What is it? (Spotted: rear engine TDI, custom aero body)

[pjbgravely]

Doug Engelbart was a man ahead of his time. In 1968 He demonstrated the computer mouse, the user interface with icons, networked computers with file sharing and hypertext.

More air less fuel is a man who is way ahead of his time. In 1987 he built a high MPG car. I can't think of any production car today that exceeds his design. With the stainless steel frame it will last him a long time.

[Sven7]

Oh man, don't even mess around with software. Just upload it to TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting. It's free and you don't need a membership. Upload, then grab the link with the IMG tags. Drop that straight into your post.

Props on the build!

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by ennored

It's obviously from the future. Did it speed up to 88 MPH as it drove off?

An ecomodder from the future came back to fill up with cheaper fuel? No wait! A hypermiler never goes as fast as 88 MPH...

Originally Posted by Xist

The car companies cannot match a genius with a garage.

Maybe because a genius with a garage is building one car, for a one-person niche market, not 15000 cars to make all of the power-hungry soccer moms happy.

BTW: Aren't there other threads about how to upload images?

[RedDevil]

I'm home from a trip to Germany, doodling in the right lane most of the time, but eager to try out the top speed where allowed and reasonably possible.
Got passed by several cars speeding at 200 km/h or more, but every time I had a go and reached 140 km/h someone pulled out from the slow lane just in front of me so that I had to brake hard again
140 km/h is 87 mph...
At least now you don't have to wait 30 years for this message

[elhigh]

I'd love for MALF to post his entire story. He's finally hit the 5-post mark so he can include pictures.

Everything: motivation for building. Deciding on priorities (as in, why a slippery ecomobile instead of a sand rail or a powerful little go-kart). Choosing major DNA sources (VW vs. whatever). Construction. Predicated construction (custom headlight covers necessitating a homebrew vacuum former). Needing to weld. Needing to modify a welder to do the welding.

Yeah, I'm asking the guy to write, essentially, a small book. But it's a helluva story and I would be willing to pay for it.

Tell you what, MALF - write it and put it on Amazon as an e-book and I'll pay up to $5.00 for it. I don't even own an e-reader, I'll sit at the computer and read it there. But it's worth telling and I want to see it. Yeah, I'm greedy. But not so greedy that I don't think it's worth something.

If you want to share it with us for free, that's very cool and downright generous of you. But if you want to make a buck off it, I'll pony up.

[ECONORAM]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

What I do is go into the folder with my big full version pictures, left click them, open them in "paint", if the picture is say 400kb I use the reduce size and cut them down to 40% or 50% of their original size (make 1 size reduction or the shurken pics will look grainy), then crop off unneeded portions of the picture, "rotate image", turning it up side down and cropping off more if needed, rotate back to original then click "save as" a jpeg and rename the picture the same thing as before with the letters "sm" on the end, put the pic in the same file as the original picture so that way you save the larger original picture, have and can find the smaller version for posting on the forums right next to it.

You want to get the jpeg kb size down to 120kb for this forum I think?

Or send them to me lol.

I suggest you save a copy of the picture with a different name, then shrink it. I've goofed up too many pictures I want to keep by not doing that...

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by More air less fuel

I might go to the Shriners Car Show in Webster NY. tonight. Depends on the weather and if it really is tonight or if it's Sunday. A post early in this thread talks about one on July 14, that is Sunday, doesn't seem right?
I have done some more mpg testing without any special techniques like pulse and glide. Having trouble getting more than 74 mpg at a steady 60 mph over a 140 mile ride with the cruise on. I would like to drop some cylinders, but that is another project!

I dug through my rats nest and located a CAR and DRIVER mpg road test for a 1980 VW Rabbit/Golf Diesel.
Here are some numbers:
*steady 20 mph = 76 mpg
*steady 30 mph = 70.5 mpg
*steady 40 mph = 65.5 mpg
*steady 50 mph = 57 mpg
*steady 60 mph = 46.5 mpg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
74 mpg at 60 mph is a 59.13% mpg improvement.It's a remarkable achievement!

[freebeard]

...or one could say " the same mileage at 60mph the stock car has at 20mph." That's a 300% improvement!

200%? I'm not sure.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

...or one could say " the same mileage at 60mph the stock car has at 20mph." That's a 300% improvement!

200%? I'm not sure.

Aerodynamically speaking,it's off the charts!!!!!!!!!!!!

[More air less fuel]

Last spring I spent some time setting the caster, camber, and toe on all four wheels. This is not all that easy on this car as everything is located with rod ends. The degrees of freedom are not separated in an elegant fashion either. (If I were to do it again, it would be different)
I had set the camber to zero (straight up) and the toe to zero (straight ahead) knowing that this would yield the lowest rolling resistance at a slight loss in directional stability. A compromise I was willing to accept....
Last week I had a nagging suspicion that maybe I should check and see if all my settings stayed put. Being as much of a headache as it is to check and adjust, I decided to get started. What I didn't mention was the fact that I do not have any alignment equipment or a rack system. All this is done with tight music wire, levels, squares and plumb bobs for reference. Toe is accomplished with bars on spacers bolted to the face of the wheels and rotating the tire on the ground 180 degrees to get a front of wheel and back of wheel measurement.
After filling the fuel tank and placing 160 lbs. in the drivers seat I checked front and rear wheel toe. As I thought, it moved. Both sets of tires had about 0.200" total toe. 0.100" at each wheel.
This is due to the fact that the suspension has "settled" because of engine and road forces during driving. Any clearance in bolt holes allows fasteners to shift and find a new home. When I made this car, I used the least amount of drill clearance I could get away with, but it all adds up. Many bolt holes....
I reset everything to zero and went on my usual test ride after filling the tank to an exact point with a graduated cylinder.
The first time out, I came home and didn't believe the numbers so I did it two more times today. This is kind of a pain is the butt, considering I have other things to do....But this is what really drives me. (no pun intended)
After calculating three times, the new mileage at a steady cruise controlled 60 mph is 85 mpg. It was 74. I realize this sound absurd, and that is why I did it three times. But it is true.
Just thought you guys would like to know.