Win $100.00 in Free Gas! Design Contest: Ecomod my Ride

[XFi]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Xfi- how's the car coming?

Trying to avoid that question.

[XFi]

Everyone is entitled to their opinions...that includes you!

[Nerys]

Nerys Rolls Eyes. Frank has some issues reading :-)

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It's a unibody car, that should have been evident from the pics and description, and from general car knowledge if ya have it.
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Sly insults (do not try to deny it its pretty clear your that kind of person but thats ok to each his own Just don't expect me to eat it with a smile) I made pretty clear I am an aero person. I build Rockets and Airplanes NOT cars.

The only reason I am even aware of unibody is I found out my cherokee was unibody. I was under the "impression" that Unibody was "NOT" the norm that vehicles usually tend to be Body on Frame.

Either way its clear you skipped over the MANY instances where I stated some of this ONLY applies if its body on frame and MANY instances where I stated I have no idea if this car is unibody or body on frame.

I was not even going to waste my time looking it up as the info is USEFUL to anyone who does happen to have body on frame and the contest was over.

IE I spent nearly 2 hours of my life at NO charge go simply GIVE some information I have. It cost you nothing so you should not complain about my "lack" of research. Want to pay me? then I will do some research for you :-) hehe

Escorts are very similar to my car:

All four door panels <20 lbs. (on my car EACH panel is at least 15 pounds making 60 total but either way matters not mass is mass)

Front seats 36.5 lbs each. (I have no idea) My jeep seats are pretty small and much heavier than 40 pounds. the Fold and Go seats from minivans are MUCH MUCH lighter. I would guess 25-30 pounds quid pro quo I AM BAD as guessing masses, The advantage of stow and go are TWO fold. ONE they are lighter (even if only by a few pounds) and 2 they are EASY to remove and "stow" hence why they are called Fold and Go seats.

Rear seat bottom 12 lbs.
Rear seat back 13 lbs.

Again NO idea. YES 2 seperate seats will be heavier than just a bench but when its JUST the driver you get a bonus and only very small demerit when you have 4 people with that weight penalty being irrelevant compared to the mass of the extra 3 people. IE the point of the idea is to get a bonus when your SINGLE commuting.

Bottom trunk liner 2.5 lbs.
Spare tire cover 3.5 lbs.(why not?6 pounds is 6 pounds how much effort to remove? 3 minutes if your time?)

Spare tire 20.5 lbs. )I would not sacrifice this too important. I stated that too guess you missed it :-)

Jack 4 lbs. (again reading skills frank I said IS IT a hydro (mass 20-25 pounds at least) if its already a scissor obviously you would leave it too important not to have unless you have a really tiny commute)

Headliner 4.5 lbs. (again due diligence is why I mentioned this IE I suggested leaving it)

Carpet- who knows. I'd only go 20 lbs. on that. (Me too. If the car is as small as you imply and its nylon it might even be lighter.(

Total 153 lbs.

Then add back:

1 gallon Herculiner 10 lbs.
1 driver's seat- stock 36 lbs; mini-van captain's seat no doubt even more!
OK let's keep the jack 4 lbs.
Spare is already a donut- 20.5 lbs.

Total 70.5 lbs. added back, or 82.5 lbs dropped. (I was guessing closer to 100 pounds drop but thats .1mpg bonus EVERY single gallon for the rest of the life of the car.

There's only one antenna. (Did I say otherwise??) I have 4 but Mine is not normal.

That plastic front fascia is quite light. Better be careful to use little fiberglass and resin or the new part will end up heavier! (The idea here is aerodynamics not mass I personally would use carbon (I call it all "glassing") but thats gets expensive. It depends on how strong you want it and how good you are at squeezing out the epoxy I can make some pretty darned light fiber shells lighter than the PAINT used on the car sometimes but then you could breath on it and wreck it. Just depends on what you want. Due Diligence says mention it and let the owner make that call.)

The roof as a radiator? With that being about 3" from my head, so much for A/C delete. (You would be surprised how good an insulator that headliner is. And you would not use the ROOF as the radiator just the roofs surface area to mount a CUSTOM radiator.)

Aero shell caps for wiper stub LOL. (hey why not. If your going to the effort to remove the virtually NILL drag from a wiper might as well go all the way. It will cost you all of about 50 cents in materials and 30 minutes of your time Why not)

A/C clutch on alternator? Have you seen how heavy they are? They require power to operate too. Why not just turn alt field off?

(again it was an idea. its YOUR job to decide if its useful to you or not NOT MINE) I have read many reports that turning off the field was not enough ie it did not have an appreciable effect on the load to the engine as did REMOVING the alternator IE it was still doing something. The research is your job I just tossed the idea out there)

... What hard fans?

(All if my vehicles have "hard" fans IE that are physically attached to the crank shaft in some way versus "soft" fans ie electric with no physical connection to the engine other than electricity)


Better at least circulate coolant if the engine compartment is all sealed up. Or, better have a spare cylinder head ready for WHEN you crack the original.

