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30+ mpg is supposed to be good??

N

NathanAllan

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 1, 2003
Messages
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Location
Bellevue, Colorado
I had to vent somewhere. I am seeing ads on TV about these new cars getting 38 miles per gallon and this is the best that they can do? I had a 1977 Mustang (yes, the Pinto based one) and I got that kind of mileage. It wasn't supposed to get that good of mileage, though. What I did was:

1. Add a header to its 4-cyl engine with a as straight as possible 2" pipe,
2. Put a Mallory SuperCoil on the ignition system with copper core wires,
3. Put a cheap-o TurboII muffler on my now near-straight pipe,
4. Block the smog pump,
5. Put in the hot-burning and high temp splitfire spark plug,
6. Ran an open air filter.

So I was basically tweaking my system to run better. This kind of thing doesn't really work on newer cars like my Cavalier, but I can still get a header and better exhaust, which I plan on doing, and get the high quality wires that have copper cores. Better spark, better mileage. And they make a ram air for it, too. Better mileage from less restriction of airflow. Anyway, most cars have tweaks in them that make them run better. Since I was doing all of my own work it was easy for me but I understand that if you had someone do all this it would likely cost a bundle.

Every time I see those commercials I remember my Mustang. And then most likely I go into a tirade about it to anyone who'll listen, heh heh.

Nathan
 
forgot to add, since I had all that other stuff and had my head buried in it for such a long time, I accidentally left the catalytic converter off and passed emissions anyway. I guess it was the spark plugs.
 
And those modifications didn't harm the engine or its life cycle? Maybe car manufacturers are lobbied by fuel distributors not to make the car too efficient, but I think also they are careful so the car will last as long as the warranty (and much beyond that).

Cars of today tend to be computer programmed, and you can "chip trim" your car to more horsepower, better mileage and so on. A few manufacturers have official trim programs their customers can buy, and then there are home brewn hacks sold illegally that not only breaks any warranty, but often also insurance. The home brewn chip trims may work, but you don't know if the engine will be stressed and go *boom* one day to work.

38 miles per gallon.. that is 16 km per liter or 0.62 liter per 10 km. Quite good if you are able to keep it on that level. Some tiny Korean cars like Kia Picanto 1.0L claim to make 0.49 liter per 10 km, which equals to 48 miles per gallon. Try to beat that!
 
That would be hard to beat, but I'd like to get away from gas altogether. I've been drawing up rough designs for electric motors and power systems for a future project one of these days. One thing, Art Bell's giant loop antenna (http://www.ccrane.com/news/art-bell.11.19.02.aspx seemed to get electricity from nowhere, he calls it the aether, but I think it's the electromagnetic field of the earth. Anyway, I wanna put a small one up with similar dimensions but scaled down and see if I can get a constant off of it. Also been messing with magnetic repulsion as a force.

A few years ago there was a man in Tennessee that came up with a motor/generator combination that once kickstarted with a battery, just kept going. It went like this (until I can dig the article up); The battery started the motor, which was belted to a genereator that produced more than the motor needed so the motor would spin faster and draw more and the generator would spin more and produce more current. It would eventually lead to the thing blowing up if there weren't some kind of drain of the juice, and he was using it to power a television and a refrigerator. Every physics guy I talked to said it was impossible. But as soon as I can find the article I will post it here.

Nathan
 
Found it!

The following is an article from the local news station, and it may do good. I have tried to follow up on it but to no avail, still waiting on some emails, too.
<http://newschannel5.com/news/0106/12/invent.html>
Nathan
Invention May Bend Rules Of Physics
Is it possible? Could someone with no practical scientific training make a machine that solves the energy crisis?
Skeptics would say no, but NewsChannel 5's Nick Beres spoke with two men who say they've developed a new engine that defies the law of physics.
Carl Tilley and Robert Kibbey say they've developed a new power source.
"We are generating more electricity than we're using," Kibbey said about their invention.
Skeptics will tell you that's impossible, but Tilley and Kibbey said the engine uses no gas, propane, diesel, wind or solar energy, and can generate 30-thousand watts of electricity an hour.
"We're bending the laws of physics. We're just more efficient recycling energy that disappears into the air," Kibbey said.
NewsChannel 5 invited Rellon Maxwell, an electrical engineer, to join us for the demonstration of the invention.
Batteries kick start the engine. They send out 16 amps.
The engine then powers two television sets plus a big generator.
The engine sends 20 amps back to the batteries.
It should be less power--not more.
Maxwell said he's never seen anything like it in his 40 years in the business.
Tilley and Kibbey are not trained scientists. They said that helped them think outside the box.
"Edison, Einstein didn't finish high school and Goodyear got vulcanized rubber by burning it," Kibbey said.
They've kept their invention a secret until now.
Other scientists will certainly want to see the engine.
Tilley and Kibbey welcome the scrutiny.
They say their invention works and has the power to change the world.
Tilley and Kibbey said their invention can power a house, or even a car without an external source of energy.
Both men said more testing is needed.
But, if what they says is true, the engine would save consumers thousands and thousands of dollars.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has already inquired about the invention.
 
