www.neons.org

What you need to remember is that most people don't want to drive a $600 car. If someone was going to buy or lease a new car anyway, then the Prius could be a sensible choice if the car will do what the owner needs it to do. Comparing a Prius with a Suburban is nonsensical, anyway. If you need to haul around 8 people or tow something, a Prius won't work. If you need a honkin' big vehicle, then that's what you drive...

I had the opportunity to drive a late-model Prius last week. It's an impressive little car, and very smooth. I can see why tech geeks like it. The combination display screen for system status, radio, climate control and trip information is quite an eye catcher. When I drove it, I couldn't get the Prius to drive in an electric-only mode, though. I have had the Durango & Aspen Hybrids up to nearly 30 mph in electric only...

It's current look. A lower grill block made of some spare plexi and zip ties. Airdam removed.



On the freeway tonight I decided to videotape some pulse/glide action. Going WOT, then coasting. At WOT I'm getting barely above 20mpg. But when coasting you get some nice gains. Would have been higher if it was warmer (a little under 50*) and if it wasn't at night (power drain from the lights). There are also hills, which suck.



I don't actually pulse and glide like that but it does show some good results! I do try to coast though.




Two weeks ago I did some testing of my wheel covers.

37* outside, some very light rain, but dry roads. Some light wind here and there. 65mph.
The wheel covers I have are this style.
I covered the holes with tape. I have them over these wheels http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v612/ ... 081607.jpg
Two mile stretch of highway that isn't exactly flat. In fact, heading North is going downhill.
Made sure the car was at operating temp (186*) and began.
I did four runs going North, four going South. Then repeated the runs without the wheel covers.

With the wheel covers, going North, in miles per gallon.
40.2, 43.0, 42.3, 42.7
With the wheel covers, going South.
38.7, 39.2, 40.0, 40.2

Without the wheel covers, going North.
43.3, 41.8, 42.7, 42.5
Without the wheel covers, going South.
39.5, 39.9, 40.6, 40.8

If you throw out one run each with the highest deviation (take for instance the last run, 40.8mpg, I ended up coming upon a slower moving truck which may have some drafting effects, throw that one out for sure) I get...

With the wheel covers, going North, 42.6mpg.
With the wheel covers, going South, 39.8mpg.

Without the wheel covers, going North. 42.8mpg
Without the wheel covers, going South. 40.0mpg

Interesting to me! I wasn't expecting a big difference with the covers on since the wheels don't look like they have horrible aerodynamics, but I also wasn't expecting to get worse gas mileage by having them on.

I would expect slightly better gas mileage in stop and go traffic from having the wheel covers off (less weight, they are 5lbs total for all four) and a very little impact on aerodynamics at lower speeds. I think they're staying off.

I don't get it?

You get regular MPG.. then you throw it into neutral and get 50-60 MPG for a few seconds? How does that do anything? You might as well start push starting the car as well.

I go WOT getting 21.5mpg or so, then coast and get ~200mpg while in neutral. That 60mpg is just the trip average.

I'd bet you could get about 80mpg out of a car with real aero like my civic.

Anytime you want a trade. ;)

And you reset the trip...

So you are taking the average of a few thousand feet.. already cruising at highway speed. Real Accurate.

The only number that matters is how many miles you go between each fill up. Its not like you are adding gas everytime you hit the trip button!

All I did was show what kind of gas mileage benefit you can get doing pulse and glide on the freeway.

I reset the gauge while on the freeway, drove for over 4 minutes on the freeway after zeroing out the gauge (which is a lot longer than a few thousand feet!) and decided to share the results. I never said anything about my mileage over the course of a tank of fuel. Just one segment on the freeway using the pulse and glide technique.

I think you misunderstand what I tried to show.

I decided to check out the scantool's website to try and see how it works. How does it know how much fuel is actually being used? You showed it doing it essentially on the fly, but how does it know if you've got a 24lb injector or a 30lb injector? How does it actually know how much gas is being used?

I saw the setup and it basically asks how big your engine is, the size of your fuel tnak, and if it is gas powered or not. I am having a hard time seeing how it takes input and accurately calculates this stuff. Seems like a few simple mistakes or assumptions and it could be off by some MPG.

Have you compared your actual MPG from a fill up to the one it calculates for you?

I'm not hating on you.. obviously your car is getting pretty good gas MPG.

Yeah, enter in a few wrong things and disaster!

I believe it just reads the injector pulse width and divides it by distance traveled from the speed sensor. Just a bunch of samples or snapshots of how much gas is being used. Oddly enough with the different sized tires, my odometer is bang on, at least with the distance google maps tells me. I have about a -1.4% correction on the amount of full for fillups. I calibrate it most of the time when I get full tanks. It doesn't seem to vary much. I can't say what engine size does for the calculations. It may want to compare calculated trip mileage vs fuel level. I know it does use tank size to tell you how many miles you have left for your tank.

