Taunting the riceboys

[vrmilionzx]

Originally Posted by Mustang Dave

I don't worry about money. Hypermiling is just a fun game for me. It's more about bragging rights than saving money.

I'm with you there. Of course, not spending as much on gas is just an added benefit - just more money you don't have to spend on something you pretty much have to do.

[UltArc]

Since I just started a new position today in the private sector, I have started driving a bit more aggressive. I'm not looking forward to this tank readout!

[bhazard]

I recently averaged 32.1 mpg over 625 miles on a trip to PA and back in my 02 Forester. Subaru is not a brand often associated with MPG, but the new Impreza's are rated at 36 highway. I wonder how well they could do in the hands of a hypermiler?

[Fat Charlie]

Latest tank- 539.33 miles, 33.21mpg. I also got a nice pic that's now my avatar over there:

And now for the highlights since my last tank:

Dust your dashboard.

wow...I would cry doing that to my car.

Why did you bother getting an LGT? Why didnt you just get neutered?

You aren't driving a 243 HP, AWD sport sedan to the tune of 33 MPG regardless of what tires you throw on it. On a mostly flat, 2 lane country highway cruise with cruise control on @ 55 MPH in 5th gear (RPMs around 2300-2500, IIRC), I get 28-28.5 MPG on my stock GT. Unless you're cruising those 500 miles at a constant speed of 40 MPH in 5th gear, it is impossible to get those kinds of numbers out of this car.

i can really stretch my tank of gas too! i usually get 2 - 2.5 weeks out of one tank. how's that for performance?

i kid i kid. i live in the city and take public transportation to work. love the short commute, but it drives me crazy seeing my LGT sit around 5 days a week.

I used a tank of fuel in under 100 miles.

Thats what I'm wondering. This is just MPG gain. Not performance!

There was nore levity this time around, with the 2.5 weeks and another guy bragging on 99.9 mpg (that's what the instant mpg pegs at, you see it on DFCO). One guy came in and tecognized mpg as a legitimate performance (fun) area. He then pissed in the ricers' cheerios:

You can own this car for multiple reasons, but to tune it to be a race car is one of the lamest reasons out there. I lump those folks in with ricer boy civic owners. You should have bought a WRX STI and just had a real sports sedan. Instead all of you beat on him about his MPG goals bought a luxury family sedan you think is hot **** because you've modded a few things. You are neither fast nor cool. Come to the track and we can measure your speed with lap times not HP.

And promptly got attacked for only having an automatic.

[UFO]

All in good fun, that's what the internets is all about. Nice going Fat Charlie.

[SentraSE-R]

I've gotten the same kind of treatment on the Scion xB fora, from owners of 98 WHP FWD econoboxes. It's testosterone poisoning. How else can you explain 1.5 liter FWD box owners having delusions of speed = performance, when every family sedan, minivan, SUV, and pickup truck can beat them?

[Fat Charlie]

I'd stopped posting there for a while. My refill documentation was getting yout of hand- jot mileage on the pump receipt, take pic that included odometer and mpg display, reset "Trip A" on the car, reset everything on the UG, then update fuel log here and post pic and numbers at LGT with a response to the previous week's snark. Then come back here and giggle.

I went back a couple days ago and reported that I'd had a string of tanks over 500 miles, with my best distance and mpg. The abuse immediately started up again, but there was a different tone. The first was funny- my best mpg was 34.77 and he came up with "i bet you're getting passed by hondas and toyotas that are getting 34.78mpgs." After that and a knee jerk nothing line, people started asking questions about tire pressureand techniques. They were discussing their own mileage amongst themselves.

A discussion of how much money I could possibly be saving vs. how much fun I was missing sprang up. Someone questioned what hardware mods I'd done beyond the tires (because only can mods=capability). I came back after a day with some responses, including a short manifesto defending the idea of owning a performance oriented car and still wanting to save fuel. I got asked again about the math on my tire size, mpg and money savings. One guy asked for "advice for people who ocassionally want good mpgs? Within reason and safety of course."

There was an actual discussion about it! These guys had put a lot of thought into their driving. They pay attention to what they're doing and were interested in hearing about a different approach to it. All of a sudden I wasn't a kook, I was just another LGT owner who likes to drive and had some information for them about all the fun he's been having driving. Not too bad, considering the thread's been going since May.

[Piwoslaw]

At my local Peugeot forum you get positive feedback if you "upgrade" to larger rims and wider tires (the more expensive, the better), add chrome doodads, shiny exhaust tip, etc. You'll be the hero of the month if you chip tune to get extra horsepower. If you post about how to reduce fuel consumption you get maybe 1 user interested for every 10-15 that throw sh*t at you (except for HHO threads). Well, but you guys know what it's like.

Anyhow, I'm not afraid of their taunting (because I know I'm right and they're wrong, hahahahahahahaha) so I go ahead and explain why that huge spoiler standing vertically in the airstream isn't helping FE in the way that its owner claims, or remind the guy who is whining about his gas consumption that yesterday he bragged about his last tank's average speed being higher than the PSL on the highway.

No, I don't have any friends over there.

The taunting is actually more funny than anything else, like when I gave a long answer to someone's question about blocking the radiator during below freezing temperatures, and someone else started saying that the engine will overheat and blow up. So I remind him that I drive so efficiently that my engine isn't warm enough, especially when it's cold, even with insulation and blocked grilles. And he goes off again about overheating and that the wiring will melt, blahblahblah. I don't think he understood, or even read, my post!

Or yesterday in a thread about burning out DPFs people talked about how the DPF needs higher than normal exhaust temperatures to burn out, so the engine gets extra loads (rear window and side mirror heating), extra fuel, etc. Driving in lower gear with higher rpms also helps. After about 8 pages someone asks: Why?. So I explain that uneconomical driving is what the DPF needs: Doing the same work (driving) while using more fuel results in more waste heat. And someone sums up my post as some cosmic theories. I mean, that got me ROTFLOLing.

[Arragonis]

I was particularly amused by the "stay the F out of the left lane" comments. Well when I say amused, I mean slightly annoyed in the same way that knowing Simon Cowell is still in TV annoys me, or that David Cameron isn't just a bad dream I had after too much beer or that some South Korean has a worldwide no1 with a song which doesn't even make sense in South Korea.

Looks like a forum of dreamers. Probably one or two have "tuned" their cars, the rest are stock but probably have a desktop wallpaper of a tuned one which they look at and think "one day..." every time they look at it, just before their mum probably tells them dinner is ready. Performance to them is probably how loud the exhaust can be - which must be really annoying over a long journey ?

Last time I was in the states I drove at European speeds - you know Europe, the place where we don't need such powerful cars with big engines because we all drive slower ? I lost count of how many non-hippies in Legacies, SUVs, Lexus coupes etc. I passed on the right as they refused to move over - and that was in a hire-car grey Camry with furry seats and plastic wheels. Even Mrs A. got peed off with these mobile road blocks - this was in our pre-hypermiling days of course.

On a technical note if I may, what is the formula for revs per mile - this sounds interesting...

[PaleMelanesian]

say your tires are sized 225-65-16

sidewall height = 225 * .65 = 146.25 mm
top and bottom sidewall = 2 * 146.25 = 292.5 mm
both sidewalls in inches = 292.5 * 25.4 = 11.52 in
total tire diameter = 11.52 + 16 (rim) = 27.52 in
tire radius (ft) = 3.14 * 27.52 / 12 = 7.2 ft
revs / mile = 5280 / 7.2 = 733.33

rpm is more useful for mpg than revs/mile.
rpm @ 60 mph = 733.33 * top gear ratio * final drive