Overunity has been sought after by many people, but most likely its unachievable. The laws of thermodynamics pretty much tell you why. If I recall, the guys that you're talking about admitted that it was a fraud.
That antenna thing does actually work. The current generated is enough to be measured, but not quite enough to be useful. But we're talking efficiency here, right? Maybe we can develop useful devices with lower power consumption.
 
Those guys were found out to be fake? Ah well. Maybe if they had taken the antenna idea...

I was thinking the same thing about low power consumption. Heck, I was thinking about (IF I could make it work out) running a seperate line to all the power outlets in the house, specifically a small voltage. If Art Bell got 300-something volts, that can be adapted to, say, 24 volts at a good, usable amperage. I would also like to marry this idea with the idea of the ionocraft (google it). That would be a great thing. Huge, but great.

I forgot to answer the question if all of those mods hurt the car, and it didn't. There were other things that I could have done but didn't cause I wrecked the car. Like replace the rest of the ignition system, ducted ram air, or something I would love to toy with, an electric blower! But the car was asking to be modified, heh heh.

When I get the chance to put up a loop on top of the apartment I will and see if I can power the fridge and save that much on the electric bill. And probably from there I will start installing them for people once word gets out.

Nathan
 
carlsson said:
Cars of today tend to be computer programmed, and you can "chip trim" your car to more horsepower, better mileage and so on. A few manufacturers have official trim programs their customers can buy, and then there are home brewn hacks sold illegally that not only breaks any warranty, but often also insurance. The home brewn chip trims may work, but you don't know if the engine will be stressed and go *boom* one day to work.
Click to expand...

Those chips that they sell are mostly just a clever gimmick to take your money and make it someone else's. A little understanding of how your car's computer system works could save you that money, and keep it out of thier pockets. You should know that the chips they sell are PROM chips that contain a basic set of parameters to get your engine started under any circumstances. We geeks should also know that ROM is much too slow for the kind of real-time processing that goes on in your car when it's running. What happens is that as soon as you turn on your ignition switch, the program stored in the PROM is copied into RAM, and then it is executed from RAM. Immediatly, the parameters that were copied from the PROM begin to be modified, based on the input recieved from the various sensors located in and around the engine compartment. The computer then begins to modify it's outputs, based on the new parameters it has recieved, so that within a few minutes of run-time, the program being executed is no longer the same program as contained in the ROM, it is operating on a completely different set of data than it originally was. When the computer shuts down, it doesn't shut all the way down, it just goes to sleep, and the new parameters are retained in RAM for the next time it is powered up. The PROM only has effect in the first few minutes of starting the engine, after that, it's data is no longer valid, until the next time the computer is powered down, by disconnecting the car's battery, f'rinstance. Just something to keep in mind if you're ever tempted to shell-out a few hundred on a "hot" new chip.
Nathan's method will do a lot more good. If you can do anything to get your engine breathing better, your performance will improve, and quite possibly, your mileage as well.

--T
 
NathanAllan said:
I forgot to answer the question if all of those mods hurt the car, and it didn't. There were other things that I could have done but didn't cause I wrecked the car. Like replace the rest of the ignition system, ducted ram air, or something I would love to toy with, an electric blower! But the car was asking to be modified, heh heh.

Nathan
Click to expand...

