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

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

"Bikes vs Cars" will be the theme of this new event put on by Steve Mauk of Max BMW Motorcycles of NY. Steve will organize the motorcyclists and I will be rounding up the cars that will face off in this competition.

What: Fuel mileage contest through the Berkshire Mountains of MA. The route will be on scenic and challenging roads and will run 103miles in distance. The route will include the climb and decent of Mount Greylock, the highest point in the state. Your “economic” driving ability will be tested. There will be a time limit to complete the run. Any street legal vehicle is allowed to participate. This event will run rain or shine.

Where: The start and finish will be from Carpinello Service Center/Sunoco, 364 Main St. Williamstown, MA 01267.

When: Sunday, September 18th, 2011. Arrival time will be 8:00-8:15 am, first car off at 9:00am. They have gas and diesel and have a large enough parking lot that we won’t be in the way.

Cost: Free! This is a fun event for like minded enthusiasts [like us]. :)

Organizer Steve Mauk will present awards to class winners.

Classes:

1. Best overall mpg for gas cars.

2. Best overall mpg for diesel and hybrid cars

3. Best MPG for bikes under 700cc.

4. Best MPG for bikes over 700cc.

Awards: This event will conclude about noon, and our plan is to proceed to the Freight Yard Restaurant & Pub located at 1 Furnace St. #3, North Adams, MA 01247 for lunch and awards.

To register for this event: simply send me an email to mikek (at] icerace (dot] com with your name, make/model/year vehicle, and your location. Or simply reply to this thread with the same details. I keep an email list of all registered drivers and will send the route instructions to them directly.

Thanks, Mike

Note: I will add more details as I get them. Additional classes may be added.

Count me in:thumbup:.

Sounds great!

D**n! The 9/18 date conflicts with a camping trip that we set up just yesterday evening.

Any chance of running it one week earlier or later??

With gas and diesel cars having a wide range of mpg capability, I'd suggest scoring by % increase over the EPA combined number for each car. If anyone shows up driving a Geo Metro or a 1st Gen Insight, nearly any other vehicle might as well pack it in. I admit, correctly chasing down and verifying the EPA number for each car can be time consuming. You can demand that entrants provide a print of the car's page on the EPA site and mark the info on the page that defines their car (tranny type, engine model, whatever).

Classing bikes by cc might be best, if there are no EPA estimates to go by.

Couple questions.

What is the fuel usage procedure? Fill before and after?

Is the route going to be posted beforehand or is it basically just up and down the mountain?

Most important of all,... can we get ice cream there:D?

Sorry to hear you can't make it Bruce. During such a beautiful time of year we all have so many other things we could be doing on weekends.
These events are low key and mostly for fun and socializing. Steve's plan is to keep the classes simple and mirror how A.M.E.C. ran their four previous Economy Run events. We're hoping to attract some of the "big dog" cars like those you mentioned. We car guys need people like Chang with his CRX HF and Darin with his Firefly to give the bikes a challenge.

Hello Jethro,

Yes, the fill before and after procedure will be used. On the bikes and older cars, it will be to the rim for best accuracy. For people who are worried about overfilling and possible evap system problems, we can employ the slow fill and one click method. If using the one click method, they must specify it before the morning fill up and not show up with a full tank. In other words, no overfilling at another nearby station before the event and then using the one click shut-off at the refill after the event to artificially inflate their mpg result. Just as in the A.M.E.C. events, I will be the fill and refill guy at this event.

Steve has typed up the route instructions and I will get them scanned. I have an Economy Run email list and will send them out to the list. If your not already on my list and would like to be, simply send me a note to mikek (at] icerace (dot] com.

Mike

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...DSC05956-1.jpg
Curiously, I haven't heard a word from the seasoned veterans of economy runs here. Will, Darin, Martin, will you guys join us?

I looked up the history of cars vs bikes in A.M.E.C. Economy Run competitions. Unfortunately there have only been two motorcycle riders that have entered, but here's how they fared against the cars.

Economy Run I

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...10/Cnv0091.jpg

Ernie Yue entered his 2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250 in our Aug 10th, 2008 Economy Run I event. He weighed in at 580 lbs. and outperformed all of the cars with 73.06 mpg. The best car at that event was Dave Burnham's 1991 Jetta Diesel that came in at 56.36 mpg.

