Fuel Efficient Engine Builders?

[Davo53209]

Originally Posted by bzipitidoo

One of the questions I've been thinking of asking is where can we get FE parts? The lightweight composite hoods for subcompacts, FE optimized camshafts for tiny 3 cyl engines, kits for adding skirts to rear wheel wells, and that sort of thing.

But I haven't asked, because from what I've seen the answer seems to be: nowhere. No one makes them, You have to do it yourself if you want that stuff. And that's an advantage for any aftermarket manufacturer thinking of giving this area a try: there'd be very little competition.

Next, the hot rodders get their competitions, why can't we have ours at the same race tracks? The FE version of the 1/4 mile would be the teaspoon (well, maybe a tablespoon) of gas. On each car, disconnect the regular gas tank and attach the special walnut sized tank, then see how far the car gets. Then we'd have the FE equivalent of 0-60 times: how far can your car go on a teaspoon of gas once it has reached 100 kph? I bet a few contests like that would raise interest.

OH MAN....THAT IS AN ABSOULETLY BRILLIANT IDEA! I say set it off!!! In fact, that would be the way to generate interest in fuel Ecomony. Especillay if it were done for money, pride and prices. In time, what I think would happen, is that it would inspire an intense desire for competative individuals to create FE mods and engine tweaks for that sole purpose. Like the hotrod industry, these mods were eventually evolve in their sophistication, leading to a new market of FE type performance parts and products. Best all, this evolution would lead to quantifiable objective data on what actually works. You really should create a seperate post and put your idea out to the rest of the forum.

[cfg83]

Davo53209-

Originally Posted by Davo53209

OH MAN....THAT IS AN ABSOULETLY BRILLIANT IDEA! I say set it off!!! In fact, that would be the way to generate interest in fuel Ecomony. Especillay if it were done for money, pride and prices. In time, what I think would happen, is that it would inspire an intense desire for competative individuals to create FE mods and engine tweaks for that sole purpose. Like the hotrod industry, these mods were eventually evolve in their sophistication, leading to a new market of FE type performance parts and products. Best all, this evolution would lead to quantifiable objective data on what actually works. You really should create a seperate post and put your idea out to the rest of the forum.

Instead of a Tour De Sol, a "Tour De Todo" that includes any and all mods?

CarloSW2

[northboundtrain]

Originally Posted by Davo53209

OH MAN....THAT IS AN ABSOULETLY BRILLIANT IDEA!

I dunno. I think when we get outside of our little nerd bubble, we realize how little it really is. Hardly anybody's gonna give a damn about "Xtreme FE" unless it gets really extreme. In fact, wasn't there some contest recently to design a 1,000 mile per gallon vehicle? But the "stock FE grand prix"? We are a rare breed indeed.

When I got ready to drive across the country in my VW diesel pickup last year, I chopped off the entire exhaust and welded up my own custom 2" straight pipe with no muffler. I figured I was setting out on a 5,000+ mile road trip and I wanted to squeak out every last mpg I could. Well, I took it for a test drive around town and it wasn't too bad. So the next day I set out for New Hampshire. Well at highway speeds (and rpm) things got a little louder and the bed of the truck acted like a gigantic woofer. I had to stop and buy ear plugs otherwise I'd loose a good portion of my hearing before the trip was over. When I pulled into N.H., my friends were looking at me like I was some kind of babbling lunatic as I explained that I'd just gotten the best mpg ever. I took my buddy for a ride and he was like, "Dude, you drove this thing cross country like this? Just for a few extra miles per gallon? What the f@#& is wrong with you?" I'm sure you all can get it, but I realized then and there that my little hobby was probably not going to become the next big IPO. The average person -- if they happen to even care about saving gas -- is going to be very happy with 40 or 50 mpg. Squeaking out another few mpgs with performance cams, aero mods, etc just to save $100 or $150 a year isn't nearly worth the trouble, not to mention expense. The only people who really care are the ones out there cutting up rubbermaid containers and screwing them onto their cars themselves, and let's admit it, it's just a hobby. It's what we do for fun. If we weren't into it we could probably save twice as much fuel by using all the time we spend modding our rides to ride our damn bicycles to the grocery store instead of driving.

That being said, I do think it would be really cool to make a performance FE cam. I bet there could be some serious gains to be made, since just about all automotive cams are designed with some amount of acceleration performance in mind. Maybe when gas is finally being rationed Detroit sit up and take notice.

In the meantime, come up with a product that saves truckers a mile per gallon, and you'll make millions.

Example: http://www.dieselmidatlantic.org/die...DCAeroOvw2.pdf

BTW, many of the points I made in this little tirade are arguments from my wife and friends when I've floated the idea of turning my FE interest into a business of some sort. I'm glad to finally find there are other people who think like I do!

[Davo53209]

Originally Posted by northboundtrain

I dunno. I think when we get outside of our little nerd bubble, we realize how little it really is. Hardly anybody's gonna give a damn about "Xtreme FE" unless it gets really extreme. In fact, wasn't there some contest recently to design a 1,000 mile per gallon vehicle? But the "stock FE grand prix"? We are a rare breed indeed.