Good plan, but there are a couple of less drastic steps you might want to take between the tunnel ram and the supercharger, to insure that the blower is able to opreate at it's peak efficency. Like port & polish the heads, and/or install a hotter cam. The blower will do a lot more good if you first remove any bottleneck in the valvetrain. (Of course, when I build an engine, I usually start from the bottom up).

--T
 
Kinda reminds me of the cold fusion guys a while back. Nothing like having Newscasters second-guess the laws of pyhsics

I wimped out, and bought a VW Jetta Diesel station wagon a couple of years ago. I usually get around ~39 mpg mixed driving, and none of this 55-mph crap, either.

patscc
 
I drove a 1985 Nissan Sentra for 11 years. It was stripped - no cigar lighter socket, no arm rests on the doors. Just basic transportation with a 1.6 litre 69 horsepower engine, a simple carburetor (one of the last cars to have one), and no weight anywhere.

Winter mileage in Upstate New York would dip as low as 15MPG if it was really cold and I was just shuttling back and forth between town and campus. The best mileage that I recorded that didn't look like a fluke was in the mid 40s, and that was straight highway mileage doing about 65MPH for a 4.5 hour trip.

Routine driving got me around 30MPG. When I was fresh out of college the MPG was better, as I was doing more highway driving and exploring. As things (me) slowed down, MPG settled in around 25, and that would be mostly city driving. (When we got the second car this car stayed in town much more.)

No modifications to the emmisions system.

Given how light and bare this car was, I think it would be a major challenge for an older or heavier car to match these numbers. The only thing this car was missing that would have improved gas mileage was a fuel injection system, which came on later model Sentras. Those also became much heavier.

If you modify the emmisions system and get better mileage, that's cheating. More MPG but with more pollution kind of defeats the purpose. We need engines that are both clean and efficient.

Keep the engine in tune. Check the tire pressure. Keep the air filter clean. Don't pound the gas or the brake pedals. Drive slower .. etc. That's what contributes to fuel efficiency.

And for the Americans like myself, resist the SUVs and pickup trucks. Using a 6000 vehicle to go grocery shopping is stupid.
 
That's the exact reason I haven't ever gotten chips for my car, since I had it explained to me a few years back.

I completely agree about the head port and polish. The mustang had tha smaller engine, the 2.0L (vs. the 2.? other engine). Its main flaw was the head. I was advised to get a head from a different car but never had the chance. I should have known better though, cause long before when I was in high school, I saw that the bolt patterns for my future engine was the same as the tempo that was brought into the shop. Though I never really looked into it I doubt they would have swapped without any issues.

I'm looking at a website (http://www.mantapart.com/2022ohv.html) that has a head for 800.00 USD. I don't know whether or not porting and polishing would be better. Heck, the car's already got close to 100K miles on it. Hmm. As I look at that page it lets me see that there are LOTS of things available for it. Pricey :?

About the Volkswagen, that's my choice of body for replacing it with an electric motor setup. It's light, simple enough design, and front wheel drive. Got to look at a few recently and saw the engine bay is bigger than you would think it would be. And there are lots of magnet-motor setup possibilities (google again).
 
In the Mustang it was actually less pollution after the modification. I totally agree that polluting is the bane of the car's existence. Heck, with the all steel motor that was in the mustang, I could have run pure alcohol(runs hotter) but it would have been dangerous.

You mentioned SUV's. I have a Jeep Cherokee that seems to be a gas hog that I haven't had a chance to put the fixes to, but it has potential. I can't find any kind of performance parts for it. They are all made for the trail and not for street driving. I have ideas, though. There is a place here that USED TO do custom exhaust, but they told me they quit that years ago. And I forgot how expensive making your own parts can get. So I am selling it. Main reason for having it is my wife had one before, and she got hit at 45+mph in the side and she was okay. Jeep wasn't even totalled but out of our range to fix it. It was safe.

But I think that once I get the funds to "upgrade" the cavalier I could get 40+mpg and run clean and have enough power if I needed it. I'm not a hot rodder anymore but I appreciate things that run efficiently. OR get a electric rabbit :D
 
That Mustang engine would've been the OHC 2.3-liter. I always liked Ford's V-6 too. That 60-degree configuration runs just as smooth as silk. My big challenge recently was trying to convince my friend that underneath that soccer-mom exterior, his Grand Wagoneer is all Jeep. (He should know better, his "other car" is a '49 Willis). He was asking if I had any ideas, when we were examining his Class-A motor home, sunk to it's axles in mud. I just couldn't convince him that all he had to do was hook-up a tow strap to the back of his Wagoneer, and give 'er hell.