Economy Run III

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...0/IMG_1640.jpg

Shift518.com's Vlad Saakyan entered his 2003 Suzuki Svs650 and was able to get 62.28 mpg from it. However, he was up against some mighty stiff competition from our all time high mpg driver, Chang Ho Kim in his 1989 Honda CRX HF, who scored an amazing 118.18 mpg!

So as it stands, it is a tie:

Cars = 1

Bikes= 1

Well, I'm shooting for the 70's, so hopefully the bikes will at least have some kind of challenge. More aero to do and some mechanical things to work out still. Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

70's for a gas car would be excellent! For those interested, Ken's album can be seen here: http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-je...ect-jetta.html

Did you finish your belly pan Ken? Are there any new updated pics to add to your album?

Mike

No recent activity. Healing has taken quite a bit of my available energy, but I am finding more and more as time goes by. The belly pan will be getting improved over the next few weeks, and the beginnings of the tail treatment should be started after that. The belly pan, and sealing it up before winter, are the priority for now.

I'm thinking that my recently cleaned and 260,000 plus mile injectors are allowing fuel to be pulled through on engine braking, and giving me inaccurate MPGuino readings. By actual MPGuino readings, I should be getting mid 60s pretty consistently.

"A-Game" will be brought:thumbup:.

I like the sound of that! I now plan to bring my lightweight '91 Sentra which has over 250-k on it. The engine's good and loose.

I've used choroplast in a unique way on this car- for the hood! I decided my stock 39 lb. [with hinges] hood had to go. Spending $600 on a carbon fiber hood to save less than 20 lbs. makes no $ense to me at all. So I made what might be the lightest Sentra hood on the planet. How about a featherweight 3.5 lbs. and with just $30 worth of material?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...DSC06150-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...DSC06151-1.jpg
I simply traced the stock hood and cut it out with shears. It's flimsy of course, so I went to Home Depot and bought some 8' lengths of thin aluminum angle. I squeezed the angle down around the edges and pop riveted them on. I stiffened it further by radiusing and running some thin aluminum "U" channel across the center and pop riveted it in place. Here is the result:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...DSC06154-1.jpg

Mike

Looks good, Mike. Can't wait to compare notes after the run. Haven't received the route email, yet. Hopefully the hills will be kind:D.

I sent you the route Ken. Interestingly, in the past four A.M.E.C. events we have found that hills actually help mpg's. I picked a flatter route for Economy Run IV and the top cars all lost about 9 mpg's.

Here are the two previous courses' elevation charts:

Economy Runs I,II, and III:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...f?t=1223301657

Economy Run IV
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...nb310/elev.gif

Updated registration list for the Tri-State Fuel Economy Run:

Gas Cars:

1. Ron Kienhuis, 2001 Subaru Forester - Long Island, NY

2. Gabrielle Isenbrand, 1993 Honda Civic Del Sol S - Esperance, NY

3. Ken Snowman, 1990 VW Jetta [gas] - Springfield, VT.

4. Mike Kamm, 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R - Averill Park, NY

5. Jason Root, 1993 Civic VX - Amherst, MA

6. Ernie Yue, 2001 Ford Focus - Mechanicville, NY

7. Jake Mangini, 2008 Suzuki SX4

8. Caleb Pocock, 2009 Honda Civic Si

Diesel/Hybrid:

1. Jonathan Bartlett, 2005 VW Jetta TDI diesel - Sterling, MA

2. Louise Kodela, 2000 Honda Insight - Williamstown, MA

3. Al Walker, [Hobbit], 2004 Toyota Prius - Boston, MA

Trucks:

1. Carter Willey, 1980 Iveco Zeta 100 [diesel] - Esperance, NY

2. William Lum, 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 [diesel]

Motorcycles under 700cc:

1. Steve Mauk, 2011 BMW G650-GS - Williamstown, MA

2. Bob Zeliff, 2010 BMW F650 twin - Bridport, VT

3. Bruce Lemeiux, 2009 BMW F650GS - Pownal, VT

4. Doug Morrisson, 1964 BMW R27 - Chester, VT

5. Joe Warner, 2010 BMW G450X - Danvers, MA

6. Andrew Phillips, 2010 BMW G450X - Dofftown, NH

7. Rebecca Cooke, 2010 BMW F800ST - South Hampton, MA

8. Diane Wiley, 2008 BMW G650X Country - Valley Falls, NY

9. Zac Wiley, 2010 BMW G450X - Brookfield, CT

10. David Dardaris, 2007 BMW F650GS - Ballston Spa, NY

11. Jeff Parker, BMW R50/2 - Gayordsville, CT

Motorcycles over 700cc:

