Newcomer - 1995 Ford Aspire Ethanol

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by bhazard

What all did you do to get the car running on eth as it is?

I second this inquiry....

[cbergeron]

Not much... Advancing the timing is pretty much the only thing necessary.

I've been experimenting over email with another guy who is doing the same thing with his. I haven't gotten it up to E98 yet, but I'm working on it with various Gasoline / Ethanol blends.

[Lazarus]

Are you filling up everyday after your trip from work? Also have you been running Ethanol I can't tell from your fuel log?

[cbergeron]

Some days I fill up daily, others I drive until Empty.

I haven't been running with Ethanol lately, at least not since I've been tracking it on my website. I just put the website up a couple of weeks ago.

I'm currently just doing aero mods (taping seals, etc).
After that, I'm going to do more fuel blend mods to see where the sweet spot is.

I don't want to combine modifications, because I can't quantify how much each change affects mileage.

[steensn]

I have a 1996 Aspire and with no modifcations to speak of besides ripping out the back seat, I get 40 MPG doing about a 50/50 City/Highway driving at max speed of 60 MPH.

I came to this board to find some ideas on improving this and am VERY interested on the details on everything you have done so far and how I can do it too. Any details would be GREAT!!!

[esmith2039]

Starting to get a few Aspire's on here. I have a 95 I paid $400 for and have about $200 in parts and put 20k on it so far. Get around 40mpg also. I recently tried taping the grill and seal up under bumper.. let's just say my cooling fan wasn't working. Funny we've drove it for a year with no cooling fan, never got hot. Got hot real fast on the highway. I tore it all off for now. I'm thinking about redoing it with just the upper grille first and then do one piece at a time on the bottom. Going to be a balancing act as if the fan runs it will suck more gas than without the aero mods. From the short time I had it sealed I could tell a big difference in accel etc... so it is worth doing.

BTW mine seems to like Motorcraft 5w20 and it easily added to 2-3mpg. Any other 5w20 it didn't seem to like.

[steensn]

Nice input,I payed $1300 for mine from a dealer a year ago and have put no money into it so far. Before I new anything about or heard anyone else was doing it I started to ripout my seats to save gas mileage.

I now want to go further because I still do not get the 42 from the EPA. I am going to replace the alternator tomorrow because I can tell it is working harder than it needs to recharge the battery. It squeeks real bad and locks up when I start it, but goes away after it charges from the start. I'm going to tune it up at the same time.

I would love to mod it to shut of with a switch when at a red light. I actually do automotive engineering and have a lot of vehicle intergration experiance with the electronics and vehicle communications as well as vehicle performance. I find fuel consumption and savings WAY more interesting than making it faster and sucking gas.

[esmith2039]

That almost sounds like a waterpump. My alternator is going bad but the alt/battery light is coming on .

If you want to get mad crazy with weight reduction a few other pieces hiding that can be removed. Would be at your risk though, I won't remove it on mine since my wife drives it. Under the front and rear bumper skins the bumper supports can be removed and just reinstall the skin, I want to say 20+ lbs a piece. But if you choose you design a more aerodynamic front end (shouldn't he hard to do). Could remove both airbags also, around 8+ lbs piece. Any lightweight Mazda steering wheel can be installed in it's place. Their's a debate if the 1st gen airbags are more harmful than good as that's what the Aspire's use (would never remove 2 gen in new cars though). Your risk though, your insurance wouldn't like it either. So there's around 60lbs plus any aerodynamic savings if you go that route.

Just a few random thoughts.. don't know how they'd help with MPG. Could install a Honda battery instead of a regular size battery the Aspire uses. Probably 5-10lbs there (maybe more). Maybe add some heavier ground wires under the hood. They helped my last Aspire run better, I guess in theory you could say it helps the alternator out hence reduces its drag?

Some racing techniques can be applied to saving techniques just have to slow down rather than speed up.

[steensn]

Originally Posted by esmith2039

That almost sounds like a waterpump. My alternator is going bad but the alt/battery light is coming on .

My first thought was that it was the water pump too, but luckely from my automotive experiance I was able to debug it a little farther. Basically I can make it sqeak by turning on or off electrical devices like lights and rear defrost and make it go away by turning them off.

Originally Posted by esmith2039

If you want to get mad crazy with weight reduction a few other pieces hiding that can be removed. Would be at your risk though, I won't remove it on mine since my wife drives it. Under the front and rear bumper skins the bumper supports can be removed and just reinstall the skin, I want to say 20+ lbs a piece. But if you choose you design a more aerodynamic front end (shouldn't he hard to do). Could remove both airbags also, around 8+ lbs piece. Any lightweight Mazda steering wheel can be installed in it's place. Their's a debate if the 1st gen airbags are more harmful than good as that's what the Aspire's use (would never remove 2 gen in new cars though). Your risk though, your insurance wouldn't like it either. So there's around 60lbs plus any aerodynamic savings if you go that route.

I would never remove airbags, I work in the automotive safety area and would never remove these accept for the passenger seat because I am taking the seat out anyways. If I were to replace the steering wheel with the Mazda one, I would make sure the airbag setup would still work.

Originally Posted by esmith2039

Just a few random thoughts.. don't know how they'd help with MPG. Could install a Honda battery instead of a regular size battery the Aspire uses. Probably 5-10lbs there (maybe more). Maybe add some heavier ground wires under the hood. They helped my last Aspire run better, I guess in theory you could say it helps the alternator out hence reduces its drag?

Good idea on the battery, I'm still tempted to take the spare tire out, but I don't wanna take the risk. I might do the wires, good idea at least to make it run better. I want to install an on off switch for stopping, but I do not want to do it until the car is running superb and all tuned up.

Originally Posted by esmith2039

Some racing techniques can be applied to saving techniques just have to slow down rather than speed up.

Done and done, I'm applying my professional driving skills to get better gas mileage. I read the 100+ list and found I was doing a lot of it, but some of it just didn't go that far.

[bottonavy]

I too am a new member and also own a 1994 Ford Aspire automatic. I'll start a new thread to explain my cars future.