I'd like to see the corrections other neon guys are using just to compare, some people post scary sized ones on other forums.

I almost forgot to update this log.

I have the magnum header on. I slotted the bolt holes so the ports line up nicely and managed to slot the holes in the upper 1998 heat shield and the airbox so they are both on. Also got rid of the Vibrant and replaced it with a stock dohc muffler. Both the Vibrant and OEM cat were falling apart on the inside.

I have removed the power steering. I didn't do any specific testing, but low end power has improved and it seems to idle with a little less fuel. ~.02 gallons per hour or so. I'm trying to decide on keeping it no power or removing half of the vanes in the power steering pump. I do need something in its place to keep the a/c belt after all.

After finally inspecting the suspension on the front passenger side, I found out why my front passenger side wheel seems to sit back too far in the wheel well.

Crap! What a clean crack. It seems to be ok for now (who knows how long it's been like this, at least before I bought it) and it does explain the uneven wear on that tire. It's a good thing cross members are cheap at pull a part! I can kill two birds with one stone and finally add a bobble strut/bracket too.


The car is begging for a proper alignment.

I'll have to update my little future mod list. Currently all I want to do is...
The alignment!
Add my magnum intake manifold I have laying around. I want to keep the EGR system and the 1995 airbox, so that will be fun and interesting to work out.
165/65r14 Bridgestone RE92s http://www.tirerack.com/tires/Spec.jsp? ... ageLocQty=
The ones made for the first generation Honda Insight. Skinny, aerodynamic, low rolling resistance and light weight. Too bad about the height difference though.
Something aerodynamic with the underside. I'd like to do a full belly plan. I won't be doing any aeromods that draw attention.
Finally end the pain and get stock struts/springs. I have a set of KYB GR-2s for the rear in the shed. Now to find something for the front...

sell the tires to me..i need to lay off of these race tires and my RT wheels need some new rubber!

You can have the one with uneven wear!

Just got back from a trip to Kings Island. It's by Cincinnati Ohio and I drove from Charlotte North Carolina. Made a couple stops and a few short trips.

Weather was almost perfect. Just cool enough at the start that I didn't need a/c. Very clear, no rain or traffic.

In the first 'leg' of the trip (first rest stop) almost 57mpg. You can see my coolant temp gauge flaking out. I've yet to fix that, good thing I have my scangauge2!

The 'TRP' is for the current trip from the moment you turn your ignition on IE if you turn your car off it resets. 'MPG' is the instantaneous mpg reading. For these pictures I'm stopped and hit a button to recall the last reading it showed.


It started to get muggy. For a while it stayed over 65mpg. Went down to 60mpg for this leg. 376mi into the trip and here we are.


Once I hit Ohio I was running late. Had the a/c on most of the time. I forgot to take a pic of the mpg for the last leg, but it was in the lower 40s. Not bad for going 5mph over and rockin the a/c.

Ended up being 10.347 gallons, or 51mpg overall.

Did a small test of accelerating up to speed. For a while, and from other small tests, it seemed that rapid acceleration was better than driving very slowly and shifting early. I haven't 'driven like a grandma' for some time now.

I didn't try other speeds or changing shift points (besides the slow acceleration portion).

I started off from a dead stop. 0-45mph, measured fuel economy for that trip at the same spot (a road sign) so that the distance would not change.

Test 1. Driving slowly, shifting under 2500rpm, using gears 1-4 to accelerate, crossed the 'finish line' just as I was shifting into fifth @ 45mph. 26.7mpg

Test 2. ~75% wide open throttle, shifting at around 3750rpm, accelerated in gears 1-3, cruised at a steady 45mph the rest of the way in fifth. 28.9mpg

Test 3. Same as test 2, except once I reached 45mph, I coasted down to 42mph, accelerated to 47mph in third gear, and coasted past the 'finish line' at around 45mph. 38.4mpg

Just documenting some light mpg data.

Driving at a steady speed on the freeway, going one direction, coming back the other way, then averaging the two mileages. Conditions; nighttime with the lights on, muggy, 70* or so, recent rain so the roads were still wet, however it was not raining at the time.

65mph = 43.25mpg
60mph = 45.98mpg
55mph = 50.3mpg

In this case, 6% more gas to drive 65mph instead of 60mph. 14% more gas to drive 65mph instead of 55mph! I wish I had more data points so the numbers would be more solid.

Driving from one grocery store to another under the same conditions. 45mph roads, massive use of pulse and glide, pulse to 47mph, glide down to 34mph, no traffic and I hit all the lights.

71.7mpg. (Previously my best was 58mpg. :))

Returning the other way, 49.8mpg.

60.45mpg average for the trip back and forth.