1. Jeff Frisch, 2011 BMW 1600 GTL - Troy, NY

2. Tim Lukowski, 2011 BMW S1000RR - Cohoes, NY

3. Brian Becomb, 2010 BMW S1000RR - Pownal, VT

4. Max Schling, 2011 BMW F800ST - Rensselaer, NY

5. Steve Remslow, 2012 Harley Davidson, Street Glide -East Greenbush, NY

6. Rick Butterfield, 2010 BMW R1200GSA - East Greenbush, NY

7. George Yonnone, 1992 BMW K100RS - West Stockbridge, MA

Some of the guys are bringing powerful bikes to see what they are capable of in economy driving mode. The S1000RR is currently the most powerful production street motorcycle at 193 h.p. I'll bet it can still get 50 mpg.

I might be able to make it after all. Our camping trip that was semi-planned for that weekend may be postponed for some future date.

That would be great. What car would you be using?

I recycled most of the choroplast belly pan from my B210 onto the Sentra. It's always more work than you think to mount something like that. I wish there was a quick and dirty way to fabricate a temporary boat tail just for the weekend.......

Updates on the event. Some of the roads that Steve had planned for the 94 mile route were washed away by Irene. So he went back out and re-designed the course this weekend. I asked him to add a few more miles if possible and he delivered. He said today that the updated course measurses out at 105 miles.

http://freightyardpub.com/wp-content...ured-img-1.png
Also, the name of the restaraunt we will have lunch and awards at was announced today. it will be at the Freight Yard Restaurant & Pub located at 1 Furnace St. #3, North Adams, MA 01247

http://freightyardpub.com/wp-content...7/home-img.png

Would be running the '97 Civic HX, aka "Lean Burn Civic".
Gasoline, 5-speed, EPA combined 34 mpg, lately getting about 50.

Lousy weather for this tank (aka hurricane followed by multiple rainy, windy days) has really brought it down though, this tank is currently somewhere around 46 .:( and I would be surprised if I can pull it back up to 50.

blownb310 wrote
Umm... I wasn't going to say anything... but there might be. I'm going to enlist my son and try to build one out of cardboard and fiberglass resin. If it works out, I'm going to try to make it trunk accessible (after the rally).

That would be so cool. I've got a few ideas as well, and will try them, if I can find the time to do so. ;)

Mike

OK, I'm in! All agreed with wife. We'll make a mini vacation of it and Jackie will navigate with me.

Please send any route information or whatever else.

My brain has been running overtime trying to figure what I can do for the car before the rally. Brain oil is starting to overheat!!

Sounds great Bruce! It will be good to see you again [we met at the 2010 GGP]. I'll get Steve to type up the route instructions tomorrow, so I can email them out to all on my economy run list. PM me your email address and I'll get you on the list. :)

Mike

Mike,

I emailed you what I "think" is the route on Google Maps. The route I plotted says 103 miles and the route you sent me is 105. Bits and pieces are off a bit, but not terrible. Let me know where I erred:rolleyes::D.

P.S. It also says 3 hrs.

It looks like I won't be able to go. A family member is having health issues and that has to take precedence. I hope to be able to join you folks next year.

Family first, Man. Hope all turns out for the best.

See ya next year.

Sorry to hear that Bruce. Thanks for letting us know.

I've updated the roster back on page 2.

I want to get to one of these runs but it never seems to work out. Getting home at 2 am the night before and then plans for Sunday afternoon = no go for me. I'd love to see if I could hang with some more heavily modded cars.

One thing to consider: Great attention will be paid to making sure people don't game the system with fuel fillups, but keep in mind hybrid drivers can also put an ace up their sleeves with the batteries. 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.

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 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?

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

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

YAY! I have brakes again!:D Blew my master cylinder and 3 brake lines this week:mad:. 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.

How did everyone do?

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:eek:).

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.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...RunSE-R009.jpg
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.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...RunSE-R018.jpg
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

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!

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.

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!