My New (to me) Civic! “Prius Killer”

[JacobLeSann]

Oh, absolutely. I do the same thing. So far my pump averages are 48 MPG, but in at the pump so sparingly that it’s pretty rare (which is great!). Of course, this car doesn’t even come with a factory MPG readout. I kind of despise the factory setups anyhow. My least favourite are the ones that tell me my mileage every 5 minutes instead of an instantaneous readout. Pointless.

Thank you! Im really happy to have a nice stable of efficient cars. While working on my civic I ride my Aprilia SR50R around, and that thing gets 95-113 MPG reliably. Feels like heaven!

[Blacktree]

Ironically, my Prius has an instantaneous mpg readout, but it's not accurate. LOL

BTW, I want to do a spoiler like that on my car.

[Caddylackn]

If you are trying to drive as efficiently as possible, even a two second delay is too much.

I drive a new Rav4 Hybrid at work sometimes. That has 1 minute intervals, but it keeps the last ten minutes as a bar graph on the screen. It will show a trend, but unless you are on a constant grade and speed for a full minute, it is pretty useless. The Rav4 Hybrid is a nice car. I can get 50 mpg on flat ground between 55 - 60 mph.

[Phase]

Originally Posted by Caddylackn

If you are trying to drive as efficiently as possible, even a two second delay is too much.

I drive a new Rav4 Hybrid at work sometimes. That has 1 minute intervals, but it keeps the last ten minutes as a bar graph on the screen. It will show a trend, but unless you are on a constant grade and speed for a full minute, it is pretty useless. The Rav4 Hybrid is a nice car. I can get 50 mpg on flat ground between 55 - 60 mph.

it could get even more with a few eco mods too lol

[JacobLeSann]

Hey guys, decided I’d update this old post. Driven the car lots since this thread, and racked up probably 20,000-30,000 km. Car runs great! Funny enough, I went on the same road trip as this post recently, and stayed up all night doing aero-mods accordingly! These are still unpolished, but look much better than previous.





[IMG][/IMG]

Same trip, but different speed, and presumably better aero. I had to keep up with a friend, who drove 120-130 km/h and had the benefit of AWD. The first portion of the trip meant heading down “The Tote Road”, a place I liken to the River Styx. Terribly loose and dusty gravel road with not a shred of even surface, littered with stray rocks, logs, wildlife, and random bodywork junk from cars that didn’t make it. My light little car with wide summer tires led to constant sliding, even at 70-80 km/h. A huge rock flew in front of me from the dust cloud ahead and smacked the undercarriage like a gong; scared the life out of me. Thankfully, the front diffuser and skip-plate did their job and saved me from any damage. That terrible road meant I couldn’t break 30 MPG no matter what, and stole 1/4 tank from me. From there, I followed carefully at 120 km/h and averaged around 35-38 km/h, as the car ahead didn’t have cruise control nor a stable foot. Unfortunately, my girlfriend was scared of running low, so I couldn’t get a tank average. Got about 400km on half a tank, though.

On the way back, I drove on my own and trailed Dempster’s trucks for several hundred kilometres, averaging 45 MPG or so. I cruised at 98-100 km/h and kept good distance to be safe while still in the wake. Halfway through, we hit a hailstorm and my thermostat got stuck open. Coolant temp wouldn’t break 65 Celsius. Cost me some gas mileage, but didn’t hurt anything. I think that evened out to similar or a bit better mileage than the first trip. GPS lied to me and made me take a two hour long detour only to go down an even worse section of the dreaded Tote Road, now in pitch black, pouring rain, and with thousands of eyes glimmering in the ditches! Even worse, this road was completely uneven, and patches of gravel caught and grabbed onto the skid plate, pulling the car left and right. Infuriated me and terrified me simultaneously, but I made it out fine.

Enough prose! The mods worked great, even though the mechanical issues, tank-fill frequency, and terrible roads from Hell eliminated any proper measurements. Didn’t have a single issue with anything despite the abuse. I was genuinely surprised how the front air dam smacked into that rock full force and sprung back to shape. Coroplast is great stuff!

Since then, the car has been averaging 40-45 MPG, but I’m kind of lazy with checking the tank fills. It’s usually around 630-650km with some to spare. 500-550km when I hit a quarter tank. However there are some points throughout the week where I drive carelessly in terms of fuel economy. Scangauge tells me it’s 50-55 MPG at 70 km/h. I noticed a very large reduction in wind noise and the car is very quiet on the highway. It can hit 200 km/h very easily but the ECU seems to kick you back. At those speeds the car is remarkably stable and I don’t feel any danger of front-end lift.


