Newbie! Lab Rat!
 

Hey there!

I'm brand new to the eco-modding scene, but I love the concept, and for good reason - I'm a Delivery Driver! No way, right? S/N didn't give it away?

Anywho, I'm here for tips and tricks, and to see if some of my ideas are feasible, fantastic or FUBAR.

I drive a 96 Subaru, which for some of you, might be a bit counter-intuitive, but I live in a heavy snow area - I've had to deliver food in 21 inches of snowfall - while it was still coming down. So for me, that AWD is a necessity.

However, I am a bit tired of spending nearly $400 a month in gasoline.

My current plans are to install the Gasoline version of the Powershot 2000 Dual Propane Injection System from Diesel Performance Products - does anyone have any experience with this? I've seen tons of testimonials from Diesel drivers, but crickets on the Gasoline version. It promises a 30% fuel usage reduction, which I'm all for.

I'm then gonna strip as much extra weight from the inside of my car as I can without turning it into a crashderby racer - I have a GF and children, so I can't bare bones it, nor can I do so simply because of the -30/40 degree weather we get here on occasion.

Roof Rack is gonna be taken off, and I'm trying to figure out this "underbelly" plate concept.

Hypermiling is nearly out of the question because of the area where I live is all rolling hills, and most of the driving I do is in city. I do what I can - it's a manual, I do neutral on hills, turning my engine off one major hills, there's quite a few stoplights downtown that (during the day) I turn my engine off completely for their duration, cruise control every chance I get, shifting at about 2100 RPM, keeping my car at 1500 RPM as often as possible, 63 mph on the interstate, I keep my windows up, I keep my heater low, I turn off my car at every restaurant I pick up from and at every customer's house.

With careful habits, I've got my car up to about 23.5-24.4 MPG in city, and about 29.7 on the highway, with specs that are supposed to be about 22 city and 29 Highway. When I first got her, she was at 19 mpg! I replaced the spark plugs and a few other things, got it up to standard, and then went to work on my habits. Now that I've got those down, I want to start working on mods.

A few ideas I've had: I wanna see if I can replace all but my front and rear windows with Plexiglass to reduce weight.

I wanna see if I can install a deep-cycle battery in conjunction with my normal battery so I can just kill my engine at every single stop light and at least leave my heat on while I'm waiting on orders without worrying about murdering my battery.

Has anyone ever tried installing an Ozone Generator in their air intake? Seems to me the free oxygen would improve mileage - but maybe I have it backwards and it would just improve power.

And I'm curious how a slow leak Nitrous injector would couple with the propane injection system I'm getting, if I put an EFIE in as well.

I am open to be a guinea pig for ideas. I drive around 120-180 miles per day, I fill up my tank completely every other day. If you have an idea you've wanted to try and want quick results, you tell me how to do it and if it's in my budget, I'll go ahead and be your lab rat ( Would be nice if you buy me a new car if your idea makes mine explode, though :P ).

Hope to hear from you all soon!

Edit: Rather than just googling the specs, like I have been - I went ahead and went to the Fuel Economy Gov website that you've got here and it turns out that my car is rated at 19 MPG city, 22 Combined and 26 Highway, which puts me way higher than EPA! I've started my fuel log so it'll be much more accurate soon :)

Any expensive gadget is going to take forever to pay itself off; do the math first before investing in a propane setup.

Those things aren't very aerodynamic. Look in to what you can do to fix that.

I'd suggest starting with a grill block, warm air intake and looking into seeing if anyone does an economy tune for it. If not then consider tricking it with sensor mods.

Of course you can start by pumping your tires to their limit as per what's stamped on the sidewall. And make sure your alignment is good; both will reduce rolling resistance.

I'd think hills could be good for MPG...you get to run WOT up the hill, or close, where you engine is most efficient, and then you get to coast down the other side. Pulse and glide at it's fullest...?

Welcome!

Judging by your own MPG assessment, you're doing quite well already, which shows you're willing to learn as otherwise you probably wouldn't get there doing deliveries in a hilly area and all :thumbup:

I can recommend maintaining a fuel log. It is a great motivator for saving fuel.
Air up the tires, that gives immediate improvement for free (not nitrogen: air is 80% nitrogen anyway).