Driving to a car meet tonight, mostly a 65mph freeway, light pulse and glide. 53.8mpg.
Driving back, took a different route. Mostly 55mph roads and 45mph roads. 56.8mpg.

pulse and glide definately works, i got 51.7 on the way to work, windows cracked an inch, pulse to 65 glide to 55, with a 3.94/.81, no muffler, unorthodox udp with ps pump gutted for an idler, 52mm tb, 3.0 cai, and mpp dohc comp. Passenger mirror removed, fogs taped, and weight of about 2660 with driver. Pulse and glid the whole 55 mile trip to work. Got 37.5 on the way back, ac on only pulse and gliding through town. Scanguage showed an average trip speed of 55mph.

Same trip one day later doing constant 60, scangauge showed the same average trip speed, i got 42.3 doing constant speed instead of pulse and glide. Got slightly better mileage on the way back, 38.1 using the air again.

The only thing is it seems pulse and glide might start to get hard on the engine, tranny and clutch. On the freeway pulse and glide worked much better in 4th than in 5th.

Cool man. I haven't done a pulse and glide comparison for accelerating in different gears yet. I want to say lower is better, but it probably just feels better since it's quicker. Glad it's working out for you. I'm at the point where it can irritate my knee on long trips, all the more reason to swap in a pt cruiser clutch for it's light pedal effort.



Silly beater, you don't need those wheels!

Kosei K1s, with 205/50/15 RT-615 azenis in front, RT-215s in the rear. They're pretty well broken in. ;) Going to the store and back, my mileage was about 10mpg less than what I usually get, each way. A 20% decrease! The increase in rolling resistance is very noticeable. It makes me all the more excited to see what low rolling resistance tires do for me.

This is some interesting stuff. I average 36 mpg and have got 42 mpg on the entire tank in my 98 DOHC ACR with a 3.55 trans. Unless I've missed it, what do you have your tires pumped up to?

For the Falken Ziex-512s that I usually roll on, it's 50/51psi when cold. They have a maximum 51psi rating.

In fairness to the azenis, I haven't checked their pressure recently. Probably 35-40psi.

Not even close, they were 29.5-31psi! Up to 50psi they go.

Do you know what's coming up by the look of this?














I was swapping the K member and carefully went along. Then when I torqued the vertical control arm bushing bolt down, snap! I was able to back the bolt out a little, but then it just started rotating freely. Awful! I mean seriously, it wasn't even rusty! Right now I haven't touched it since coming home from the hardware store with a M14x2 nut and washer, to attach it from the inside. :(

I haven't done the driver's side yet, kind of antsy. I'll be trying out a set of front struts from an r/t, and rear KYB GR2s that I have laying around. It's probably going to look like a 4x4!

i would have much more colorful expressions for that bolt then flipping it off if that happened to me.

I save those expressions for the tiger mosquitoes.




Yay happy bolt!



Working in a driveway is getting old, very old.



The cross member is on, rust free brake/fuel lines are on, front r/t struts are on. I ran out of brake fluid while bleeding the front driver's side line, that will be done tomorrow. I also picked up new rear lateral links from a 1999 at pull a part. I'll do those tomorrow when I add the rear KYB GR2s. :)

I can't believe I haven't taken a picture of it yet, but the rearmost lateral link on the passenger side is bent in a very noticeable way. Like a frown. :(

Hmmm.glad to see everything worked out. Man im not enthused to do mine at all..but it must be done. I still need to pull a spare set of control arms from the yard to do this..bolt on affair is a must.

Should be better than my car! Especially the rear control arms. Of course, the bolts are seized. I have new control arms/bolts from pull a part ready to go as soon as the rusted on OEM ones feel like coming out.

The brakes are bled, the rear struts are in and the rear control arms are the only thing stopping me now.



Booo!

Those links are in pretty bad shape..mine arent bent at all surprisingly.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd they are still stopping me. The bolts that go through the subframe area are freed, but the ones going through the knuckle are not. The plan is to heat, hammer and pb blast them into submission. I really don't want to take anything off since I bled the brakes, though I may have to. Looks like I went in the wrong order!

It's ok because USPS was good to me today. I haz a shiny!


If I don't sell it right away, I'm going to see if cam timing will make a difference in mpg at cruising speeds or if it will pick up any tq at slower speeds. Thoughts, comments, concerns, experiences?

Did anyone read that whole story? 180 miles per gallon. These people are nuts.

Mase

It's amazing what can be done in both unmodified and modified cars. I think I remember someone saying that at a steady speed in lean burn, the first gen Honda Insight can hit 125mpg.

The aerocivic (http://www.aerocivic.com and his build thread here http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.p ... 90-31.html) has now been fitted with a different engine and transmission.


Insane indeed!

I've been stopping in and reading every so often and I had to state my opinion on the rapid accell thing.

