New guy, very successful ecomodder
 

Hi there fellow gear heads,

I made the conscious decision to reduce my carbon footprint starting in 2006. Reduced my annual electric consumption from 5500kwh/year to 2200kwh/ year. Designed and built a 1.4Kw grid tied solar PV system with a total out of pocket cost of $3300. I like to do the mostest with the leastest.

Traded my 300K miles, 18mpg, 1986 Toyota 4x4, for a 45K miles, 29mpg, 2001 Tacoma. I acquired a 1989 CRX HF with 82,000 actual miles from the proverbial old lady in August 2008, because I needed to commute 650 miles a week, round trip that fall. My best fill up that fall was 620 miles on 8.2 gallons. I knew I was going to need a good mpg vehicle with the spike fuel prices back then. I read about Honda building 4 wheel independent suspension cars starting in 1988 and they had produced a car that could get 50 mpg. The hunt was on. I spent 6 months searching and found this on Craigslist and bought it sight unseen for $3000. I live in southwest Colorado, drove to southern California and towed it home.

I have pictures of a boattail that I built and removed because it really did not work as thought. Tried aero hub caps, a waste of time and money. Designed and built an awesome hydrogen system and got rid of it because it put too much load on the alternator.

I studied what the NASCAR and F1 guys were doing with computational fluid dynamics and designed my own nose additions to setup air flow at the front of the car and added a diffuser under the back. All I can say is that it works, it was simple and very in expensive. The best and easiest thing anyone can do to any car. No more squirliness in heavy cross and head winds. When the car hits 80 mph you can feel the car suck down to the road. I have pictures I will post. I have designed similar adjustments for a buddies 2001 Pontiac and improved his mileage from 37mpg to 44 mpg. Happy hypermilin' to you all.

coyoteX

welcome! Thats pretty impressive!
do you have pics?

Welcome to EM.
+1 on the pics, but you'll need 5 posts first
and what kind of Pontiac was your buddies? im hoping for 40mpg this summer out of my GA

Welcome! Glad to hear your successes and can't wait to see pics.

welcome.....come on gotta get to 5!!!

+1 subscribed

Looking forward to learning more about your car. Going to post your fuel log here?

(And feel free to make a few "dummy" posts in this thread to get past the 5-post limit so you can add photos.)

Me too!
You can put your images on ImageShack and post the links for now.

Am I the only one that remembers CoyoteX was the name of the kit car in the '80s TV series "Jake and the Fat Man"? Good lord I watched too much TV as a lad lol. Welcome to Ecomodder.

You're not the only one. We actually have another member called.... Coyote_X, and guess what one of his cars is...

new guy, very successful ecomodder ecomodder
 

I am at the bottom of the learning curve to operate on this site. If there is another coyote_X, sorry, the administrator indicated coyoteX was available. I don't fully understand the 5 post requirement before adding pictures. Do I need to post at least 5 times to other threads before I can add photos here?

In reply to Gealii's post, an improvement of 5-10 mpg can be realized by re-configuring how the air gets in and out of the radiator. Most cars are designed for the worst case scenarios, 100+ outside temp, sitting still in traffic with A/C on.

On my buddies '01 Sunfire, it only required removing the diverter piece of plastic just inside the front air opening. The piece of plastic under the car that looks like an air dam. It was located too far behind the bumper. Removing the phony wing off of the trunk lid. Those stupid looking things only create drag you will never drive fast enough for any improved down force. You can create more downforce with a diffusser and create reduced drag at the same time. After removing those aero inefficient parts, it was just a matter of making a mask for the front that smoothed out the airflow, making certain that the farthest point forward was the lowest part of the car. This is the most important factor when playing with airflow on cars in general, "the farthest forward part must be the lowest part.

Just 5 post, they can all be in this thread.

Make three more posts with nothing in them but your name, just to reach five total. Then you will be able to post photos.

The 5 post minimum is to deter spammers and others from using the site for free advertising.

regards
mech