A.M.E.C. Economy Run II - Fonda, New York 10/5/08

[blownb310]

Greetings fellow hypermilers. For those of you located in the northeast, the Adirondack Motor Enthusiast Club A.M.E.C. will be holding a Fall Foliage "Economy Run" coming up this October 5, 2008.


A little history: A.M.E.C. held it's first Economy Run back in 1954. Now 54 years later with record high fuel prices, the club decided to bring the event back. Our members created a new course and the event took place this past August 10th. It was very well received and was thoroughly enjoyed by all who participated. Results can been seen here. It was a good dry run to make sure everything went smoothly and that our laptop excel program worked properly to calculate the results. We enjoyed it so much that we have planned an "Economy Run II" and this time would like to open it up to like minded individuals who would like to join us. To keep it easy to manage and fun we will limit registration to the first 20 entrants.

Here are the details:

What: Fuel mileage contest through the southern Adirondacks of NY. The route will be on some really nice scenic and challenging roads and will run 106.3 miles in distance. Your ?economic? driving ability will be tested. Cars will be filled with fuel by an AMEC official and then weighed on electronic scales. Small ramps are employed for easy on and off of the scales. Any street legal vehicle is allowed to participate, [including motorcycles].This event will run rain or shine.

Where: The starting spot will be at the Fairway Oil gas station on Route 5 in Fonda, NY. [directions below].

When: Sunday, October 5th, 2008. Arrival time will be 8:00-8:30am, 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. (They also don?t use ethanol, if that makes a difference to anyone.)

Cost: $10 per vehicle

Awards include:

1. Best overall mpg for gas cars

2. Best overall mpg for diesel and hybrid cars

3. Best ton-mile per gallon [TMPG] vehicle weight in pounds, divided by 2000, times miles driven, divided by gallons consumed. A handy calculator is here.

4. Best carbureted mpg

5. Best miles per dollar. [Based on the actual cost to travel the 106 miles. For example, we had a diesel VW Jetta get 56 mpg and a Dodge Avenger get 48 mpg. Because the diesel fuel was about a dollar more per gallon than the gasoline, the Avenger won this contest.]

Note: If we get more than one motorcycle we will add a class for them.

Awards: This event will conclude about noon, and our plan is to proceed up the nearby Checkers Out Go-Kart track for lunch, awards, and optional indoor go-kart races if you so desire. Checkers Out Speedway is an indoor go kart track open year round, and is located about ? of a mile south of Johnstown, NY, on NYS Route 30A. Physical address: 2299 State Hwy 30A Johnstown, NY 12905. Track phone: 518 736-4630

Directions: to Fairway Oil gas station: Take NY Thruway Exit 28. After the toll booth, turn left onto Riverside Drive. Then turn right onto South Bridge Street and go over the bridge. On the other side of the bridge is a traffic light. You can see Fairway Oil and Gas on your left. Turn left onto Route 5 and enter the station.

To register for this event: Please contact Mike Kamm at (518) 674-0520 or via email: mkamm [at ] juno [ dot] com. Or just simply reply to this thread with your name, year/model car. There is also a message board thread regarding this event on the A.M.E.C. message board here.





Registered driver's list as of 8-25-08

1. Dave Burnham - 1991 Diesel Jetta
2. Dick Vedder - 2000 Ford ZX2 S/R
3. Mark Long - 1997 Dodge Avenger
4. Mike Kamm - 1977 Datsun B210 "The saver's choice".
5. Claude Hutchings - 1999 Saab 9-3
6. Ernie Yue - 2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250cc
7. Ronny Kienhuis - 1972 Citroen SM or 1992 Subaru SVX
8. "Bestmapman" [Clean mpg] 2007 Toyota Prius, Cincinnati, KY.
9. "JPS000" - 2008 Toyota Prius
10. "Hobbit" [Clean mpg] - 2004 Toyota Prius - Boston, MA
11. Brian Wilsey - 2003 Mazda Protege [2.0] Amsterdam, NY
12. Carl Germain - 1950 Studebaker Champion Business Coupe
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.

[blownb310]

Anyone here interested? Only 7 spots left.