Also an OBDII monitoring tool that shows instant MPG, like a ScanGauge, UltraGauge or ELM327 (clone) Bluetooth dongle with Torque on your smartphone will be invaluable; you can set those up to show other variables like engine temp, air intake temp, timing advance, engine load %, open/closed loop burning (the latter is more efficient), anything the ECU can throw at you.
And reset engine codes if needed, which saved me a few trips to the dealer...

Then of course reading the 100+ hypermiling tips and 65+ efficiency mod links on top of the page. Not all tips are practical, but every single one is food for thought.

The don'ts: It is a 22 year old car. Saving weight is fine, but not if it takes more than a little money or time. You are not likely getting another 100,000 miles out of it.

Propane injection works, but it's just replacing one fuel with another. There's a substantial risk and initial cost, and the gains are small at best. Again, I wouldn't do it in an old car - but then I would not in any car.

Ozone, HHO, Marvel Mystery oil, Fuel Shark, etc. are snake oil. All of them have been debunked well enough, never have these been proven to work in ordinary vehicles. Yours may be the exception, but you have better chances winning the lottery. Better put your effort in something that will work.

Then many of us are dreamers, investigators and experimentators, so whatever you do we'll appreciate the effort :)

But first things first: air up the tires, block part of the grill, start a fuel log, buy an UltraGauge, smooth out the hub caps, construct a boat tail, scratch that last one for now :)

Heed what RedDevil said, it's good advice.

You should not need the additional deep cycle battery if you put on a trickle charger every night. If the stock battery fails, replace with an Odyssey AGM battery.

When it is time to replace tires, look for low rolling resistance tires. The Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires on my truck are stamped "Ultra Low Rolling Resistance" on the sidewalls.

Install a kill switch and use it freely. The goal is to eliminate engine idling by shutting it off.

Sensor mods? What kinds of mods would those be? There's only one guy here that does Dynos and he's backed up for months. As for tires and alignment, already on top of that.

The hills are weird - they're windy and uneven. They're more like plateaus than hills. You'll have a 900 foot incline at 55 mph speed limit with an incline that makes it hard to reach 55 in a reasonable time span in 3rd gear, and then at the top, got a mile of residencies that have their own little hills here and there, and then on the other side, it'll kinda be stepped back down - little hill, flat. Little hill, flat.

And since there's a literal mountain in the middle of our town, it's not always economical to go back down the steep way - I have 31 different restaurants I have to pick up from that all are on all sides of the damned thing. I might pick up on the north side going to the south side, which is accessible from middle and west, but then have to go to another pick up on the west side, which taking the steep hill back into town would mean I'd have to go to downtown, through downtown, out west, curve around the mountain and pick up - I'd actually waste more gas than I'd save. It's a pain, to be perfectly honest.

The battery is also because to save the 4 miles to my house and back to town that I'd drive when I'm on downtime between orders, I just sit in parking lots with my car off, sometimes for 2 - 3 hours at a time on like Monday's and Tuesday's. I have a power inversion system set up with my laptop and my xbox, running wireless off my phone's hotspot.

The tires honestly aren't worth the money I'd spend - we have maybe 3-4 months here where there's not a threat of ice. Here in SoDak we have a saying "Nice day! Give it five minutes." The weather can change at a drop of a hat.

The kill switch, I'm a little nervous to try because of our winding hills. I turn my car to ACC all the time, and those brakes go ridiculously hard. Loss of power steering isn't all that bad, just need an adjustment period, but losing the brakes is :eek:

California98Civic set up some sort of extra vacuum to keep more braking potential available during EOC (engine off coasting) with his kill switch. Might be worth a read.

If you keep it in lower gear above, say, 2000 RPMs with your foot off the pedal, your car goes into DFCO (Deceleration Fuel Cutoff Operation) where it uses absolutely no fuel, and uses the rotation of the engine to keep the vehicle from speeding up as much. Helps when going down steep hills.

Thanks!

I use RealDash!

I disagree. With regular Maintenance, I had a 95 Subaru that lasted 410K miles. This one currently has 236K, and I've just redone the timing belt. I've also begun installing all LED to lessen draw on the alternator and other systems.