It's my opinion that you are only fooling your scanner. The science says, under a greater load your engine will be less efficient, along with other things. Extra blowby and friction will increase and lower the efficiency. Normally an automotive computer(and definataly a stock Neon one) will richen up the AFR and disregard the O2 under WOT, but right under WOT(in closed loop) it's still trying for 14.7:1.

What was your measured mileage (not by the scanner) on those runs?

So far I still think the project is pretty cool!

Thanks!

The scanner may possibly be fooled 100% of the time.
I haven't measured any other way. It would be neat to use a car that had a readout on the dash and then compare.

I'm not sure if 75% throttle will put the neon into open loop, I could see that throwing off my test.

Have you read up on brake specific fuel consumption? How I wish I had a chart for the neon. http://autospeed.com/cms/A_110216/article.html

According to the scangaugeII, it won't go into open loop until just about wot. Going by how I've been accelerating, it stays in closed loop.

Been attempting at hypermiling my 98 a little (yes...the modded one) on this tank of gas. Aired the tires up to 42psi, driving at the actual speed limit instead of keeping up with traffic. We'll see how this tank goes. I'm at 200 miles and a little bit above a quarter tank. I was filling up at 200 miles before (26-28 depending on the pump). I might air up the tires to 45 or a little more, it feels like I have power steering again when compared to 32 psi.

The 3.94/.81 is killing me on the highway.

In my old black car, I was keeping track of mpg per tank. Just about all of my drive was 45/60mph freeway. I used to get in the mid 40s no matter what. That sank to the low 40s after running falken azenis in the front. Then when I switched to the 3.94/.81 trans and azenis all around the best I saw after that was 36mpg. :/







I'm taking my coupe up to ohio this weekend. She has a good alignment and without any aero mods other than not running an airdam and being lowered, she matched my 4 door's highway mpg.

1998 sexpresso dohc/3.94 with the .72 fifth
Same alumasteelies/ziez 512s
No ac/ps
58mm tb
hondata intake manifold gasket
pt exhaust manifold/srt4 cat
~180? pounds of weight reduction

Somewhere around 43.5mpg at a steady 65mph.

Since then I've put the grill block/airdam/mirror delete from the sedan on, sold the 58mm tb and replaced it with a 49mm, moved the wipers down closer to the cowl, and found the tires to be ~46psi cold. Back up to 51psi they go. Hopefully over 55mpg on the trip up!

Sweet man! I'd love to find a 3.94/.72 for my car, and a wideband so I can tune it out, I know it's gotta be running hella rich.

I'm driving it to NJ on the 12th, 34MPG or bust!!

GL broseph. :)

I cant wait to get some skinny's back on my RT wheels..im pullin 41-43hw on these Dunlops. 35psi cold.

Just have to watch out for the rolling resistance coefficient.






Made it back from Ohio in one piece!





150,000 miles young



About halfway through I realized I wouldn't be breaking any personal bests and decided to just go 5mph over. Well, then I decided I had enough to still make it on one tank instead of filling up about an hour away. How could it get more interesting than that? I hit some nice bumper to bumper traffic on the highway! So with it sitting at near empty, the low fuel light having already come on some 50 miles or so ago I had to get through this traffic. Luckily it was downhill the entire way. For almost 1.5 miles I had the engine off and coasted in bumper to bumper traffic. It was where two freeways met as well, just to make it more fun.



At one point I ran over some little sand piles, I imagine there was an accident that caused the traffic.

I finally made it to my destination, the pull a part on the east side of Cleveland where I was meeting my friend Scott. He didn't find anything, I spotted a platinum sohc hood in good shape and planned to pick it up on Monday instead of lugging it around all weekend. As you may have guessed, I went back Monday morning with a 10mm socket and it was gone. :(
The only thing I bought was a 2gn '2.0 16v' injector cover.


Well, here I am still at empty in a not so great neighborhood. The car almost didn't start, thanks for fumes! After turning over 6 or 7 times I was in business. I followed my friend into a couple cities over and finally refueled.












You're seeing it right. 12 gallons to fill, scangauge says 11 gallons. Also, the egr was acting up, I suspected something was wrong even before I took off because the gallons per hour would not go under .35 at idle, it would hover mostly around .38 gallons per hour. It definitely showed. I imagine that since the scangauge expects a 14.7:1 air/fuel ratio, the neon's pcm was running more rich with the bad egr. Still 543 miles on one tank, I made it. :)

Also, I didn't look it up until then, but the calibration I was using with my scangauge and 4 door was only .8%.

On my way back I averaged about 47mpg without trying too hard. It's nice having almost all of VA and NC being downhill on the way home.

Hmm. Ever think about going mopar PCM for the timing advance? Since you don't race the car any, you could get away with 87 and not worry about pinging issues.