Results from MPG Rally in Lacey, WA
 

Well it was a success. 10 participants, 9 finishers. I must say, very impressive numbers by all!

Wayne Gerdes attracted a local TV station to spread the hypermiling word. The weather kind of sucked, but the booth still received a fair amount of traffic.

AndrewJ had alot of Q&A from the public about his tasteful aero mods. Thanks to his patient wife hanging out at the mall for hours and hours while he did his thing.

The rally was ranked on % over EPA. So here is how it stacked up:

Name: Actual MPG EPA Combined % of EPA Vehicle Desc.
Kim Yee 63.64 33.00 192.84% 02 Saturn SL1
Wayne Gerdes 113.50 64.00 177.34% 02 Honda Insight
Bill Kinney 106.90 64.00 167.03% 03 Honda Insight
Andrew Johnmeyer 68.58 42.00 163.28% 94 Civic CX
Roland Kouhsen 45.07 29.00 155.42% 07 Civic EX
Jud Engeles 95.40 64.00 149.06% 02 Honda Insight
Dan Wright 61.82 45.00 137.38% 00 VW Golf TDI
Matt Oberfield 61.69 45.00 137.10% 03 VW Golf TDI
Ed Miller 63.73 47.00 135.59% 93 Geo Metro
Randy Smith DNF (Problem with final fuel fill.)

Nice stuff! Way to go, andew, :)

Great news & nice effort. Looking forward to some of the war stories after Andrew decompresses. (Unless you want to share.)

It would be nice to know what kinds of mods some of those cars have. I obviously know about Anderw's mods, and I'm pretty sure I know about the car Wayne used (borrowed?), but Kim Yee's Saturn FE is unexpected.

Check out my old gaslog. 62mpg tank. I only used 3/8ths of the tank but my wife needed the car. This tank was logged in rural TN. Taking short trips around my home town. Those are great numbers though. I'd also like to know what mods he has.

http://www.gassavers.org/garage/viewgaslog/127?

Man, your FE make me feel like a loooooooooooser!

The car Wayne and Jud used had one mod - a switch to temporarily disable assist/regen. Made it like driving a metro.

I can't even find any pictures of the rally. Did anyone take a picture and post it?

Here's a few pics from the MPG rally/alternative energy fair.

Here are all the hypermilers that were competing in the MPG rally (sans myself and the blue Insight that bestmapman and Wayne drove)

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...ilerswhips.jpg




And here's everyone getting ready to go on the MPG rally course. Bestmapman ran the course earlier (I think) while myself and Wayne ran the course several hours later.


http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...lersrollin.jpg



Here's a few shots of the EV grand prix that was going on throughout the day. These were electric trikes, and some of them where pretty damn fast.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...grandprix3.jpg


http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...grandprix1.jpg


http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...grandprix2.jpg



And here are a few of the electrics that were hanging around.

There were several Zapcars. Pretty cool little cars, you Canadians can only drool....

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...yer/zapcar.jpg



Here's an electric Porsche 914

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...lectric914.jpg


And an electric pickup truck powered by Ni-Cad aircraft starter batteries. 1.2 volts and 30aH each!

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...nicadtruck.jpg



And last but not least an old Citicar that was just sitting in the parking lot, someone drove it to the fair, but wasn't showing it!

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...er/citicar.jpg


And here's the best-looking metro I've ever seen, better yet, it's an XFI conversion. MetroMike's car.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/f...romikesxfi.jpg

What was the rally course and was it warm engine or cold?

And can you share how they measured the amount of fuel consumed?

Was this the course http://www.ci.lacey.wa.us/events/gra...course-001.jpg

Hi,
The MPG Rally was fun. I hope we can we will do this again next year.

Here are the list of things I did on my 2002 Saturn SL1.

Somender Signhs Groove on a 1995 Saturn SL head
wideband O2 sensor with my own circuit to adjust the fuel mixture with I am driving.
Narrow tires 175/70R14 @45psi (instead of OEM 185/65R14 @ 30psi)
Scangauge I
Some porting in the cylinder head

95% Pulse and Glide driving.

-Kim Yee

When I saw your name, I thought it might be you! Really looking forward to hearing more about your car, sounds like an ecomodder's dream!

AndrewJ, Thanks for getting some photos of the event up, I have very few.

To answer some of the questions:

Kim Yee installed a rebuilt head, due to a mixup his compression ended up much higher than stock. He didn't know how high exactly but he now has to use premium and retard the timing significantly to control predetonation. He said that the increase in compression hasn't made a huge impact on FE. He attributed the mileage almost exclusively to hypermiling technique.

Few of the vehicles in the rally had any significant modifications. AndrewJ's civic was the most modified by far. AndrewJ or others that talked at more length with participants may have more detail on what each person did. Though modding is an American pasttime, big FE numbers are all about driving technique. Jud said that in competitions Wayne turns off the electric assist. Figure that.

Talk about technique, Wayne and Jed were getting like 80mpg at 75-80mph on the way to the event. From die-hard hypermilers, that is something I'd like to learn how to do! You can bet that thier road trips are not a boring stroll down the slab, it's all about strategy man! Strategy!

The course was 91 miles, there is not an online map - next year. If you want to mapquest it start at Lacey, WA; go to Rainier, Tenino, Rochester, Oakville, Malone, McCleary, Hwy 101 at Shelton, thru downtown Olympia, back to Lacey.