--T
 
I'm generally skeptical about mods that an owner can make to a vehicle to improve performance, efficiency, etc. Given a new vehicle from the factory, a lot of engineering has gone into it. Fuel efficiency and pollution controls are two things that get a lot of attention, so if there is a cheap or moderate way to improve them, it's probably been looked at.

In the design process there are some tradeoffs. It is possible to improve fuel efficiency, but at the expense of something else usually - like performance, pollution controls, noise, ride, etc. In some cases it's legal to make those tradeoffs - higher pressure tires reduce rolling resistance, at the expense of comfort. However, except for a few cases like that there is usually very little you can do to a car except keep it well maintained.

Putting big pipes on an engine might help reduce backpressure, but that's got to be affecting something else. Very few things are free ...


Mike
 
You are correct. With the Mustang, I experienced excellerated wear and tear on parts that interacted with the performance parts. Basically all the parts required for atune up lasted not as long, the front wheel bearings gave faster, the carb tended to get dirtier faster and the suspension wasn't built to respond to the better acceleration and turning capability. About the suspension, wht added dramatic performance at the cost of weight was truck towing springs from auto zone. Since I did all my own work it was no big deal, I was happy about having to do extra "project work."

The cavalier is a different story. It's got all the fancy engineering that new cars have and I'm gonna have to be careful. I figure a header and new exhaust couldn't hurt. Better intake would be good too, and maybe porting the heads if not replacing it later. Better wires and plug definitely. I looked al around and could not find anything to replace the distributor with, so I guess I'll keep it.

There are other things, too. I won't list them all here as it would take too much server space, heh heh. But I am prepared to deal with the things that wear out quicker or any other losses if I can get excellent gas mileage and at least a small performance gain.
 
I had a 1966 Chevrolet Impala Station Wagon with 283 V8 that got 20 mpg on long highway trips. I also had a 1971 Dodge Charger with 318 V8 and 21 gallon fuel tank that always went 350-400 miles between fill ups. A brand new 2006 Ford Crown Victoria is EPA rated at 17 city/25 highway. Keep in mind that my 1966 and 1971 must have been at least 1000 pounds heavier because of the heavier gauge steel in the body and use of metal instead of plastic in the interior and other areas of the car, so the loss of 5mpg is excusable. I am sure a car of the same weight as a 2006 Crown Victoria probably got about the same or maybe even more fuel economy. When people talk about how old cars got crappy fuel economy and todays cars are so much better, they don't know what they're talking about. Also, those cars were built like tanks. I could hit something or take a hit and the bumpers wouldn't give an inch. You could have a moderate to severe accident and the car would still be driveable. Nowadays the whole car folds up around you at the slightest touch. A minor fender bender and you have to buy a new car. :evil:
 
The 283 has always been my favorite Chevy engine, along with the 292 6-banger.
Your Charger probably came with a 4-bbl carb, but a 318 equipped with a single-barrel was pretty standard for Mopar products of that period. I wonder how much better your mileage would have been?

--T
 
The more I do this newer-car-thing the more I learn. I just fixed a very low-tech bug in my '94 cavalier. The way it's put together there's a lot of plastic and rubber and not a lot of metal. The car has been running very rough for about a week and I couldn't figure out why. I had fresh plugs, wires, the whole tune-up thing. It was stalling out and backfiring, telling me that there was plenty of fuel making it to the cylinders but not a lot of fire getting to the plugs. I decided to start troubleshooting.

The first thing I did was put a 4 guage ground wire (quite thick) from the exhaust manifold to the body to provide a good electrical path from the plug body to ground. $5 at Auto Zone.

And that fixed it. I haven't had trouble since. Just be sure that if your car has something like this wrong with it, DO NOT ground it to the intake manifold. The thing is liable to make a spark and blow the thing up, from the gas line to the valve.

I only say that cause it looks easy and can be done accidentally.

Amazing that something as simple as that can keep the car from running and amazing that as high tech as it's supposed to be something as archaic and BASIC as a bad ground can cause a problem.
 
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