My new FR-S!
 

Well it's new to me, but not actually new haha.

Quick facts: 2013, Ignition Silver, was originally a Colorado car, 28k on the clock. PO added track pipe (I'm adding a muffler to it, it makes me too scared to hit the gas for fear of cops), absurdly dark tint that I can't see out of at night (this is getting replaced), and red felt over the dash. Paid a Benz dealer 18.5k, I think they screwed up their ads so they were getting worried they couldn't sell it.

I really don't like driving this nearly as much as my MR-S, but it's quite a practical car. Can't have everything.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/attac...1&d=1433232028

On the way home I did a little testing with the onboard mpg computer. Cruise control 65mph is ~37-38mpg. Pulse and glide engine on actually doesn't do that much better, I was averaging around 39-40. Still, it's something.

As far as engine off goes, the good ole turn key start doesn't complain at all about bump starting, which is good.

The rolling resistance on this car is very low. It just keeps on rolling and rolling, I used the brake a lot more than usual while driving in the city and I always downshift when slowing down. Aerodynamics is decent, but I'm hoping a front lip will help since my freeway coasting time is so-so.

The engine is interesting. It's got a relatively high rev range and big cams, but the port + direct injector setup breathes some life into the low end. The engine REALLY doesn't like low rpm, the computer says only 40 something mpg when you put it in 5th or 6th and roll around at 25-30mph. Once you're over 1500 the thermal efficiency is much better, and the computer reads 60-70 mpg. P&G in 3rd or 4th gear is definitely the way to go at lower speed.

I'm getting an openflash tablet to try to tweak some more mpgs out of this car. Looking at the stock fueling maps on ft86club.com that people have posted, one thing that jumps out at me is that fuel enrichment starts very early. I noticed on the freeway that P&G was getting only 38mpg at first, after lightening my foot it went up. I'm going to play with the throttle mapping a little to make it easier to control this, and lean out the mid-load range to stoichiometric.

I checked MAP and fuel flow rate on Torque briefly on a cold engine idling, it idles at 20-21 psi vacuum (better than the 1ZZ's 23-24psi, good job Subaru/Toyota!), and was drinking a little under 14cc/min or 0.22 gal/hour at 700rpm idle, cold oil. I forgot to log the warm engine idle today, but I'm hoping it beats 0.1 gal/hour per liter displacement at 680rpm, which is what the 1ZZ dinosaur achieved at 680rpm idle, but this doesn't look very promising. I'm going to try lowering the idle speed with the OFT.

Tomorrow I'll log the car on the freeway to see what the load % looks like, which will give me an idea of where I want to have the car go into lean burn. The internal EGR will make tuning lean burn a little harder, I recall someone on ft86club saying they tried and couldn't go past 1.1 lambda before the engine stumbled. Exhaust VVT timing is going to need tweaking to get the most out of this.

Other than that I'll probably just do a lithium battery for weight reduction, and LEDs to reduce electrical power requirement to help with that low idle. Seeing how I failed to break 40mpg today on the freeway, I guess the first goal is a 45mpg tank, going by the computer. I did already blend this tank up to 22% ethanol, so that might have been the culprit. The goal is to mix 87 with E85 to get cheaper tanks of high octane gas, an automatic ~5% savings in fuel cost.

Not red tho.

Hah, I would've loved a red one, but buying used there's not much choice.

Fear not, it will be painted with matte clear plastidip to get the satin metallic look, which is just as badass as red.

Wow, great deal & nice looking car.

Does it have the annoying high idle when cold like the 1ZZ engine?

Congratulations! Love this car and will be interested in knowing how well it responds to hypermiling.
Can you please elaborate on why you don't like driving it quite as much as the MR-S?

Congrats on the new car. I've always loved the look of the FR-S. It'll be interesting to see what an ecomodder can do with it.

You know you're an MR-S owner when an FR-S is described as "quite practical". :D

What's up with the MR-S?

Also: how does one remove tint? That's the main reason I don't like it -- because of the night time outward vision issue.

I don't like how the rear end is very light, it's way too tail happy at the back. What made the MR-S fun was that you could give it quite a bit of gas when turning since the rear end stuck to the road like glue, whereas this car's rear tires are always screeching even though I'm not trying to do that. The car is also quite a bit bigger so it doesn't have that exciting go-kart feel to it. Also, I know this sounds funny because I'm comparing to a 1ZZ but the engine sounds...pretty bad lol. Shifter is direct linkage to transmission but it doesn't feel that great either.

I'm anticipating that I'll switch cars in a few years (I miss having a midengined car so much) so I'm going to leave it mostly stock :/ If I have time though, I'm going to try the active rectifier alternator mod on a spare alternator if I can find one for cheap. That should help with a low idle speed. I'm hoping adjusting the fueling will give pretty big gains though, a lot of owners have noticed improvement in fuel economy just setting more cells to stoichiometric.

It is practical! The trunk is a bit "shallow" in terms of height but it's quite deep length wise. It's also possible to cram 4 dudes into the car in a pinch.

The 1ZZ lost a rod on the freeway! I think the previous owner wasn't aware of the oil burning issue and oil starvation damaged some stuff.

Tint supposedly comes off with a hair dryer or steamer pretty easily, a Youtube video convinced me to try it.

Doh. Bummer about the MR-S. I missed that if you posted about it.

Thanks, that is some great insight that is hard to get from magazine reviews and the like. In absolute terms the FR-S is pretty small and light, but coming from an MR-S I can see how it would feel quite large and heavy. I am a fan of small, lightweight cars myself. That direct response, the feeling of connectedness… It feels like the car is part of our own body.:thumbup: