Tri-State Fuel Economy Championship 9-18-11 [MA]

[blownb310]

Originally Posted by Formula413

I'd love to see if I could hang with some more heavily modded cars.

You can. I can send you the route instructions and you can drive the course when ever it's convenient for you. Just let us know how you did!

Originally Posted by Formula413

On a Honda hybrid you could easily disable assist and let the battery reach a full state of charge before the run, than use up all the charge during the run, thus artificially inflating MPGs. I know it's just a friendly competition but it is a factor to consider.

That's interesting. I know very little about how the hybrids can be tweaked. Are you talking about the original Insight, or the newer Honda hybrids? How far will they go strictly on the battery pack?

[Formula413]

Originally Posted by blownb310

You can. I can send you the route instructions and you can drive the course when ever it's convenient for you. Just let us know how you did!

That's an idea. Of course it would be nice to meet some other ecomodders too. But by all means PM me the route, might make a good foliage cruise.

Originally Posted by blownb310

That's interesting. I know very little about how the hybrids can be tweaked. Are you talking about the original Insight, or the newer Honda hybrids? How far will they go strictly on the battery pack?

Hondas are series hybrids, which means they can't be driven on the electric motor alone (unlike a Prius). The motor is a supplement to the gasoline engine which is always powering the car, and electric power is mainly used when accelerating or climbing hills. On the original Insight and the 1st gen Civic hybrid (03-05) equipped with manual transmissions a switch wired to the clutch safety switch allows the hybrid system to be disabled, and adding a relay powered by the brake light switch allows the hybrid system to come back on line as soon as the brake pedal is depressed. This allows selective use of assist. If none is used, regenerative braking will eventually fill the battery to capacity, and then the assist can be turned back on and battery charge used up. So I could easily start a route like this with a full charge and use up all the assist on the hills, thus inflating my MPG. It might not make a huge difference but depending on the route it would definitely help.

[blownb310]

Originally Posted by Formula413

So I could easily start a route like this with a full charge and use up all the assist on the hills, thus inflating my MPG.

Hmm, makes we wish I had an electric motor for assistance up Mt. Greylock!

[JethroBodine]

YAY! I have brakes again! Blew my master cylinder and 3 brake lines this week. Just got it all bled out 5PM today. Only running the front half of the belly pan, but I'm still shooting for the Jetta record!

I'll see ya there, Mike.

[Formula413]

How did everyone do?

[JethroBodine]

In the car class, Mike(blownb310) took first with 72mpg, I took second at 49.7mpg, and a Del Sol took third( don't remember the mileage). Mike will be posting the total results as soon as he gets some rest( worked on his car until 4 Sunday morning).

[blownb310]

Ken, it was great meeting you and your son. I'm so glad that at least one Ecomodder came out to join me. Unfortunately quite a few car people dropped out at the last minute. Here's what all of my efforts churned out for this event.


This is an unlikely candidate for mpg work as it is a '91 Nissan Sentra SE-R with the larger 2.0 liter performance engine.


I'll start another thread in the aero section with more detail and to have my mods critiqued.

OK, as the fill/refill man for the cars, these are the only results I've got so far. I will post the official results when Steve's wife sends me her spread sheet from the event.

Gas Cars:

1. Mike Kamm, 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R - 76.12 mpg

2. Ken Snowman, 1990 VW Jetta [gas] - 53.51 mpg

3. Gabrielle Isenbrand, 1993 Honda Civic Del Sol S - 49.05 mpg

4. Ron Kienhuis, 2001 Subaru Forester - 36.01 mpg

Hybrid/Diesel Cars:

1. Jonathan Bartlett, 1998 VW Jetta TDI diesel - 79.38 mpg

2. Hobbit, 2004 Toyota Pruis - 70.6 mpg


Trucks:

1. Carter Willey, 1980 Iveco Zeta 100 [diesel] - 24.28 mpg [this is a 4 ton truck!]

Motorcycles under 700cc:

