, 46 mpg!


Regular customers and passers by must have been wondering what was going on at Mayfield Mobil around noon on this day.




Carl Germain's 35,000 original mile '50 Studebaker Champion.


I'm not sure why Hobbit is pushing his Prius to the pumps, because he could have used his battery pack to do so right? No fuel economy event would be complete without Hobbit in attendance.


My plexi glass grill blocks.


My belly pan with hot air slots cut into the rear for cooling. Perhaps the exhaust heat was responsible for the slight sag in the middle.


Not all A.M.E.C. memebers embrace fuel economy though. Club VP and avid rock crawler aficionado, Ivan Hinkle shows off his wife's Jeep at the club picnic after Economy Run III.

Mike