TopGear.com America high mpg project (regeared, aeromodded diesel Rabbit)
 

Hey guys, I'm with TopGear.com America and we're working on a project vehicle I think you'll all find interesting. We used resources on this (and other fuel economy-focused sites) in researching and planning the project, and will continue to do so, so it's only fair that we show what we're up to, right?

The details are still under wraps, but everything will be revealed soon (tomorrow, actually). Feel free to speculate... and there will be opportunities for you all to put in your $0.02. We'll come back and keep you guys updated and (hopefully) entertained.

Check it out here;
Watch Where's Our Nobel? - A Top Gear Car Video - Top Gear US

By G. Giugaro...American market...0-60 in approx. 7 secs...that wheel well arch...

I nominate (world saving?) VW Golf/Rabbit Turbo Diesel.

There isn't any coroplast in the teaser shots.

I'm pretty disappointed. Whats the point of saying "I modified my car to get crazy MPG's!" if it doesent look like it was built by Doctor Emmet Brown?

heh, yeah I'd venture to guess circa '82 rabbit with a TDI transplant and some creative goofyness. Should be a fun watch.

I hope it has scads of randomly mounted AeroTabs all over it. And a belly pan made from a discarded screen door.

I bet that they are going to make a nuclear car. This is Top Gear after all. They have tried to make a space shuttle out of a Reliant Robin before so why not? :D

two words:

duct tape

I know someone from Top Gear America was trying to get a hold of Jeff from RocketChip to work on a project, might that be it?

Just how high mpg are we talking about? 7 secs 0-60 for a TDI would be pretty fast, unless it's a transplant.

I believe the video says 70mpg.

The little they show of it, I agree it looks like a VW Rabbit.

Thanks for the heads-up, giff - looks like fun. (Well, that's a given.)

I agree, looks like a VW. My money's on an 81-84 Golf/Rabbit, with a TDI transplant.

EDIT: hope it smokes less than other chipped TDI's I've seen. Or it better smell like burning french fries...

EcoStig episode
 

There was the White Stig, the Black Stig, the Rig Stig, The American Stig, the African Stig and now ...introducing the Eco Stig!

Some say he could hypermile & P&G a Cd efficient, Coroplast sculpted, grill blocked, flat bellied, one-ringed, maxxed inflated, french-fry fueled, etc.....Eco Mod!

With full credit & inspiration to basjoos' beast - famous Aerocivic!

70 mpg? They think 70 mpg is high? (ROTFL) I get that in my 2000 Insight, doing most of my driving in the Sierra Nevada.

70 mpg without a reference point can be high or low. 70 mpg for a TDI is considered high, but it still depends on the speed you're driving. An ALH TDI in a rabbit driving 40 mph on a flat road with no wind and pumped up tires will hit 100 mpg steady state for sure.

With the AHU (same engine but with a non VGT turbo, so more restrictive) in my mk3 jetta with winter tires at 55 psi, I was hitting 90 mpg steady state at 40 mph. The mk3 jetta is a lot heavier than an early rabbit and have a bigger frontal area. But I had a much better Cd though.

If it's a rabbit with a TDI transplant, I'd throw a propane kit in it. Anyone ever saw that video of a stock golf mk3 fitted with propane keeping up with a NSX in a drag race?

Uhm there's a link in the video page...

We Build a 70 mpg Car - Top Gear US

I've always been curious why you don't keep a fuel log here jamesqf. 70 MPG would make you the top dog Insight. :thumbup:

Yep - they just posted it today, as foretold.

Looks like an updated version of Car & Driver magazine's "Crisis Fighter" ecomodding series from the 70's, eg. the Crisis Fighter Pinto ... except with a much bigger budget!

From the TG article:

This will be interesting. Thumbs-up, Top Gear.

I'm gonna need more info before I'm impressed. Drive that Rabbit slow enough (not even all that slow) and you'll hit 70 mpg pretty easy.

Modern TDIs are marvels considering they are hauling around cars weighing almost 3k pounds. The 1981 Golf weighs in under 1900 pounds. Getting to 70 MPG will be the easy part. The hard part will be the 7 second 0-60 to happen. High torque FWD cars are a handful and it will be difficult to get enough tire under the car to handle both high torque and LRR.