This is an interesting system! It's not substitution, it's addition - the system is a simple install that injects propane into your air intake just short of your O2 Sensor. It works partially by tricking your O2 sensor into believing the Engine is running rich, and thus the ECU backs off the fuel pressure, and since propane burns hotter, it allows for a much more complete burn of the fuel, as well as adding the same amount of energy that would have been in the fuel that was held back. In addition, since Propane burns almost 100% clean, it reduces engine wear by eliminating carbon deposits and keeping your oil clearer for longer. I'm very excited to try it. I will let you all know how it goes, and post results. Most tests indicate a 30% jump in mileage.

Damn. I thought I was onto something.

Don't expect propane to give you a big boost in mpg.
Once you add up all the gasoline and propane you may see a 1 or 2% difference.
Right now for me propane is $2 per gallon. But propane only contains around 3/4 the energy of gasoline so you burn 25% more.
Ozone generators, hho generators are all scams.
Nitrous oxide is very expensive, plus if the nitrous leaks into the intake while the car is off and you go to start it you can blow the intake manifold off the engine as soon as you go to start it.
Running the heat while the car is off will only really work for as long as the little bit of coolant in the heater core stays warm. So you will maybe have heat for a minute or two.

Try a low rolling resistance winter tire.

Someone I know rebuilt his Ford Bronco to run on propane, and gets significantly lower fuel economy with propane, but due to how inexpensive propane is, he is saving a decent amount of money. However, like with electric, you'd need a decent source of propane so you aren't stranded. Propane isn't as readily available as gas and diesel are. Plus, the changeover is complicated.

I would think a warm air intake would be a good first mod (if your car is happy with it).

I typed out a big response to RedDevil earlier, but it got eaten by the newbie filter - I tried to share a link, so waiting on a mod response :(

It's not a conversion - it's an additional fuel, added directly to the air intake. It fools the O2 sensor into thinking there's more fuel (edit: Well, more GAS than there actually is, it equates to roughly the same amount of fuel to avoid knocking) going into the engine than there actually is, so the computer backs off on the injectors. According to the source, a single 20 lb tank should last approximately 400 miles, adding an average of 6 mpg to any car installed.

Sounds like a crude DIY propane add-on. Half the reason I haven't set up my own is that, as I understand it, propane like to burn exhaust valves if it's running rich. If you're depending on the O2 sensor to prevent it by reducing how much fuel it's putting in, chances are it's going to be running rich a lot of the time...until the ECU has time to compensate.

Of course, for all I know, it might not be a concern with such a small ratio or propane.

Another reason I didn't want to do it is the car I was willing to try it on depended on a MAP sensor to decide on it's A/F ratio...if you introduced a gaseous substance, it would see it as there being more air in the manifold and would, presumably, think it needs to add more fuel to the mix, when it should be adding less.

I'd prefer to use it on something that uses a MAF sensor. Not only could you avoid the engine thinking there's more air going in, but if you could add air along with the propane post-MAF, at the right ratio, the ECU wouldn't have much to compensate for. Something I'd like to try one day...

Also mind that propane injection like that only works when the engine is in closed loop. In open loop (like when cold or accelerating flat out) the ECU falls back to standard values; then the extra propane smothers the engine.

https://thejar.hitchcock.zone/files/carousel/46_04.jpg
(Cary Grant voice): "Rapid City, South Dakota!"

Does that one gas station on the east side of town still have all those stuffed and mounted big game animals?

As others have said, HHO and whatnot are all snake oil--you might as well try Rocket Tabs for all the good it will do you. I would skip the propane; I don't see that paying for itself. And I wouldn't bother with Plexiglass windows--they may be lighter, but there are easier ways to lose as much weight for no cost and not have to deal with issues like weathering, scratching, and sealing. (See the Green Grand Prix modding thread for an example list).

If you're spending considerable time idling waiting for orders, and stopping with the engine off, I would look into engine insulation to retain heat in addition to more battery capacity. Specifically, (and I'm going to try this on my car) an engine "jacket" like BMW announced they would develop a few years ago and apparently never did. But, this guy made one for his Insight :

http://99mpg.com/getimage.asp?id=/Pr...ide.jpg&mode=0

You are not adding any fuel economy to your vehicle.
Just burning propane in place of gasoline.
Which in most places propane is more expensive than gasoline.

