Make sure it's well thought out...

[rattroddrebel]

Well I will have to say I have seen alot of resistance on new ideas from several members.
My point being I am on this website to share information and personal experiences about fuel economy. Information should be shared, and being in the automotive industry for over 10 years, I feel that the public distrusts mechanics because they have either chosen the wrong one, or bought a car known for problems anyway. So before you bash someone or call out B.S. on a new idea, get some facts. Be prepared to answer all questions of other members if approached, and at least consider something new that may help your personal goals. We are all here for a reason, and i personally want better mileage and to share information with everyone. I am not here to say everyone is wrong.

Anyways my point today is before you mod you must look at you vehicle and evaluate its condition before you begin mods and data logging. Not everyone has a new car, I don't have one but I know its problems and i cannot expect perfect results having an imperfect starting point. So I have comprised a list of things to consider before you negate any mods, especially fuel quality and additives.

1) Type of car- how many cylinders?
2) Estimated manufacturers MPG
3) Tire size and quality
4) Ambient temperature
5) Drag coefficient
6) Type of fuel-Flex? Non flex? Built before 2001?
7) Vehicle weight
8) Engine condition- Tune up?
9) Type of plugs and condition
10) Engine oil type
11) Engine oil viscosity
12) Type of transmission
13)Brand of car
14) Type of transmission fluid
15) Maintenance history
16) Quality of maintenance
17) Engine compression
18) Stoichiometrics- Engines vacuum measurements to define efficiency
19) Differential-type and type of fluids
20) Vehicle ballast-How much junk are you carrying
21) Vehicle aerodynamics
22) Passengers
23) Wind resistance during testing
24) Cruise control
25) Vehicle speeds

This is 1/4 of the list of things to consider before beginning modding. Knowing the starting point, and figuring how much efficiency is possible is a great piece of knowledge to have setting realistic goals. I have set a personal goal of 70mpg which is 150% more than the EPA readings on my car. I am currently getting about 44%. Is it unrealistic? I dont believe so but every little thing I can think of I will be modding one at a time. And thanks to several members I have learned some things that will help. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my long posts, I am here to help and to be helped. Thanks everyone.

[freebeard]

Well I will have to say I have seen alot of resistance on new ideas from several members.
My point being I am on this website to share information and personal experiences about fuel economy. Information should be shared... So before you bash someone or call out B.S. on a new idea, get some facts. Be prepared to answer all questions of other members if approached, and at least consider something new that may help your personal goals. We are all here for a reason, and i personally want better mileage and to share information with everyone. I am not here to say everyone is wrong.

[snip]

...I have set a personal goal of 70mpg which is 150% more than the EPA readings on my car. I am currently getting about 44%..... And thanks to several members I have learned some things that will help. I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my long posts, I am here to help and to be helped. Thanks everyone.

When I see push-back against some idea, I always check the Post count of that person, Mister Post:5. There are members here who have been in the automotive industry for over 40 years.

'150% more' implies an improvement from 44% to 250%. You tell me if that's unrealistic.

[user removed]

Mega mileage drivers typically have much lower overall average speeds. My 2011 Fiesta is hovering just over 45 MPG with average speeds right at 38 MPH over the last 10 K miles.

Started working in a body shop as an apprentice in April 1969 at $1.40 an hour. I hold a US patent for an infinitely varaible in wheel hydraulic drive #7677208. Owned and ran my own repair shop for 15 years, successfully. Sold it to a gent who started the trade in my shop at age 24, he is pushing 50 today and the shop is still profitable with a good number of loyal customers that have been coming there for decades.

You may reach your goal, but in order to do so your average speed will need to be around 20 MPH or even less. I like riding my Suzuki TU250X at the same average speeds as my Fiesta (closer to 40 MPH) and pushing 90 MPG, but I will never be the champion hypermiler because I will never average 20 MPH in any of my local driving situations.

I have done the 20 MPH average for a short period of time and seen 90+ MPG in cars, but where I live the traffic light timing will simply not allow you to drive that slow, as well as the other drivers some of which are freshly returning GIs that sometimes have very short fuses when they encounter some old geezer going 20 in a 45 zone.

regards
Mech

[freebeard]

Yours is probably the name I was thinking of. Thanks for filling in some detail.

(I also consider the Thanks/Thanked ratio)

To be fair, average speed was 25) on rattroddrebel's list.