7 secs 0-60 in a 81 Rabbit with a TDI ALH engine (I'm pretty sure that's they engine they'll be going for) won't be too hard to achieve from a power standpoint. On a mk4 body, more or less 180 hp, which calls for a bigger turbo, bigger holes and pump, is required to make it in the 7s. With the rabbit, just a tune bumping the power from 90 to ~115 hp would probably be enough given the huge weight reduction. Throw in a set of .205 nozzles and it's a sure bet.

As you said putting that power down will be tricky. I'd throw an LSD in there. It would make the car even more fun to drive overall.

Darin, a proper street tune should not smoke under any circumstances. Problem is you have to sacrifice that last bit of power in order to be smokeless when you put the pedal to the metal. Lots of people getting tunes feel it's ok to have just a small haze at wot, but they're often the kind of people who gut their cat too...I hope top gear does not go there.

We're pumped to see the effort that went in to your (very educated) guesses. Kudos, obviously, to everyone who said Mk1 with a TDI.

Some of you already posted the links, we're glad to see the enthusiasm, but here they are anyway;

Check out the video of the car in all of it's stock, clanky, stalling glory here;
Watch Efficiency Meets Fun - A Top Gear Car Video - Top Gear US

And look at the feature, with all the details here;
We Build a 70 mpg Car - Top Gear US

We'll be back, and are really enjoying your comments. Hope to keep you EcoModders entertained =)

Nail on the head. 70 mpg sounds impressive absent any kind of context. Are we talking highway mileage? Someting approximating EPA city/highway combined? Steady state 60 mph?

If you're going to knock the Prius or Insight (which TD will gleefully do!), it needs to be a fair comparison. Not "ideal conditions" against EPA.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of sites that picked up basjoos' "95 mpg" Aerocivic ignored the details around that figure, he did explain the conditions on his site under which he was able to achieve that.

EDIT: not knocking the project. I get a kick out of seeing "mainstream" media doing stuff like this for an audience that probably doesn't give a rat's... about efficiency.

I can't see ANY of the videos on the TG site. Just a blank black square that say "send to friend..."

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1235168955

I must be missing some magic somewhere...

I've always viewed TG as the best car-tainment show around. Their episodes are either comedic, satirical and gutturally speak about their unexpected experiences with all kinds of conveniences. The hosts have the magic chemistry of the Three Stooges. Their beautifully choreographed (often helicoptered) visual style is also paired with music-soaked harmonies of throaty manifolds, exhaust tunes & tire scrub frequencies.
But the in/famous intrinsic claim to fame are their ingenuous but cutting commentaries, jingoist & nationalistic quips, and indiscriminate sentiments. Their potential to offend any/all groups are always present.

One needs to be in mindful reserve if this puts ecomodding in the center of the yarn.

Don't sit in the front row of any comedian if you don't want to be part of his/her show.

First, let me say that I really enjoy the show.

I find it strange though that you guys are going to buy a car in New York, drive it all the way up to Canada, and then across the U.S. to California.

Why not just buy the car in California, have it converted there, and then have it aero-tuned while you are still there in California ?

No matter which type of green that you are trying to save, doing it without the theatrics would seem to make more sense to me.

Just think of the amount of money / ozone layer / time ( and hassle ) saved by doing it all at one location.

You guys could use the money you save on explosives for the next show ;)

TG = theatrics. That's what makes it so great.

Let's not fool ourselves into thinking this is going to be a serious treatment of the subject matter. If you want that, convince Popular Mechanics to take on the cause!

Classic TG irony. New York City - Canada - Cali to 'show' FE.

This way TG can create another beautifully shot travelogue; the hectic American urban scene, the colorful (probably late fall) foliage along the interstates, expansive snow white vistas of Trans-Canadian roadways, the open freeways of wide, wild West and the picturesque PCH sunset rides. In the meanwhile making fun of the mini-mart cuisine, the local yokels and the sad-state of North American car dealers and manufacturers.

Could the (hopefully not poorly executed) project be lifted as the 'future' face of the next North American malaise. Ala the mid 70's- 80's examples.

Because that would require keeping track of gas purchases & miles & all that stuff, which seems like a lot of extra work when Honda's been nice enough to give me a bunch of electronics to do all work, and show the numbers on a couple of handy dashboard displays. If you're interested, I could snap a picture of the dash :-)

I did do a few checks back when I first bought the car, and the mpg numbers it shows seem pretty close to what I calculated - within a decimal point or so.