Yeah in SD a warm air intake could be a huge help this time of year.

poster child for electric drive
 

DeliveryDriver, you sound like a perfect candidate for a second car, both for reliability/redundancy and quick payback on an electric vehicle. As Rapid City has four Level 2 EV charging stations, save that Subie for winter beater duty, and consider an EV for the other 8 months. A Bolt could cover all of your daily miles and feel like a rocket compared to the Outback, and a Volt could make the most of hour hours-long downtime for taking opportunity recharges.

Of course, the AWD Teslas aren't cheap yet, but you do have a Supercharger in town, and a 2WD Model S with lifetime free supercharging is now pretty easy to find in the $40k range...

For year-round efficiency, a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV has electric AWD that has proven its mettle in Scandinavia and the Australian outback.
Here's an Outlander PHEV at your local dealer, and after the $5836 tax credit, you'd experience some significant monthly savings on a single car solution EVen without midday recharges.. Drivers are reporting 34 mpg after the 20 miles of electric only range.
https://www.libertymitsubishi.com/ne...5f34960056.htm

2nd car for days you don't need AWD, I'd pick a Mirage, idle consumption is probably under 1/3 gallon per hour, $.66 an hour to stay warm.

Forget propane, in 20 lbs tanks it's around $4 a gallon, $5.80 gasoline equivalent. (88,000 btu per gallon vs 128,000 btu, from memory could be off some).

When adding a extra fuel to the air stream the car's LTFT(Long Term Fuel Trim) will go negative using less gasoline, you'd really want that amount of fuel to be constant ratio with the air flow so that the LTFT doesn't jump all over the place. The most you can do without getting a CEL is about 20% of fuel demand. Open Loop or Closed loop the LTFT is still used to adjust the mixture.

Less Crude than just dumping a hose into your air intake, but DIY installation, yes.

It meters out depending on the engine vacuum at the moment, and you can manually control the flow from inside the vehicle, from .5 cfm at idle to 1.5 cfm at full bore, or any variant thereof depending on how your car reacts to it.

I'm gonna say this as nicely as I can... WHERE TF DO YOU LIVE THAT PROPANE IS $4 A GALLON?!

It is 2.16-2.36 depending on the time of year here at my local Tractor Supply. I use it for my grill, and a full tank costs me like 15 bucks after tax.

Gasoline on the other hand, is at 2.66, but it's only been there for maybe 5 days, it was 2.87 for a long time, and 2.95 all summer.

As for everyone saying to add a second car, I'd really rather drop the 800 on a potentially useless propane system. I just added my gf to my insurance and it went from 157 dollars a month to 396 a month - drivers that use their car for work pay MUCH higher premiums. Adding yet another car, and a new one at that, would have me paying probably 700 a month for insurance, plus a 2-300 dollar a month car loan payment?!

The point here is to save money lolol.

A 20 lb tank is 4.7 gallons, $15/4.7 = $3.19. I paid $1.32 earlier this month for bulk delivery. They charge almost $18 to fill 20 lb tanks. $18/4.7 = is $3.82. Not many years ago with I had to pay over $3 a gallon delivered, usually 275 gallons at a time.

With the reduction in energy content per gallon on top of that a gallon of propane in 20 lbs tanks is equivalent to $5+ gasoline. If you can get bulk delivery price you can save.

I keep seeing that pop up here and I've never even heard of them, but I'll definitely look into it.

My other thought that I forgot to mention earlier, since cold starts are a huge pain here - I do have a block heater. And a power inverter. Aaaand a smart plug that I can control with my phone, including a timer.

If I run a regular battery in conjunction with the deep cycle battery that has a 210 minute discharge - regular creates crank, runs vehicle while on, deep cycle runs it while off, couldn't I potentially plug the block heater into the inverter with a timed plug that turns on an hour before I go to work, and essentially just use the cars power to heat itself?

Thereby eliminating the power wastage/pollution that block heaters create by being plugged into a wall?

Well here it's 2.36. 2.36x4.7 is 11.09. And SD has really really low taxes. I wasn't being exact when I said "like $15" haha. It was 12 or $13 total. 5 gallons in gas on the other hand, up until last week, was costing me 14.35.