Mike

[blownb310]

Registered driver's list as of 9-27-08

1. Dave Burnham - 1991 Diesel Jetta - Delanson, NY
2. Dick Vedder - 2000 Ford ZX2 S/R - Johnstown, NY
3. Mark Long - 1997 Dodge Avenger - Staatsburg, NY
4. Mike Kamm - 1977 Datsun B210 - Averill Park, NY
5. Claude Hutchings - 1999 Saab 9-3 - Saquiot, NY
6. Ernie Yue - 2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250cc - Mechanicville, NY
7. Ronny Kienhuis - 1972 Citroen SM or 1992 Subaru SVX - Long Island, NY
8. Al Walker - [Clean MPG] - 2004 Toyota Prius - Boston, MA
9. Brian Wilsey - 2003 Mazda Protege - Amsterdam, NY
10. Tom Moeller - 1994 Mazda Miata - Saratoga NY
11. Carl Germain - 1950 Studebaker Champion Business Coupe - Syracuse, NY
12. Bill Clark - 1960 Metropolitan - Endicott, NY
13. Jonathan Bartlett - 2005 Passat TDI wagon[Biodiesel] - Sterling, MA
14. Pam Subik - 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee - Mayfield, NY
15. Tom Compoli - 1981 VW Rabbit - Schenectady, NY
16. Chris Werner - 1993 Ford Festiva - Troy, NY
17. Eric Hoefer - 2008 Honda Fit - Guilderland, NY
18. Paul Marczak - 1997 Honda Civic DX sedan - Glenville, NY
19.
20.

[Lug_Nut]

Originally Posted by blownb310

7. Ronny Kienhuis - 1972 Citroen SM or 1992 Subaru SVX

How does he tell them apart? One has a 6 cylinder engine driving the front wheels in an unusual body shape, the other has.....

[blownb310]

Originally Posted by Lug_Nut

How does he tell them apart? One has a 6 cylinder engine driving the front wheels in an unusual body shape, the other has.....

What can I say? He likes cars that are "different".

I still find it impressive that he can get 30 mpg out of that heavy AWD, 6 cyl. Subaru personal luxury car.

[blownb310]

We're just about a week away. I have made a few posts on some motorcycle web sites to try to get a few more bikes to give Ernie Yue's 2008 250cc Ninja some competition. Although Ernie's bike is rated at 60 mpg he managed 73.06 mpg in the last contest even though he had to ride through a mid summer's torrential downpour. He has installed a taller final drive setup and is shooting for 80+ mpg in this contest.

[itjstagame]

Sweet, I'd totally bring one of my bikes if they worked . If I felt like hypermiling the truck I could bring a motorcycle in spirit and shoot for the Ton/gal, heh.

Anyway I think cars definately have the ability to beat out the motorcycles, aero sucks on a motorcycle. Although it wouldn't take much with a redesign to give a rider a more forward lean and lower the seat and effectively cut the height to 2/3 or so, that'd help immensly. Granted the Festy has just as bad aero as is, heh.

[Lug_Nut]

Don't forget the area. Air drag is more than just a coefficient number. That coefficient requires area to be of any use.
A bike with a Cd of .8 for it's 6 feet of frontal area has less aerodynamic drag than a car with a Cd of .3 and a frontal area of 20 feet.

[blownb310]

I wish I had the time to do some aero mods to my Datsun B210 before Sunday, but and engine swap is more than enough at the moment.

For those on this forum who haven't been following a similar thread to this on our A.M.E.C. forum, here's what I'm doing to my '77 Datsun B210 for this event.

Previously the car was modified for speed and power. I used it for hillclimbs and such. I built and modified the 1397cc engine to 1608cc's complete with twin 40mm Dellortos...


It ran terrific but only got 25 mpg. OK so I needed a stock engine for economy run events.


So I removed this original 1397cc engine from my '76 B210 parts car. It sat outside in a field for the last 15 years. It needed some TLC.


I tore it down and freshened it up. This was yesterday.


Today it looks like this and I am installing it. I used an '80 Datsun 210 "mpg" cylinder head with it's smaller round intake ports and small combustion chambers. This head, on the B210 block [with it's flat top pistons] yields about 10.4 to 1 compression ratio. High compression is key for improving gas mileage. I'm waiting on an intake gasket from PA, so a road test will have to wait until Wednesday. I will be fine tuning it with an Innovate LM1 wide band oxygen sensor setup. I hope I get it dialed in by Sunday!

[Lug_Nut]

Weather is looking good!