New to Forum, and inspired such a community existed

[SubSonic]

Hi all,
In a bid to find an accurate trip to evaluate fuel efficiency data, I stumbled across your site and it's forum. Therefore I have been viewing your achieves and threads for about a month now and have been inspired by some of the dedicated work I have seen - very nice gentlemen indeed. Although some may be, how can I say politely 'wishful thinking' a lot is innovative, detailed and coherently well documented improvements in economy.

My story is simple in that I commute daily (90 miles round trip) to a large technical college in the UK where I lecturer aerospace engineering and computer aided engineering (CAE) to all levels. The recent hike over the past six months in fuel costs has made me re-evaluate my current driving arrangements, so much so that a new car has been sort and acquired. This recent purchase of a Peugeot "Pug" 206 HDI GTI [2004 27k] has inspired me to seek the from the little auto as much as humanly possible in terms of minimising commuting costs. The idea of 'Aero-modding' ( great name btw) is an obvious favourite, also the need for other electro/mechanical refinements to reduce electrical demands on the power plant is also of consideration.

Even though my goals are personal, I intend to share and expand my R&D to hopefully be useful to other members here, and not just constrained to my pug's profile. Time permitting.

Therefore I look forward to like minded discussions and sharing the fruits of our labours.

Kind regards
SubSonic

[Daox]

Welcome to the site. Congrats on the new vehicle. I'm sure we can help you eek more mileage out of it.

Not to change the subject, but we are open to all forms of energy reduction here. I'm not sure of your living conditions, but have you considered any options that would allow you to live closer to work? 90 miles a day to commute to a job is quite the distance.

[MetroMPG]

Subsonic - welcome.

"a large technical college in the UK where I lecturer aerospace engineering"

I bet that means you are already familiar with, or have access to people who know about fluid dynamics. Good stuff! The aeromods are a favourite around here, as you've already seen.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with your car.

[SubSonic]

Hi Daox,

Indeed that would be the sensible solution, but I like my current home and do not wish to move just yet, but duely noted that would be the best mod of all.

kind regards

SubSonic

[SubSonic]

Hi MetroMPG,

Thanks. Yes indeed sir, I am fortunate to have close to hand, both a closed loop wind tunnel and powerful workstations for flow analysis. If I can help I will but time is always against me.

Kind regards

SubSonic

[cfg83]

SubSonic -

Welcome to EM! With the tools at your disposal it will be cool to see what you come up with. Of all of us you are in the best position to "prove the mod".

CarloSW2

[SubSonic]

Hi Carlo,

Thanks, I'm looking forward to this aspect of work, as it is completely new to me to mod a car for economy. Normally it's the other way around.

I think my biggest hurdle to start with is obtaining/creating an accurate model for the car. I have writen to peugeot to see if they will help in that regard, but as of yet I have had no reply. The next step would be to scan it, but the scanner here will not do objects of such size, which leaves the good old fashioned measure and create method. A lot of work...

I have to say from reading many of the threads the atomosphere here is warm and helpful, it is a refreshing change from the many forums I have been part of in the past.

SubSonic

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by SubSonic

I am fortunate to have close to hand, both a closed loop wind tunnel and powerful workstations for flow analysis.

Oh, lucky you. I could spend many quality hours with tools like that. Beats the heck out of repeated coast-down testing or controlled-as-possible on the road fuel economy runs.

[SubSonic]

haha. The correct part of your comment is 'many hours', the quality part can depend on your pre work accuracy in the virtual world - if thats not up to scratch then don't bother. Trust me its not as much fun as you think the novelty fades after a fashion. To be honest I will probably hardly use it, unless the predictions are way off or theres a nice long free gap. Saying that I think its been used twice this year.

I like the idea of this coast down test, once you make adjustments for your losses etc, use the same test point and conditions it should be fairly good results. Dump the data in to excel job done. I rather have a go at that over a weekend than setup a tunnel test.

Regards

SubSonic