new guy from sunny fl

[geoff]

Hi. I just wanted to say hello to everyone. I have been lurking for a few weeks and I am just joining now. Great forum and people!

I have a 1995 Ford Escort 2-door hatch. I bought it for $500 from a friend of mine about 18 months ago. I work at TitanMotorsports, a retail and whole sale performance parts company. The Escort is my daily driver, with a few minor mods I have been able to get it up to 31-33 mpg consistently for the last year. Its only driven on city streets, light traffic, speeds of 35-50, lots of stoplights, ect. I think it gets pretty good economy for a automatic with the a/c on most of the time.

This site is right up my ally as I strive to get the best mpg I can in any car I drive with-out going to extremes. My girlfriend and parents always comment on how much further I can take a tank of gas in a car than they can (when I drive their cars from time to time).

With the way fuel prices are right now, I love being able to go 300 miles and only fill up with 9-9.5 gallons of regular.

I am currently researching a new daily driver to buy, as the escort is pretty feature less, and while it only has 75K miles, it is starting to show its age in other areas.

I am toying with the idea of an insight, but I feel the prices are out of line for most of the year/miliage/condition a lot of them are in. My other idea is to get a prius or camery hybrid. Id like a car with all the bells and whistles (sat nav, bluetooth, leather seats, ect) that also gets good miliage. The Civic hybrid is also one I want to look at.

Really my only requirement is a car that has a lot of avalible features, and gets the same or better mpg than my 13 year old escort.

I plan on selling the escort privatly when i get a new car, since I think it would still make a good daily for someone rather than see it go to a scrap yard or auctioned off for parts by a dealer-trade in.

Thats my story, I hope I can contribute to this community in a worth-while way.

Thanks, Geoff

[geoff]

Thought I would post up some pictures of my past/present cars(s) :

2000 Mazda MX5 Miata, 5spd, avg. 28mpg (20mpg when I would really romp on it)





2005 Mazda RX8 Touring, 6spd, avg. 20mpg (I could get 24mpg on the highway if I kept it under 72mph, but the best I could do in the city was 22mpg....sometimes as low as 14-16 if I got on it a lot)









Sold the MX5 for the RX8, while I loved the RX8, it was in the shop for something ever other month, lemon'd it and got the Escort for $500 from a friend...now I am just saving my cash for a rainy day.

1995 Escort LX "Sport" Coupe-Hatchback





I was getting high 26-28 when I first picked it up, put some work into it and now I can get low 30's (31-33 average per tank). Its a nice bare bones daily. I wish it was a 5spd so I could eek out another 1-2mpg, but the auto is nice for traffic.

[cfg83]

geoff -

Welcome to EM! That sounds like a cool job for eco-mods. Do you have access to a Dyno?

Eco-Anal-Note - Your front driver's side tire on your Escort needs air.

CarloSW2

[geoff]

Originally Posted by cfg83

geoff -

Welcome to EM! That sounds like a cool job for eco-mods. Do you have access to a Dyno?

Eco-Anal-Note - Your front driver's side tire on your Escort needs air.

CarloSW2

We do have a dyno (2WD model DynoJet) I havent put the escort on there, but I did put my 2 mazda's on there, simply for seeing if the mods on the car were making any more power or changing the powerband/torque curve.

Our dyno is an enertia dyno, so the load on the car is just the constant weight of the rollers. If it were a Mustang Dyno, where the load can be changed while the car is rolling (you can add in drag, weight of car, simulated road friction, ect) then I would be able to see what speed/rpm the car is most efficent at.

As for the tires, yes they were low...those pictures were from about a week after I picked up the car, both font tires were at the end of their life and would loose about 5psi per day. I have since gotten some good all seasons and have found the best mix of economy and confort is 10psi over the cars specs cold.

Most of what I deal with at work are cars that are built/tuned for maximum power, but there is a happy medium that you can find with power and economy. The escort is a fun project for me because I am working on getting the best fuel economy I can.

So far I have done the following with the escort :

Custom front lip/spliter
All synthetic (low weight) oil
K&N air filter
Custom Intake (stock intake/airbox but I have removed all the cold air snorkles/resonators)
10psi over spec (cold) air press.
Removed the spare and some other non-essential items
Full tune-up (belts, gaskets, filter, ect)
NGK "Green" plugs and plug wires
New NGK oxygen sensor

I also have the following planed but not done yet :
Highflow header (with new cat-converter)
New shocks/springs (stock shocks are blown, and I would like to lower the car a bit)
New Swaybars (try to improve the boat feel of the car and reduce understeer)
New brakes (the current ones are getting to the end of their life)

[cfg83]

geoff -

Wow, you have so many tools at your command! I look forward to your MPG results.

CarloSW2