When I got ready to drive across the country in my VW diesel pickup last year, I chopped off the entire exhaust and welded up my own custom 2" straight pipe with no muffler. I figured I was setting out on a 5,000+ mile road trip and I wanted to squeak out every last mpg I could. Well, I took it for a test drive around town and it wasn't too bad. So the next day I set out for New Hampshire. Well at highway speeds (and rpm) things got a little louder and the bed of the truck acted like a gigantic woofer. I had to stop and buy ear plugs otherwise I'd loose a good portion of my hearing before the trip was over. When I pulled into N.H., my friends were looking at me like I was some kind of babbling lunatic as I explained that I'd just gotten the best mpg ever. I took my buddy for a ride and he was like, "Dude, you drove this thing cross country like this? Just for a few extra miles per gallon? What the f@#& is wrong with you?" I'm sure you all can get it, but I realized then and there that my little hobby was probably not going to become the next big IPO. The average person -- if they happen to even care about saving gas -- is going to be very happy with 40 or 50 mpg. Squeaking out another few mpgs with performance cams, aero mods, etc just to save $100 or $150 a year isn't nearly worth the trouble, not to mention expense. The only people who really care are the ones out there cutting up rubbermaid containers and screwing them onto their cars themselves, and let's admit it, it's just a hobby. It's what we do for fun. If we weren't into it we could probably save twice as much fuel by using all the time we spend modding our rides to ride our damn bicycles to the grocery store instead of driving.

That being said, I do think it would be really cool to make a performance FE cam. I bet there could be some serious gains to be made, since just about all automotive cams are designed with some amount of acceleration performance in mind. Maybe when gas is finally being rationed Detroit sit up and take notice.

In the meantime, come up with a product that saves truckers a mile per gallon, and you'll make millions.

Example: http://www.dieselmidatlantic.org/die...DCAeroOvw2.pdf

BTW, many of the points I made in this little tirade are arguments from my wife and friends when I've floated the idea of turning my FE interest into a business of some sort. I'm glad to finally find there are other people who think like I do!

Well, you're opinion is vallid and as you said, there are some people here who may do this as a hobby. That respectfully doe not represent everyone. I for one got frustrated by the notion that automotive industry has made prototypes, which can achieved incredible gas mileage, yet they won't mass produce those vehicle to the consumer market. In the meantime, gas prices have skyrocketed within the last 6 years to record high costs.

My personal motivation for finding a site such as this, was to see if there were any FE mods in existence that would work. Speaking for myself, I'm here to curb my curiosty, while determining what works, while bouncing off ideas towards those who have the experience. One idea from one individual, may inspire the begginings of something monumental, that no one else had thought of before. Whether there was a direct relationship to that initial idea or not. No matter how you look at it, necessity is the mother of invention, and the first question towards the road to discovery is to ask, "What if", while exploring possible options that were never tried before.

[skewbe]

I think I like the perspective of putting fuel (the thing you are trying to conserve) in the numerator. Mebbe I just switch to L/100KM and get used to it.

[skewbe]

0.007 years/gallon is pretty good

[northboundtrain]

No doubt there will come a day when most cars are being built for optimal economy. The time when the difference between 50 mpg and 60 mpg will really matter is when gasoline is being rationed. Imagine you get 25 gallons per month. At 50 mpg you can go 1,250 miles a month. At 60 mpg you can go 1,500 miles, an additional 250 miles! At 70 mpg you can go 1,750 miles, another 250 miles still. Here is where the law of diminishing returns does not apply. Each additional 10 mpg gets you another 250 miles. And that could mean an extra weekend trip to the mountains or the ability to actually get to work all month. That day could easily come. So if you develop a high performance FE cam, there could be a market for your efforts someday.

But until that day arrives, The market for extremely fuel efficient cars is pretty small. That is not to say that all else being equal -- price, safety, etc. -- someone buying a new car today wouldn't choose 80 mpg over 50 mpg (the argument that Detroit is withholding more fuel efficient cars from the public is certainly true). But that same person probably wouldn't drop a buch of money into mods that improve the fuel economy of a 10 or 15 year old vehicle from 50 mpg to 60 mpg.

But a one mpg improvement for a trucker that hauls 100,000 miles a year yields a fuel savings of 3,333 gallons per year, or about $8,000 at current diesel prices.

[cfg83]

northboundtrain -

Originally Posted by northboundtrain

No doubt there will come a day when most cars are being built for optimal economy. The time when the difference between 50 mpg and 60 mpg will really matter is when gasoline is being rationed. Imagine you get 25 gallons per month. At 50 mpg you can go 1,250 miles a month. At 60 mpg you can go 1,500 miles, an additional 250 miles! At 70 mpg you can go 1,750 miles, another 250 miles still. Here is where the law of diminishing returns does not apply. Each additional 10 mpg gets you another 250 miles. And that could mean an extra weekend trip to the mountains or the ability to actually get to work all month. That day could easily come. So if you develop a high performance FE cam, there could be a market for your efforts someday.