Lesse, $500 for the car, $1000-$3000 for the conversion, so what's the other $3500-5500 for, travel expenses? For that much coin they better have a 70-140hp electric motor (or two) with a 4-8kWh pack mated to one of the rear spindles on top of a 150hp TDI up front.

We need to get an eco version of overhaulin going and get basjoos' car on there. That alone would have saved a ton of time and research. Drop some money into his car and give his car the OEM finish it deserves ...

OR

do a TG vs. Backyard Engineer and see whose car gets better mpg's ...

Kinda like Pinks. Imagine that P&G slow drag .. lol

I love that in one of the comments on one of the TG videos, somebody just made a link straight to Aerocivic.com and said that's how to do it!

$7000 is WAY too big of a budget - UNLESS they are somehow going to "hybridize" to make the 7 second time - use electric torque to launch, and diesel for long range speed.

Hybrids don't need very big batteries, as there is always the gas or diesel engine to recharge them right after use. Even a simple string of Optima YellowTops could provide PLENTY of amps for acceleration.

Does anyone know the timeline on this project?

It sure would be fun to beat them at their own game, for less money.

The Aerocivic already beats 70 mpg flat out. The Forkenswift and Electro-Metro far exceed 100 MPGe. (not great acceleration though!) All three cars cost WAY less than $7 Grand!

MPaul, where's that controleller? Lets beat these guys! I was pushed into my seat at 96V - I think 144V will be more than sufficient...

PS - we would work on the integrated bio-diesel generator later as we beat the VOLT to market.

[EDIT]
Here we go:
Pizza pan wheel covers
Rear wheel skirts
Full boat tail
Integrated bio-diesel generator range extender (built-in inside)
144V Open Source motor controller (speed and acceleration!)

That is all still under $7000!
http://gallery.me.com/benhdvideoguy/...metro2/web.jpg

Or see here: Kinetic Vehicles

After looking at the price of AGM-31 batteries I bet my car won't stay under the $7000 price range for long. But it should easily beat 70mpg and the 0-60 time :)

Subscribed:

Edit:
About the $7000 budget I'd bet that alot of it will go to their Italian stylist + body work. Just speculation

I couldn't agree more!

ollie

Looks like TG is late to the party after all.

1984 Rabbit GTI TDI-M

Ok it's not exactly the same as what TG will be doing as this one was mechanically converted, but it's pretty close.

Nice find, Tas. I'm surprised he didn't post fuel economy figures. But then it sounds like it's not quite finished either.

Oh no, not VGs please. I guess that's the bling part of aero, as there are way lower hanging fruits than VGs, but don't they look cool do they? They probably won't have a way of accurately testing them, not with their budget. Prof McNulty got access to a full scale wind tunnel though. So maybe, with some free wind tunnel time, we can dream of seeing a rabbit with VGs being tested in a wind tunnel on Top Gear. I highly doubt that will happen though. Wind tunnels just cost too much to run to give away time for free.

Haha, no surprise there. From what I've seen of TG, they always go for the shock factor (flashy stuff, or the exact opposite). Why would this be any different?

If EM does go this route and Basjoos agrees, I will donate my spare D15Z1 and some time over the summer to this project to get his car setup with a VX motor. It would be possible to push him over the 100MPG mark easily while still retaining an OEM drivetrain.

This was first done a lonnnnng time ago, search the vwdiesel.net forums using tdi-m for more info. That said, a tuned/intercooled 1.6L can make as much power as a stock TDI for way less cash. Honestly, they could've slapped a VNT/intercooler/Turbo IP for ~$500-1000, spent another $2k on a motor/controller/hardware to see electric rear wheel drive, and bought about 9kWh of Lithium Iron Phosphate that can put out a max sustained power of ~25kW and peak power of ~75kW. Since this initial $500-1000 would net ~50-60mpg driven "normally" and a ~8.5s 0-60, more than doubling the HP, along with the massive torque created at the rear wheels by an electric motor would allow for a sub 5s 0-60mph and ~35-50 miles of all electric range.

For the hell of it, yank the glow plugs, toss some spark plugs in there, along with a mesh heater and a TBI setup run offa MS&S for another grand, then rig it to add E85/water progressively as the diesel injected drops around ~5-6k rpm. Should be good for another 30-40hp up to ~7.5k rpm, and it would be the world's only plug-in hybrid electric turbo giesel, or dasser if ya like, powered car. All for $8k! :D