(well thats only if your stupid enough to keep the engine running when it overheats not my problem)


Add a few extra batteries (at 30.5 lbs. each) for accessories... now you have no passenger carrying capability due to no seats, but you are driving around with extra batteries and the whole car weighs 20 lbs. less than it did before.

(again your jog. My battery pack would only mass some 10 pounds max with enough juice to run everything for 4 hours (double my commute just in case plus another 30-40 minutes as spare) Now if your thinking toss in more 12v batteries well then I would do some serious crunching to see which will drain MORE mpg the electric load on the alternator or the mass load of the batteries. Again your job not mine)


They say for every 100 lbs. dropped fe increases 1-2%. So 20 lbs. off gives us .2-.4% fuel economy improvement; at a baseline of 40 mpg that would bring us to 40.008-40.16 mpg. Yeah.

(I was taught that every 100 pounds is .1mpg up or down. so if I get off my ass and lose 200 pounds I should get roughly .2mpg better economy) I have no idea how this changes from car to car or when the diminishing returns begin to occur. Again thats your problem. I just tossed the idea out there its not my job to "vet" these ideas. He asked for them I just gave them.)


Exactly how do we determine what the skinniest tires that can safely be used are?

(Again not my job. Thats yours. Me personally? Well I would find out the what the load capacity limits of my stock tires are. I would then ask a tire dealer HOW they decide what tires to put on a car from a safety perspective. What kind of safety MARGINS do you factor in? IE what kind of stresses do they assume a car will undergo etc.. I will then find these specs for small and smaller tires until the safety margins start to make me uncomfortable. Go from there seat of the pants. Again thats YOUR job not mine)


How does an electric brake booster save gas vs a vacuum booster? It's a little car, only time brake boost might be a factor is when extensively P&Ging, how about no booster at all?

(Well most cars have power brakes. Know what happens when you fas and press that pedal too many times? if you can make this "power breaks" electric then you can FAS without losing your power assisted brakes.

2 of my cars are power 2 of them are manual. I have NO idea if its feasible to PUT manual brakes in a car or not Thats again not my job. I just tossed the idea out there.


Exhaust work that increases power does not necessarily increase fe. Most of that stuff is geared towards moving the power band higher... to rpm ranges where we won't be!

Again not my problem. Many times when I see adds for exhaust upgrades ONE of the "things" they mention its upgrading is fuel economy. Whether this is true or not is not my problem I am not the one spending money. Anyone who spends money just because some nobody online said too without actually researching it themselves deserves what they get :-)

SO you failed to process the point that the ONLY thing I mentioned that was outright INAPPLICABLE to his car was the outer panel replacements since its unibody. Otherwise everything I mentioned "WAS" applicable to his car in one way or another regardless of how MUCH of an effect it would have.

Seems more to me like you did not even read my post and just decided you wanted to pass internet justice on it.

I am not mad. No worries there. Your an unknown internet screen name. Its going to be really hard for a screen name to make me mad on the internet.

But I am also not going to just go Yumm and move alone when people make comments I do not like :-) IE if your gonna dish it be ready to eat it too.

Thats part of the "fun" of internet forums so long as it stays civil and overall friendly.

Chris Taylor Jr
Levittown PA USA

[ecobucket]

5W-30 - Try Amsoil - in my 1995 Buick Regal my MPG went from 20 to 23 just by changing the oil - Amsoil spec'd I could use 0w30 - stuff is like olive oil - very runny. Used it on every vehicle ever since ( did that in y2k -thats year 2000 for all you youngin's ). Combine that with Amsoils 35k oil changes, 12k filter changes you'll have more time with the welder.

[Geebee]

Re using a starter to move a car, my first car was a '61 Mini and the instruction manual stated that if you were stranded in a water crossing leave off the ignition and use the starter to crank your car to dry ground.
Different era but basically the same starter that most earlier cars used.
I would not try it with my current vehicle as the starter is smaller than a Coke can.

[mikeross]

My first car was a '85 mustang and I got problems with it big time. As much as I wanted to restore it, the engine was still failing.. I replaced the parts, radiator and all that.. But still not kicking unlike before.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Geebee

Re using a starter to move a car, my first car was a '61 Mini and the instruction manual stated that if you were stranded in a water crossing leave off the ignition and use the starter to crank your car to dry ground.
Different era but basically the same starter that most earlier cars used.
I would not try it with my current vehicle as the starter is smaller than a Coke can.

I used to use my starter to move my car when it was stopped in parking lots, etc.

I had a manual starter button installed, so I could leave the key off, and just crank the engine over. It was basically only useful to start the engine on takeoff, and I used it alot in reverse if I had to back out before going somewhere, as it saves a few seconds of fuel use idling and revving in reverse.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by mikeross

My first car was a '85 mustang and I got problems with it big time. As much as I wanted to restore it, the engine was still failing.. I replaced the parts, radiator and all that.. But still not kicking unlike before.

You should probably start a thread for this, instead of bringing back a post from the grave yard that's completely unrelated to your question/problem.

[zonker]

so what ever became of the kermit wagon? was this project scrapped? i'd love to hear more about it's outcome.

[Frank Lee]

I believe he sold it unmodded and got himself a guzzler