But until that day arrives, The market for extremely fuel efficient cars is pretty small. That is not to say that all else being equal -- price, safety, etc. -- someone buying a new car today wouldn't choose 80 mpg over 50 mpg (the argument that Detroit is withholding more fuel efficient cars from the public is certainly true). But that same person probably wouldn't drop a buch of money into mods that improve the fuel economy of a 10 or 15 year old vehicle from 50 mpg to 60 mpg.

But a one mpg improvement for a trucker that hauls 100,000 miles a year yields a fuel savings of 3,333 gallons per year, or about $8,000 at current diesel prices.

Bingo.

There is a strange schizo thing about all this. Europe has shorter overall distances (more compact, right?), but better MPG cars. The USA has huge distances to cover, but has lower MPG cars. Why? Cheap oil until the first oil shock and subsidized oil since then (right?$?).

If I were president of the USA, I would have done the following to make sure I was never re-elected. I would create the "penny a month" gas tax. For 4 years, 48 months, the tax on gas nationwide would increase by 1 penny. That would gaurantee a gradual increase in gas prices and something that the economy could plan for. People with jobs that depend on gas like truckers would get 1-for-1 tax writeoffs on the tax (imagine the black market for trucker's licenses !!!!). The pennies would be devoted to all kinds of R&D that lead to sustainable energy, high speed rail, and high MPG drivetrain improvements that are *given* to USA car companies that keep manufacturing jobs in the USA.

Question : How do European trucker MPGs compare to USA trucker MPGs?

CarloSW2

[Davo53209]

Originally Posted by northboundtrain

No doubt there will come a day when most cars are being built for optimal economy. The time when the difference between 50 mpg and 60 mpg will really matter is when gasoline is being rationed. Imagine you get 25 gallons per month. At 50 mpg you can go 1,250 miles a month. At 60 mpg you can go 1,500 miles, an additional 250 miles! At 70 mpg you can go 1,750 miles, another 250 miles still. Here is where the law of diminishing returns does not apply. Each additional 10 mpg gets you another 250 miles. And that could mean an extra weekend trip to the mountains or the ability to actually get to work all month. That day could easily come. So if you develop a high performance FE cam, there could be a market for your efforts someday.

But until that day arrives, The market for extremely fuel efficient cars is pretty small. That is not to say that all else being equal -- price, safety, etc. -- someone buying a new car today wouldn't choose 80 mpg over 50 mpg (the argument that Detroit is withholding more fuel efficient cars from the public is certainly true). But that same person probably wouldn't drop a buch of money into mods that improve the fuel economy of a 10 or 15 year old vehicle from 50 mpg to 60 mpg.

But a one mpg improvement for a trucker that hauls 100,000 miles a year yields a fuel savings of 3,333 gallons per year, or about $8,000 at current diesel prices.

Why don't we be the trailblazers for FE. The whole reason why I used the hotrod analogy at the beginning of this thread, was to paralell what had happened with the Detroit car industry, when they realized the potential of what was coming out of the average man's garage.

Like us, these guys were taking stock automobiles from the factory and making them better for their purposes. They started out with the same passion & inquisitiveness that we all have for our FE mods, until finally, Detroit took notice and expanded upon the technology. Everyone on this site has the potential to be the catalyst to do that very same thing for FE.

Now I am well aware of the "law of diminishing returns" and it is quite logical. However, it can also be the very same argument that shuts the door on a potentially new ideas or concepts. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that we should blow all of our cash on something impracticle or far fetched. Instead, I'm saying that we need to take care, so as not to stifle both curiosity and discovery. Because when the need arrives to take action(e.g. 4-5 dollars per gallon) and pehaps one day it might, the acquisition of a novel solution will be pursued anyways. I personally think it best to get a head start on that beforehand.

[bzipitidoo]

The problem with an FE aftermarket is even if it were popularized with races, FE is still fundamentally about saving money. The cold reality is that it doesn't make economic sense to blow hundreds of dollars to save a few pounds (like by upgrading from steel to aluminum rims), or on an engine mod that increases efficiency by such a small amount it will be very hard to measure the improvement in FE,

$500 to have your engine cryo treated? Another $500 for ceramic coatings? And then another $500 for teflon impregnation? $500 more for budget mag wheels, another $500 for a lightweight composite hood, and so on. Probably the payback on all that is well over 100,000 miles, and that's the relatively cheap stuff. And there's always the question of whether you're really doing the environment a favor. For instance, the reason aluminum is so expensive is not that it's rare-- quite the opposite. It's that producing aluminum is extremely energy intensive. Factor in the energy difference in making aluminum vs steel, and that 100,000 mile payback might shoot up to 150,000. The costs of manufacturing and disposing of batteries is a huge problem with all electric cars. Nonetheless, I do think about doing such things.

Good prize money for FE competitions might change the economics. Also, I've noticed often the prices are out of line. I mean, $10K for a thermoelectric generator? Granted, it's a prototype, but what are they smoking??

I thought I was pretty tight, but among this company, I'm average or even spendthrift. I really wish I'd learned of coroplast back in Nov when there were still signs around for the taking. Since I've been unable to find coroplast at what I consider good prices, I'm thinking maybe I can do aero mods with plastic shingles made from milk jugs. For anyone thinking of offering custom aero mods, that kind of economy is tough competition.