It was a cold or warm start, most did luke warm as they were sitting for a while before starting. The time schedule kind of fell apart as there were several vehicles arriving late and I didn't want to exclude anyone. So we ran 'em when we got 'em. Vehicles with integrated MPG displays (Honda Insight in these cases) used thier display due to fill inconsistencies with the bladder fuel tank (and they are pretty accurate). Those without displays handed in thier fuel reciepts and mileage was calculated with a fixed 91 miles.

This was a 'non-competitive' event and was run on the honor system. Though Kim's tank was very impressive, some may say too impressive, we have to honor his reporting. Maybe next year we can have start/finish filling for vehicles without integrated fuel mileage computers, we'll see if a sponsor can come through on this.

There was a lot learned by anyone plugged into this event. Wayne is a talker and a really nice guy. He is eager to share what he knows about driving technique and it is his life's mission right now to spread the word on how to use fuel efficiently, and how the average person can use good technique to save a bunch on fuel. If he is in your area for an event, make it a point to attend there is a lot to be learned from him and others willing to share.

He states that if you use good technique you can easily get 20% better mileage as a gimme, and 30-50% using some advanced techniques. At just 20% and paying $3.60 a gallon, it's like paying $2.88 if my math is correct. Who sells gas for that nowadays?

Thanks for the clarification Kim. Also thanks for driving. Very nice work!
See you next year!
-Garth

Wayne and Jud chronicling their cross-country trip. They're still on the road.
http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9513

Scangauge version 1 in my car showed 69MPG for the rally. I don't think the number was accurate in the Scangauge. I have a wideband o2 sensor with monitor that show fuel/air mixture in real time. In my Saturn, when the engine restarts during P&G driving, the car computer goes to open loop for 15 to 30 seconds. In the open loop, the mixture is 10% higher than in closed open. Scangauge report the same real time MPG between open and closed loop. The Scangauge in my car was adjusted to my daily drive which around 20% P&G. I the MPG rally, I did 95% P&G. I think the 95% P&G makes the Scangauge report higher MPG number than real.

The car is running 1 to 15.8 fuel/air ratio in closed loop and 1 to 14.3 in open loop. I think 63MPG is petty closed to real. This means the number from Scangauge is like 8% to 10% higher than real. This is 69MPG * (14.3/15.8) = 62.5MPG. If we can do start/finish filling next year, I will know the MPG number for sure.

Kim Yee,
I'd love to hear more about your wideband O2 sensor and fuel-mix mod. I didn't see you or get to talk to you at the fair, or I'd have asked you then...

-Andrew

Oh, BTW, Roland's 45mpg run in his completely stock Civic EX was pretty damn impressive.
Those cars are pretty heavy, and the EX isn't exactly known for it's economy. That and he had his wife/girlfriend/significant-other in the car with him the whole run.

Hi Andrew,
For the wideband O2 sensor mod:
I bought a PLX M250 Controller like this one. It comes with a narrowband analog output. I didn’t use it because it fixed at 1:14.7 ratio. What I use is the wideband output (0-5V). However, the wideband output is the invert of the narrowband. Also, the wideband is a linear signal and narrowband is more like switching signal. To make the wideband signal looks like narrowband signal, I use a Schmitt Trigger to convert it. By changing the R1 and R2 values in the Schmitt Trigger, I can change the trigger voltage which in turn change the mixture ratio.

Hi all,

I dropped Wayne off last night in Chicago and got home at 2:00 AM. I had a great time at Lacey and this was the first MPG competition that I was ever in.

Andrew, I was great to meet you face to face. You have done a great job with the aero mods and I wish there was more time to check them out.

So I've been "lurking", but this website may just turn into one of my coveted "Favorite Bookmarks" website. Great seeing all the results posted online. The 45 mpg dwindle in comparison to the triple-digit mpgs, but I suppose I take a different approach to economy. All the comfort with none of the drawbacks; cos' wifey has to be comfy! :D

For me the rally was a gauge to see how well the car would perform under "controlled conditions" without mods. I contemplated inflating the tires, but that would have skewed "normal" driving conditions. The lower speed of 45-55 was a little unrealistic, but still useful enough as a starting point.

(Oh, maybe it's nothing, but I DID replace the stock air filter with a K&N drop-in. Nothing else.)

Question to all who participated, and all those that have tasted blood: Where will we go to next year? IMHO we should integrate more freeway and city driving. A drive to Tacoma, up some of their hills maybe? Maybe a minimum average speed closer to today's tour driving - like 50-60mph? Checkpoints? Maybe stickers on the gas flaps to prevent mid-trip fill-ups?

Flame on modders, flame on! :p

p.s.: Tires are now up to 34 psi cold - according to the event sponsored tire gauge :thumbup:. Makes me wonder what they were at before! Honda recommends 32 or 33 psi.

Superchow! Thanks for stopping by ecomodder, great to have so many competitors hanging out here, :)

That's a sweet ride, no hating on that.

Wife / co-pilot / cop and deer spotter / navigator. All the good things! :thumbup: Can't wait until next year.

Woot! Glad to see a Civic EX STOCK getting that kind of mileage, the car isn't TOO heavy stock (about 2700lbs meh). 45 without mods is pretty damn good, I'm hoping that means with the mods I'm putting on my EX i'll be able to break 50mpg someday! Good job on the rally guys, Congrats with the stock Civic.