Glide test
 

Basjoos would win this one hands down. But I'd be curious to know peoples' glide times from 42mph to 31mph.

I did a little test yesterday driving home. P&G on a nearly flat road (it's a very slight incline, but basically flat) and the pulse in 5th gear from 31mph to 42mph lasted, oh I dunno, maybe 10 seconds? But the glide in neutral, the part that matters, lasted about 19 seconds from 42mph to 31mph. Does that sound about right? It seemed pretty good to me. But other times I feel like the car is dragging. If anyone with a VX or small car wants to see how long their glide from 42mph to 31mph is, I'd be keen to know! cheers

Rarely Ideal Conditions
 

It's hard to say, but I'll try it tomorrow...

I'm guessing 5 seconds at the most here.

RH77

EDIT: OK maybe 10...we'll see

Did you try it? Why you think it will be so bad? I haven't tried mine the other direction. I will try to remember tomorrow morning.

Crap, I forgot to try it before I picked up the Chevy rental. I get the 'Teg back tomorrow...so I'll have a go at it.

cool, look forward to the result.

I'll give it a try... but why 42-31? why not 40-30? Easier to gauge with the lines on the speedo, esp at night.
Gary

True. I dunno why I did 42-31. Yesterday I tested it in both directions. 40mph to 30mph. But you have to understand my odometer is off by a couple percent. So 40mph is really 41 and 30 is really about 31. Anyway, it's about 20 seconds to glide from 40 to 30 for me. Sometimes it's 19, sometimes 22, but I think most of the time it's about 20. You should have a better result. My car has proven to have poor rollability compared to other non VX civics.

1mph at those slow of speeds isnt gonna mae a hoot of difference.

im gonan try this in my chevetet tommorow if its not windy(been liek 15-20 mph winds lately)

one thign i ave notice tho, i just changed the rear end fluid and i notice it coast 10X better.

Last night coming home in the rain - 40mph to 30mph was coasted in only 15 seconds instead of 20. Okay, Vette, look forward to the result!

It's been cold and windy here so I can't do a good test, but low to mid 20 second range for 42-31 mph is pretty much what I'm getting in these conditions. I'll have to wait for better conditions to do a good bi-directional run. I think it would be neat to see many peoples glide times for comparison for a given speed drop.
IMHO You could possibly benefit from a stronger/ shorter pulse. I don't do alote of P&G due to a worn out clutch but I was able to pulse back up in around 5 - 6 seconds without giving more than 75% throttle. I think I used 4th gear for that, so you may need 3rd or 4th gear to do that (I'm not sure what your gearing is like).

Normally I'll just pulse from 5th gear, but sometimes if I drop below 30mph I will go into 4th gear. But it takes a long time to pulse back up to speed like that! Prolly around 10 or 12 seconds, not sure, didn't time it. Without a supermid I cannot know what is the optimum pulse speed. I agree, tho, would be great if everyone would post their glide times.

Ok, I can remember 40 and 30, that will increase the chances of it happening :)

Fyi where I shift, not that it's so great or anything, but I top 70mpg frequently:

9mph
15mph
25mph
35mph

Usually holding ~6/10 throttle working up to about ~7/8 before the next shift, maybe. I do worse when I think about it too much :)

You have a plan for getting an mpg gauge? Or at least a fuel consumption gauge? They help an awful lot.

Hmm... Hmm... I'm wondering if that $22 kill a watt can be taught to keep track of injector pulse time and run on 12 volts, hmm... :)

skewbe - I've been seeing a fair number of Arduino based projects. Have you seen that yet? Sort of like a Basic stamp. https://www.arduino.cc/ It's around $30 pre-assembled.

I suspect it would make an ideal platform for a FE computer. It's got something like 6 analog and 8(?) digital inputs, and can be run at 12v.

Interesting, I have to keep that in mind. To add a 2 line LCD display would be another $30-$40 though.

The kill a watt might be real easy if it uses a shunt, but it would need a tuneable shunt and a calibration procedure, or a correction factor to convert injector watt hours to gallons :)

Course an old palm pilot can be a real handy starting point for an appliance too (oooh... touch screen...)

(sorry if we are hijacking, 93)

True, but you could also just laptop the Arduino... Anyway, I don't know too much about these things. But I may get one to play with just to learn something new this winter. I'd like to make one into a battery monitor for the FS.

No more thread jacking!

I'm not actually sure Flight 93 was hijacked...

That's okay - jack away. I would like to get an inexpensive fuel consumer readout for my car so maybe I can learn something from you guys.

1993CivicVX --
I tried the last two nights to do the 40-30mph glide test, but never got a chance. I'm on the freeway 2hrs a day so I don't have a chance during my commute to do this. But tonight, I decided to try a 60-50 glide test and got anywhere from 9.3-9.9 secs. I'm not surprised it slowed down faster than the figures you guys are getting during the 40-30 glide test due to air resistance.

Today, I found an old sienna doing 45mph on the freeway and I followed it for about 30 minutes! I think I'm in for another 50+ mpg fillup tommorrow.

I tried p&g today, but it's very impractical on the highway for me.

Gary

Yeah, don't cause an accident! There are no rural roads where you can try it? Your 60-50 test is a real testament to how much more gas you are using at 60mph than at 40mph. Your glide was twice as long, but your speed was only a little more than 50% faster. Plus, I have a knobby tires. I'm pretty sure a VX with proper tires would glide better than my 20 seconds.

I'm on my way to very good FE this tank as well. So watch out! :D

I live right next to the freeway and I work right next to the freeway so I don't get a chance to safely do the 40-30 glide test. Once I'm off the freeway, I'm two lights from home and two lights from work.

Yes, there is so much wind resistance at that speed. I've been drafting every day since last week. It takes about 10 more minutes to get home (20 minutes day). That's an 1.5 hrs a week longer commuting when I draft since drafting slows me down considerably since I follow slow trucks, but the increase in mileage is significant.
Gary

Yeah, definitely. Gas savings from just driving slower and further savings by getting sucked in behind the truck. How close do you draft? You know, I've never seen a truck stop short. How unsafe is it really to draft close behind trucks? I mean, what are the odds? Prolly worth the risk. Worst that happens is you total your car. Not likely you'd be seriously injured. With saying that, I don't feel comfortable enough to tailgate close to trucks.

I was drafting a little last week on the interstate. It seemed like I could get a pretty good draft off a tall semi with the standard box trailer from about 4.5 car lengths back. I felt pretty safe back there and was surprised at how much it was helping.

I say I was getting a good draft just because of the decrease in wind noise and the reduction in throttle I had to give to maintain 70 mph. I also noticed a sweet spot that is behind and diagonal to the semi trailer (in the next lane over).

I personally don't think it's that dangerous, but you have to be more aware and act quickly if anything happens. I follow pretty close, up to about 3 vx's length from the truck, but usually I stay around 5-6 car lenghts back because trucks don't like it. I find that if they keep changing lanes they are telling you to back off.

Drafting definately adds about 8-10mpg to my avg FE.
Gary