Modding a cavalier
 

I recently bought a 2002 cavalier with the 2.2 ohv motor and an auto trans, unfortunately the only cav I could find with a manual trans was in need of a new clutch and the owner wouldn't budge on price.
Epa highway mpg is 33 and my last couple tanks have been coming in just under 30. The car was reasonably well cared for but it's got nearly 160,000 miles on it. I ordered a new upstream oxygen sensor the other day since it looked like the original sensor was still in there and I couldn't find anything obvious that would be hurting mpg. And just to note I do drive gingerly and use some hypermiling techniques. The car is bone stock and I got it as a cheapo commuter to get me through my last year of college cheaply
I've been considering some aero mods and wanted to get some ideas/suggestions on where to start. The stock bumper cover has a lot of 'vents' on it so I was thinking of starting by blocking those off temporarily with tape until the weather gets warmer and I can fashion something out of fiberglass. I'm probably also going to get rid of the antenna since I don't use the radio anyway. I've been thinking about rear wheel skirts as well. I don't have the space or desire to do anything too radical like a boat tail or anything but I do want to do some modest things to squeeze a few extra mpg out of it. The next oil change is going to be with the lowest weight synthetic I can get away with.
What are your opinions? Would those aero mods amount to much? If making wheel skirts and a new bumper won't do a whole ton then I'd rather save the time and money and stick to using cheaper materials like cardboard and tape.

Is this a two door or four door ?

The main thing I see that stands out to me is the rounded trunk/boot.

An easy fix for that is to simply add a trip strip where the airflow would begin to tumble.

Your biggest gains will most likely come from adding a Kamm-back, and perhaps other mods like wheel gap fillers/smooth wheel covers, and a front spoiler or undertray cover.

Personally, I would do a Kamm-back before i did the wheel skirts.

Regarding the bumper holes, yes that would help some, but most likely not enough to show. It's easy to do, and would help - just not that much.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post461814

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1419976139

Here you can see the 'trip strip' at the edges of the bumper. If you follow the link i have above, there are some great tips.

It's the 4 door. The girlfriend was adamant that I not get a 2 door since we have larger dogs that go places with us. A kammback is a little more than I wad looking to do but adding a trip strip would be easy enough. What I'm really looking for is enough little stuff that on their own wouldn't do much but together would at least do some good.

That trip strip doesn't look too tough. I'm not too worried about hacking the car up too much since I got it pretty cheap. Also want to get a scanguage with my tax return.

Get an ultragauge, your using EOC or have lean burn so it's a little bit of a waste of money to get something as fancy as a scangauge. Ultragauge is 1/2 the price, does what the SG does, just not as clean as SG.

Thanks for the tip. Once I get my refund I'll look into it. I had a vacuum gauge in my old s10 and it was pretty useful. The car I rented after a tree fell on that truck had an instant and trip econ feature on it. Needless to say the weekend I had that car it was a fun game to play on my commute.

I should add I rented it with about 2 gallons in the tank and they said I could bring it back empty. I made those 2 gallons last for 4 days and a little over 100 miles, it was a brand new Ford fiesta

The Save the Flea project is an interesting read, as well as the 15 mods for 15% improvement.

The mods on Metro's Civic are pretty discreet and offer quite a bit of improvement over bone stock.

There are some other pretty simple mods that you can do that will help. From what I understand, an air dam and side skirts are some of the best aeromods since they basically don't allow air to get under the car.

Welcome to the site.

With my 97 Sunfire. The main trick was to get that torque converter locked up as soon as possible. After that torque converter locked, the mpg just kept going up.

If you don't already, I'd definitely get yourself a scangauge, ultragauge, or a bluetooth OBDII adapter and torque for your smartphone. Instrumentation is key to getting good mileage.