New member in Richmond, VA

[MechEngVT]

Greetings! I just signed up here but had visited the site before looking at all the interesting aero mods some folks have worked on.

I'm a 29 year old mechanical design engineer who has had a lifelong interest in cars and constantly seek to learn more about vehicles. I read an article about hypermiling about a year ago and started to learn and apply a few techniques and according to my fuel log I'm a "hypermiler" now.

I drive a 2002 Dodge Ram 4x2 V8/5spd that is stock except a K&N air filter and vinyl rolling tonneau cover. All of my fuel log info comes from my work commute which varies between 44 and 50 miles round trip per day depending on roads, plus an occasional "other" use such as a dump load or Home Depot run. Mostly highway with an occasional toll plaza and/or traffic jam thrown in.

I'm interesting in learning more aero tricks until I'm confident enough to experiment on my own. I'd also like to try my hand at designing aero parts since I'm fairly SolidWorks CAD proficient and someday I'd like to try my hand at some Computational Fluid Dynamics, although I don't have such tools at my disposal quite yet.

See y'all around the forums,
Craig

[SVOboy]

Welcome to ecomodder! Looking forward to seeing what you can do with the truck!

[XFi]

Welcome Craig!

[powershooter]

welcome

[The Baron]

Welcome! Fellow Richmonder here. Good to see there are others in our area hypermiling. If you see someone drafting behind you, that may be me.

[Daox]

Welcome to the site Craig. Thats quite the vehicle to travel 40+ miles a day in. Have you considered getting a cheap commuter to replace it? You'd have to run the numbers to make sure it'll pay off, but its worth looking into. Besides that it looks like your doing pretty darn good for a full size truck! From one SolidWorks user to another, I look forward to seeing some designs.

[MechEngVT]

I've run the numbers, but my truck is paid for and with just passing 106k it should have more useful life in it. Since I figure I'll be taking on a monthly payment of up to $300 for a used car (my wife gets nervous when I talk about driving something she thinks is too old or unreliable, plus she's paranoid about passive crash safety ratings) gas prices would have to top $10/gal to break even in a 35mpg vehicle (immediate payoff). I have considered a commuter, but I already own 4 vehicles (all paid for). One of them I doubt I could sell, a 1988 Dodge Ramcharger that gets 14mpg almost no matter what and won't pass state inspection, and another that I just need to repair and I'll probably switch to driving it (1999 Subaru Legacy SUS with blown head gaskets). The fourth is a 2000 Honda Odyssey I inherited and the wife drives (and it still manages to get about as good gas mileage as my truck). We're not keen on the Odyssey and have been itching to replace it but haven't found anything late-model/low-mileage the wife likes that fits the bill, so we make do.

Also I'm beginning to work 4x10-hour days so that will cut 20% off my weekly commute, and my wife is going to only work part time now (2x12-hour shifts instead of 3x or 4x) so that helps cut back.

[Johnny Mullet]

Glad to have you here! Welcome to the site.