In short, it works great and handles abuse! Very happy with this.

[JacobLeSann]

Here’s something that may or may not be an innovative wheel-disc method. I was playing with an expansion-type drain plug at work and it sparked a really smart solution for mounting discs on my OEM 5-spoke alloys. I had a section of conveyer belt material which I cut several pucks from with a hole saw. Then I made several HDPE spacers from an old industrial cutting board the same way. For the sake of overthinking, I used aluminum plate from an old street sign and Swiss-cheesed the plastic spacers carefully. These were all smoothed and polished by clamping them onto a bolt and using that as a spindle in the chuck of my drill press. This can also be done with a hand drill but it’s more tricky.
The discs are just reused from my very first ecomodder project, because I’m too lazy.

They follow the K.I.S.S. Principle, or at least I hope. You just pop them in to the centre of the wheel, and tighten the centre-nut. This clamps against the rubber, which expands against the wheel. They are rock solid and can’t be pried out unless loosened. I feel the rubber helps with vibration dampening as none of them have come loose. They also weigh next to nothing. Don’t even register on a fishing scale. Maybe 1lb each or less. Thankfully, they aren’t hard to remove.


Overkill? Perhaps, but I like to plan around Murphy’s Law. I did it all for $0 as well.

*They are a bit too convexed for a proper low-drag disc, which can be fixed. I’m too lazy and will do that some other day.

[freebeard]

Possible Innovation..?

Quite possibly. How does it work?

I see a socket head machine screw; is the nut inside constrained some way? Does it act like an expansion plug? Does the black disk underlap or overlap the wheel disk?

[JacobLeSann]

Basically, it’s an expansion plug with a plastic disc mounted to it.

The rubber “puck” is pressed inside the centre of the wheel. There’s a little lip in the centre where the wheel mates with the hub on the suspension. The rubber is very slightly looser than that lip. Tightening the centre-nut on that bolt (I wish it was a machine screw..it’s just a carriage bolt lol), tightens everything which compresses the rubber and locks against the inner lip on the wheel.

In other words, it’s a fancier form of an expansion plug, with a plastic disc attached at the opposing end of the bolt.

The nut is external, while the square shoulder of the carriage bolt locks against an aluminum washer closest to the hub. It works great. In my previous post, you can see the two different “stacks”; the wheel disc goes behind the aluminum washer closest to the nut.


Hoping I’m in an innovator, haha.

[JacobLeSann]

For those following, a quick update. I used tuft testing as described in Julian Edgar’s books. I started with a duckbill rear spoiler, then tried a modified shape, and then ended up going back to a deck lid extension, based on the Ford Fusion 999 LSR. That seemed to have the smoothest flow with the least separation. I went on a road trip and got almost 497 miles on the stock 13.2 gallon tank. Simple and functional. Read about it here: https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...tml#post686638



It’s actually very tough (I like coroplast engineering), as I used triangular reinforcement gussets as well as a cross-beam at a right angle to the deck. Very lightweight.

This is still a prototype. I want to do the most I can to reduce drag while keeping it looking cool and being functional. The key factor is that I want everything removable when I sell the car down the road. Most of my mods will be restricted to the trunk/bumpers/wheels for that reason.

[JacobLeSann]

Here’s what on my mind today:

Polished version of my current modifications. I like this but I find it kinda corny. Like something from a comic book, but not in a good way.

This was where I learned they made a new Porsche 935! I was not informed! You can tell it was on my mind while drawing. Julian’s video about the Ford Sierra Bi-wing made me wonder if one could be used. I have doubts, but worth a try.

Side view. I measured around 12 degrees down from the roof, and tried to design a spoiler based around that angle. There would be a large gap (for the trunk to open), and I’m not sure if that should be smoothened or not.

Rear view, from above. This is my latest idea, based a bit on what aerohead did to his CRX. This design incorporates side fences on the c-pillars; and a sharp, parachute-shaped edge above the trunk. I’d hope these would catch airflow and create a separation bubble for air to flow over.


And here’s some reference photos. Nice looking car. The 9th Gen coupe looked a lot cooler to me (more streamlined), but I like this computer-mouse car.