[wmjinman]

Originally Posted by rattroddrebel

my point today is before you mod you must look at you vehicle and evaluate its condition before you begin mods and data logging. Not everyone has a new car, I don't have one but I know its problems and i cannot expect perfect results having an imperfect starting point. So I have comprised a list of things to consider

1) Type of car- how many cylinders?
2) Estimated manufacturers MPG
3) Tire size and quality
4) Ambient temperature
5) Drag coefficient
6) Type of fuel-Flex? Non flex? Built before 2001?
7) Vehicle weight
8) Engine condition- Tune up?
9) Type of plugs and condition
10) Engine oil type
11) Engine oil viscosity
12) Type of transmission
13)Brand of car
14) Type of transmission fluid
15) Maintenance history
16) Quality of maintenance
17) Engine compression
18) Stoichiometrics- Engines vacuum measurements to define efficiency
19) Differential-type and type of fluids
20) Vehicle ballast-How much junk are you carrying
21) Vehicle aerodynamics
22) Passengers
23) Wind resistance during testing
24) Cruise control
25) Vehicle speeds

This is 1/4 of the list of things to consider before beginning modding.

OK, I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Before you start modding, you MUST evaluate ALL these things? (and the other 3/4 of the list that's not even on here)?!?!?!?!

So #1)... type of car/how many cylinders ?!?!?!?! How does that make a difference if I want to try - say - 10 more psi in my tires? An old Buick with a big V-8 may benefit, but a Geo Metro with a 3 cyl won't????????? Or a grille block - - - whoops, big Buick with a V-8 forget the grille block - it doesn't work on that model with a V-8 (wonder if I swapped in a V-6, though??). Or wait, maybe I've got that backwards.... it DOES work on the big Buick, but not the Geo??????

Going to #2) Hmmmm - manufacturers estimated MPG for the Buick is 12 MPG - yup, might as well forget the 10 more psi in the tires - that only works for estimated MPGs of 17.3 or more. Grille block? Yeah, sorry dude, that won't work either. Gotta find a car with a different manufacturer's estimated MPG.....

Let's see - - - #3) Tire size & quality. Same thing - whoops, my tires are too big and high quality to benefit from higher psi. - and forget the grille block - with those tires, I'll probably LOSE mileage.....

Come on!!! I look at every one of your items and can't figure out why those two mods would depend on ANY of them. Maybe certain other mods......or maybe not. I just read your list again thinking about adding a boattail or belly pan. I especially like #13) brand of car. Yeah, belly pans work great on Jeeps, but not worth a crap on Toyotas, maybe?

- or else I'm just completely missing the point you're trying to make.......

[rattroddrebel]

Yep you pointed out an error in my arithmetic and you are correct, 150% more fuel mileage than the current 44% above I am getting is 250%, I made a mistake, I just wanted to see if i could get it up to 70mpg's. my main reason is to test all of the mods I have heard about on this website, and give my opinion about each in detail, and the percentage of gain. I have alot of study time in automotive performance parts, and the claims for improved mileage. But just telling someone that it works or not especially on this website is obviously not good enough. Having been a mechanic for many years doesnt seem to matter to most. having been trained to diagnose poor fuel economy and runnability doesnt matter to everyone either. Arguing about some peoples internet knowledge is exhausting, there is so much incorrect information out there it is astounding.

No, my point of my bullet pointed list was completely missed. You must evaluate all of these things on your car that you have chosen to mod. If you have chosen to mod a 1978 Buick, taking into consideration the fact of the vehicles condition of parts and runnability will develop a baseline for starting ecomodding with it. If I would have said trying to mod a car like that is pointless, I would have started a fight. Because I see no difference between you wanting to mod that car and wanting to mod a 2005 Dodge Ram pickup getting the same 12mpg and 20 inch tires. I think working to achieve 5mpg better is a substantial goal for a v8. Dont you think that if you go to the doctor describing feeling like crap and having no energy, and you have been drinking, smoking, and having high cholesterol for the past 20 years, is he or she really going to give you the best advice when if he or she was trying to answer your question "doc how much life do i have left"? The starting point of that idea is almost ridiculous. But, I would believe if you corrected the starting point of the idea to get either yourself or your vehicle in optimum condition before the ecomodding or asking the question how much time do you have left, I think the results would prove in your favor.

"the shortened version"
My list means get the car, (any car) in optimum working condition before you mod to get the best results. My list is just a portion of what I have considered on my project to get optimum results. If you did not do that, are you really going to achieve the results you are looking for?

[user removed]

When you talk with a customer about bringing their neglected car up to grade as far as services recommended, I have learned from first hand experience, that you need to be very pragmatic about what you suggest. Too much money in the initial stages of maintenance will cost you a large number of customers and the potential for the prifit from keeping their cars on the road.

Most manufacturer recommended service intervals are not centered around the customers willingness to spend for unrealised gains. A good example was my Honda Civic VX. When I sold it to a woman, I had never done a valve adjustment at 62,000 miles. The recommended service on the valves was 30k. When I did the adjustment as a condition of the sale, I found every valve to be within specs, checked them before any adjustment. The car was 15 years old and had sat without running for 13 of those 15 years. The engine was clean as new inside.

Not saying do not advocate preventative maintenance, just understand that there is a fine line between being a hard core advocate of overmaintenance and undermaintenance. I have put plugs in cars that were supposed to be replced at 30k and the car had 100k on the original plugs. Powerful modern ignition systems can provide an ungodly amount of spark for neglected plugs and I noticed almost no perceptable difference in performance with the new plugs.

I just replaced the original platinum plugs in my recently purchased Ranger at 15 years and 125k miles. In this case I did notice a difference. I am sure the coil packs are not working as hard to fire the new plugs with half of the gap as the originals. I made a lot of friends and good customers who trusted my judgement by being honest with them when it came to what they needed imediately and what they could wait to do a a later date. We would list everything on their repair order and prioritise the recommended services and repairs.

They became customers for life, and when work got slow we could call them and in many cases they would bring their cars in for additional service, which kept the shop busy all of the time.

A lot of it was due to their perception that I was not going to try to sell them anything that I thought was not close to absolutely necessary. If they were in the minority that believed in overmaintaining their vehicles then I would try to explain that overmaintenance was not necessary, but I certainly appreciated their love of theor vehicle and would work with them either way.

regards
Mech

[wmjinman]

Well, as a Licensed Land Surveyor, I'm a lot more impressed with the actual measurment than "what the map says". Therefore, I'm a lot less believing in 10 pages of "documentation" - or even 10GB of "documentation" than I am with a real-world test (I mean by that, the average of several tests, keeping everything else the same except what's being tested).

For curiosity's sake, I went to the "% over EPA" section and took a look at "beaker". 44.6429% over EPA puts it in 87th place on the list. Then I scrolled up to my "Jimmy" just to double check that it's in 56th place at 54.625% over EPA.

Now, rattroddrebel keeps insiting on how important all these factors are, so I'll list a few things I know and a few things I don't know:

> I always use the cheapest, lowest octane gas I can find (frequently Arco AM/PM)
> I always use Pennzoil and Fram filters from Wal-Mart
> I always use the cheapest tires (Uniroyal Liberator), also from Wal-Mart
> I change the oil every 5000 miles, or whenever I get around to it
> I don't repair/replace anything unless/until it stops working
> I've owned this car since 2002 and treated it this way since the beginning.
> My previous car, an '85 Jimmy was bought new in '85, treated this way the entire time, and is still running.... no engine or transmission rebuild ever - 25 mpg average - STILL

Now, a few things I DON'T know:

> Which oil well in the middle east my last tank of gas came from
> The air pressure and humidity at the refinery when it was made into gas
> The coefficient of friction on every foot of road I drive on
> The exact joules of spark energy delivered to each of the engine's 6 plugs
> The profit margin at Wal Mart on the oil, filters, and tires I buy
> My cholesteral levels
> the actual temperature, in Kelvin, my tires reach after 10 miles at 60 mph

A few more things I DO know:

> I'm currently beating rattroddrebel in % over EPA
> I don't use any fuel or oil additives
> A grille block increases my MPG at 50 mph by 1.4 mpg
> Removing my roof rack increased it by another 0.45 MPG
> Folding the mirrors back increases it by about 0.14 MPG, but makes driving in downtown Sacramento in the rain REALLY scary!!
> fender skirts on the rear wheel openings dont's have an effect on MPG

One thing I will know soon:

> If Amsoil P.I. Fuel Treatment does anything to fuel efficiency or not.

Bill

[Christ]

One of my favorite quotes applies perfectly to this thread:

Perfection is often the enemy of progress.

If there are free mods available to you, it doesn't matter if you're not in "tip top" shape... the money saved by the mods may help you get into a financial position to fix things that need to be fixed, which then, of course, gives you the full potential of the mod you did in the first place.

Point being, just because you drive a piece of crap car doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing the free/easy stuff even before making the maintenance repairs it needs.