The tricks up my sleeve... Methods I may implement for better FE.
 

Hey all,

I've been driving inefficient vehicles for too long now. I consider myself too much of an efficiency guru to get less than 30mpg.

I'll be purchasing a more fuel efficient car over the summer (most likely a Civic) to use as a platform for some of the more involved methods of extracting more miles out of each gallon.

As of right now, I'm looking at boosting a stock Civic motor and leaning out the fuel in favor of higher efficiency. To combat detonation, I'll be running water/alcohol injection and a small intercooler. The turbo will most likely be something small, common, and inexpensive. I like the old Ford Probe/Mazda MX6 IHI VJ11 turbo and it's been adapted to Honda motors before.

I also like VW's Twincharger system that allows the Golf GT 1.4TSI (1.4 L engine) to make 177lb ft of torque while achieving 39/48 mpg. More info on that here. That's a lot of power coming out of such a small engine. The basic concept is to use the blower at low rpm and turbo at high. Neat idea.

Weight reduction will also come into play. Also, I've done my share of fiberglassing and will most likely add some aero to lower the Cd as much as is possible. I'll be lowering the car and fabbing some sort of belly pan.

Here's the catch: This will be my daily and I will be maintaining A/C (FL gets hot) and the vehicle will be pleasing to the eye.

Now, I just need to get me a vehicle. lol. I just need some place to put my ideas down and hear critiques.

Matt

Welcome to GasSavers! It should be interesting to hear your progress.

Umm... It should work? :D
Provided most of your driving is at a steady cruise, instead of boosting a smaller motor to get more power, why not go to a larger displacement motor and gear it for your driving? Imo, it'd be much more reliable, and leaning out could still be an option w/ SAFI, w/o the risks associated with running a boosted motor lean. The nice thing about the TSI is the small displacement allows for good efficiency across the board, but as long as you aren't doing a lot of city, why not build something that's just as fast if not faster, and gets ~25-30/50 mpg? Do you already have some cheap/free parts, or would this be from the ground up?

Edit-Hopefully the TSI won't follow the path of the grenade luancher on the Corrado... ;)

I sent this to you already... but for everyone else...

Factory Super Turbo Nissan Not available in the US of course.... but if you're in AUS. :p

new civic or like a older vx?

Wouldn't a blower be very bad for fuel mileage? The turbo would likely be better, because it only kicks on when you're pushing lots of exhaust gas through there. The super is belt driven so it would constantly run, and constantly pull at your power, thus constantly dropping your mileage.

My .02

If you're interested in turbocharging, you might want to put a smaller engine into the car then use the turbo to make up for the lost power. Greenpeace achieved 78 mpg with normal driving by modifying a Renault Twingo (normally gets 35mpg). They made some aero mods, reduced weight, and made a few other small things, but most of the increase was because they replaced the 1.5L 4 cylinder motor with a turbocharged two cylinder. It actually put out a little more power than the 4 cylinder without costing significantly more.

Just a thought....

Keep in mind that the turbo isn't free power ;) It's just not leaching power directly off the crank :thumbup:

If the exhaust was freed up a bit to counter the increase of back-pressure, it would be though.

Without that pressure differential -- the turbine won't spin.... Or perhaps I'm missing what you're referring to :P