Now that may not seem like much of a difference, but given that I get about 24 mpg, and drive about 4500 miles a month, including work and personal drive time, it costs me about 12 cents a mile. Dropping that down even by a single cent will save me 45 dollars per month. The product promises a 30% reduction, that's really hard to just ignore - that would save me
162 dollars a month, which means that even factoring in propane costs, the product should pay for itself in around 7-8 months.

This company has RAVE reviews for it's diesel product, and not just on their site - I dug into various other car forums and found quite a few of their customers who have seen 8-10 mpg gains in Diesel's from the 80's - and they have been in production for 17 years. The gas product is relatively new, but I'm just gonna have to trust they know what they're doing.

Now that's an interesting concept... Yeah, I generally spend 10-20 minutes in front of each restaurant with the car off and it can get bitterly cold in the cabin real quick. I've got an electric coat and heated seats, but those only go so far when it's 30 mph winds and -20 outside.

And I think you're talking about Wall, SD? A town that's pretty much an oversized gas station and gift shop? Yeah, it's still there lol. I hate it. So many signs for it and it's just weird.

I'll have to check Tractor Supply for refills, 2 empties at home, one in the grill last a lot longer this time of year. I filled with my car Friday at $1.96 for E15.

I wonder how big of tank you'd have to have to get bulk prices? My dad used to hang 100 lb tanks he delivered that were almost empty upside down to drain into his 20's and 1's.

One of my daughters worked at Mt Rushmore Visitor Center summer last summer. Her car was acting up so had to drive out to visit and swap cars.

Speaking of Wall, had a Northern Iowa Panthers hat on at gas station, guy asked were I was from, I usually just say SE Iowa since town of under 300, he grew up about 4 miles from me, 1st cousin lived across the street from me.

Post approved!

I'll check to see if there's a post in the moderation queue when I get back to my usual IP address (blocked myself from here :D ).


When you make one more post, you'll be past the limit for including URL's in posts. We're pretty sure you're not a spammer now!

Belated welcome to the forum, DeliveryGuy89!

I did an eco-driving session with an AWD Subie owner (about the same vintage of yours, but automatic), and was surprised how thirsty it was (not knowing the EPA numbers ahead of time).

Sounds like you're a big fan of the brand, but I'd be planning ahead: are there any better MPG options in your price range with AWD? You cut your fuel consumption in half during the non-snow months with an additional vehicle - is that an option?

Until then, follow the good advice given so far. I suspect you won't find a huge improvement in your numbers considering how much effort you're already putting in. PS: kudos for doing delivery with a manual. That helps a TON if you're driving it well.

PPS: Nokian makes a really LRR winter tire, from what I've read. Lemme see if I can find it...


Edit - here's one thread: Riding on Nokian LRR winter tires: R2

You wrote you use RealDash...
It uses the ELM327 protocol, but also they say you can use USB to communicate with the ECU.
That's new to me. Is that true, is there an OBDII to USB converter or such?

Thinking outside the box, how many days a year do you need AWD, is the savings of using almost half the fuel on days you do work worth it to say home on the AWD days.

I've decide to not got to work on bad days vs taking the extra time to get to work if I can't drive a reasonable speed and safely in my FWD car. But I have vacation days I can use.

Your minutes of reserve capacity is how long the battery can produce 25 amps with out falling below 10.5v at 80F. The problem with 10.5v is that's really freaking dead and is probably damaging the battery.
You are likely no where near 80F when using the battery.
The smallest block heaters are typically 600 watt so the battery will run the block heater for maybe around an hour.
Then it will take up to 10 hours to fully charge the battery.
Chances are the car alternator doesn't produce enough volts to push finishing amps through the battery.

There was a test over here where they had 2 more or less identical cars, one FWD on winter tires, one 4WD on all season tires, try to mount the slope of an indoor ski track. Amazingly, the FWD car on winter tires did marginally better.

Then they went on to do brake tests... OMG, the snow tires are so much better. The 4WD was all over the place.

That's the snag with 4WD - you cannot brake harder than you accelerate, so chances are it catches you out unwarned in tricky conditions.