1. Steve Mauk, 2011 BMW G650-GS [single] - 103.65 mpg

2. Bruce Lemeiux, 2009 BMW F650GS [single] - 95.02 mpg

3. Gregg Templeton, 2002 Kawasaki KL 250 - 88.60 mpg

4. Fred Jones, 2009 BMW F650GS [single] - 80.09 mpg

5. Joe Warner, 1964 BMW R27 - 76.58 mpg

6. Jeff Parker, 1967 BMW R50/2 - 64.97 mpg

7. Andrew Phillips, 1968 BMW R60/2 - 64.93 mpg

8. Michael Conway, BMW - 50.70 mpg

Motorcycles over 700cc:

1. Chris Benda, 2010 F650GS [twin 800cc actual] - 75.485 mpg

2. Max Stratton, 1967 BMW R60/2 - 72.514 mpg

3. Ben Stratton, BMW 2010 R12R - 71.575 mpg

4. Max Schling, 2011 BMW F800ST - 70.328 mpg

5. Jeff Frisch, 2006 BMW R1200RS - 67.093 mpg

6. Rick Butterfield, 2010 BMW R1200GSA - 50.823 mpg

7. George Yonnone, 1992 BMW K100RS - 49.203 mpg

8. Steve Remslow, 2012 Harley D. Street Glide - 49.065 mpg

[blownb310]

Now for the event story.... and there's always a story. For once I as not the event coordinator and as such some things we [A.M.E.C] always did were simply done differently here at someone else's event. For instance, they did not start cars in one minute intervals, after you filled you could leave whenever you wanted. On your return, you could not go to the pump for your refill right away. We had to wait for the event organizer Steve to get back. Just little things. In any case the route was promised to be challenging and it was! More specifically the route instructions were a bit difficult to follow at times and some people missed turns. The directions were brief and lacked key details to help you go the right way. Let's just say that if your odometer didn't work, or was inacurrate, you probably had a tough time. And if you missed a turn, your odo was now all wrong too. Steve is a rally guy and this event had quite a bit of rally flavor.

Mount Greylock was exciting but very tricky. They have a 15 mph speed limit up there! The road is very narrow and has a series of ultra tight hair pin turns. It was difficult for a car like mine with front wheel fairings [you try not too steer at full lock]. It was also the first economy run event where I had to use engine braking to keep my brakes from overheating coming back down. This threw me for a loop as I use an ignition kill switch on the shifter and leave the key on. I didn't realize it until after the event but all the way down the [6 mile?] long hill, when I was in 4th gear with the spark shut off and thought I was using no fuel at all, I actually was pumping raw fuel through the engine the whole time. You see, if the key is on and the engine is turning, the computer doesn't know that I have disabled the spark. So with the crank agle sensor turning the injectors were firing as if it was running. I was wondering why I could smell gas all the way down the mountain!

So, with so many people who missed turns and went extra mileage, they got penalized because the mpg results were figured on the 105 mile event standard. So if you went 115 miles too bad! During the post event refills, I asked each driver how many miles they actually travelled and used them for my results. So they reflect the actual mpg not the penalized figures.

Please don't get the impression that I didn't enjoy this event, because I did! But I did learn a few things to prepare better for, for next time!

[blownb310]

Incidentally, I had a feeling that the Tri-State would not be my best shot for big numbers and figured I'd have to go out again and run A.M.E.C.'s original course though the southern Adirondacks [out of Fonda, NY] to find out what this car can really do. So that's my plan now. If anyone would like to come out and join me we can have our own little private event. We need to get it done before the weather cools too much. Let me know if you'd like to run with me/us and what Sunday morning works for you.

[JethroBodine]

Let me know when you are going to set it up. I had more wrong with my car than I knew and would also like to get the mods that I had planned for this trip tested on a course.

My son and I also had a great time and thank you and Steve for the work you did.

Your car looked awesome!