Hello fellow gasaholics...
 

...or so it seems. I've been regularly prowling various EV, hybrid, alternative energy sites for a while now and come to this one by way of MetroMPG.com. I was just lurking outside for about an hour and decided to take a step inside.

My goal? To squeeze as many miles out of every drop of fuel as I can from my cars. I dream of building my own EV conversion or even a hybrid conversion of some kind.

I'll be around.

Welcome! Looks like you have
 

Welcome!

Looks like you have an impressive collection in your garage. Which is your primary vehicle?

Oh, and tell us more about yourself :)

hi silveredwings - welcome
 

hi silveredwings - welcome to the cult... i mean site!

i had some good friendly economy driving "competitions" with a friend of mine a few years back in his 02-ish passat turbo wagon (with fuel economy computer). nice car.

VW built-in FE computers
 

I think all cars should have some kind of FE readout. The Passat has 2 mpg accumulators. Both show the average mpg since it was last reset. One of them automatically resets after the car has been off for 2 hours. The other one must be manually reset and so is very handy for checking & resetting at refueling time.

For other cars, is there a thread with reviews of aftermarket mpg computers anywhere? I assume it's a simple matter of averaging and reading out the results of the OBDII data.

Re: VW built-in FE computers
 

no specific thread here, that i've seen. your choices seem to be, for post-1996 cars:

- a laptop-based system: where the laptop either analyzes data after the fact which was accumulated on a module that plugs into the ODB2 port; or the laptop connects to the ODB2 network and analyzes/stores the data on the fly.

- a ScanGauge

- for pre-1996 cars, the SuperMID is the only option i know of.

concensus seems to be: go scangauge if you're post-96 for price and ease of use.

go laptop-based if you want to be able to save data, or access more than the s.g. gives you (e.g. the car's "fuel trim" variables are not available through the s.g.)

Current choice of garage stablemates
 

I drive the P***at for the New England winters. I bought it well used and it's served me well for the past couple of years. Before that, my winter beater was a '92 Corolla that took me about 220K miles before I gave it away to a college student (who put another 30K on it before buying a '94 Passat and getting obsessed with the mpg readout!). With different driving techniques, I regularly get between 31 and 34 mpg in it. It's no where near as reliable as the Toyota was but I've been able to keep up with it. So far, the biggest thing I've done recently is replace the water pump (including lifting the engine to do it).

I had a Miata with a psycho-killer stereo in it. That has to be the best bang-for-the-buck ride out there. When I sold it, I insisted the buyer give me 'first right of refusal' whenever she gets rid of it. I replaced it with the 323 convertible because I needed back seats for transporting children. What, you don't suggest I give up the ragtop do you? ;)

Anyway, the Bimmer is a real nice drive, but not the same kind of thrill as the roadster. It has an analog mpg meter that shows a more 'instantaneous' mpg performance. It would be nice to have an averaging readout as well. Since it's RWD, I keep thinking about how I could add an electric motor between the transmission and the differential (shortened drive shaft) and make a hybrid conversion. Recently, I've replaced the brakes all around, rear shocks, rear window and a few other minor things.

The Healey was a longtime dream of mine. For fun-factor alone, I should have sold it and kept the Miata, but atleast it's been going up in value. I recently replaced the 3 SU carbs and can't wait to get them tuned up.

As for my EV aspirations, I'm thinking about converting a used Civic sometime (but I need to clear some garage space first).

I know for OBD-1 Hondas,
 

I know for OBD-1 Hondas, aftermarket ECU programming like Hondata and Uberdata are able to track injector pulse width and VSS data. I know that Uberdata is pretty much open source...so maybe someone who is savvy enough could write up a program to calculate mileage with Uberdata.

Quote:so maybe someone who
 

I could try, but who knows.

Anyway, wow, you do have a lot of 'mobiles. Welcome to the site, and I hope you enjoy your stay.