I love Subarus - my best friend had several Imprezas (and a WRX right now), my dad a string of Legacys. But they drink like there's no tomorrow.
Almost any car on proper tires will get you through almost any kind of weather. If you want grip, it is tires, tires, tires... then car.

Dump the winter tires well before they are worn though. My winter tires are wearing, and I do notice how much the grip in snow has degraded for it.

Well, historically speaking, it's snowed in June here before, so... Typically, however, it stops snowing in April or May, and then begins to do so intermittently in September, and USUALLY, it's snowy from October to March.

This year has been unusually warm and dry. People around here still laugh at global warming though, makes me angry.

This is true, and not to sound like a snob, but that's where experience comes in. An unexperienced driver will easily be caught unawares, but I learned how to drive in this weather 10 years ago, and I've been doing so for a living for 5 years now.

The bonus to having AWD in the snow, IMO is that they are heavier - you are less likely to roll if you lose grip and end up off roading, and if you do end up in a ditch, you're much less likely to need towed out. It has happened to me several times - last week, in fact.

My girlfriend and I went to visit her aunt a few towns over, and on the way back I let her drive, but I had to pee, so we pulled over (breaking the law, I know, waving my flag in the wind, but when you gotta go, you gotta go...) and she pulled WAY too far off the road, on a hill, covered in slow. When we went to leave, oops, went sideways down the 30 foot hill to rest in the ditch at the bottom.

She tried for a minute to get out, but couldn't.

I got in driverside, gunned that sucker until it ate through the frozen dirt, got up to 65 in the snow and then ran up incrementally at an angle, dodged a mile marker sign, caught air, hit the road and kept going.

I would contend that above all else, the experience and knowledge of the person sitting in the driver's seat matters more than any vehicle component - much like with hypermiling, the biggest tool you have is your own habits and knowledge of your vehicle.

Thank you! I really appreciate it!

You know, I'm honestly not sure. I just use a bluetooth OBDII.

Thank you, and thanks for the welcome!

I'mma go ahead and share the links I wanted to share earlier, for RealDash and the PowerShot, as I think they could be of great use to this community.

RealDash

With RealDash, you can create your own custom "dashboard" that fits on a tablet - it tracks every single component your ECU has access to, and is a breeze to use. Even in an older car like mine, it shows me an exact number for my oil and coolant temp, speedometer and you can even set up a tachometer that reads down to the individual revolutions.

There's no CEL - it'll instantly tell you the moment something malfunctions in your car, even if it's one of those annoying intermittent things that stop doing it before you can get to your garage to read your codes, and it has logbooks where you can go back and analyze every bit of data your computer had at the moment of malfunction.

The basic set up shows you a standard dash, with your music player and GPS and mpg pulled up. Cost 6.99 for the app and about 30-150 dollars for a Bluetooth OBDII. I'd show you my set up, but I dropped my tablet getting out of my car the other day :mad:

Oh, and I haven't tried it, but I guess there's a way that you can kinda create a virtual version of your car and then upload it into various PC "games," where you can then test engine modifications and driving styles to get an accurate theoretical model for how those modifications would affect performance.

You can even tune your Dyno if you know what you're doing, but I haven't dared to touch that.

It's really freaking cool.

I know you're all for the ScanGauge, but I truly love this system. You can plug it into your computer and read all kinds of technical readings.

Powershot 2000l

The Powershot is the Propane system I'm looking into using! The site can much better answer all the technical objections you've brought up.

I'm not the most technically minded, so could you break that down into a simple yes or no? I work 10 hours a day, and at least 6-7 hours of that is on the road - if I just set it for days where it was gonna be below freezing, for half an hour, would this be feasible?

Edit: I should probably mention that it is in a semi-heated garage, so it's not like I'll be doing it at -30, more like 35-40.

You can try it. I wouldn't expect it to work really well or the battery to last very long unless it was put on a charger over night and fully charged every day it's used.
If it's in a heated garage why not use grid power for the block heater?
A 600 watt block heater is going to use about 5 cents worth of power every hour it's on.

It really sounds like you need a warm air intake.
You likely never heard of it before because it's strictly a fuel economy thing.
No self respecting ricers would ever do such a thing because it might cost them 2hp at wide open throttle.