It’s coming! I don’t like it, but there is nothing I can do about it. Winter is almost here. Cold, wind, snow, icy roads, white outs are all part of the Canadian winter. And of course, the weather has an effect on your mileage.
Battery condition will determine how (if?) your vehicle starts. Some people use a battery blanket to keep it warm. This wraps around the battery and plugs into your normal household socket.
Block heaters are considered a necessity. These are a small heating element installed in place of the frost plug in the engine block. They keep the antifreeze warm, and require from 450 watts to 750 watts of power. Many people put them on a timer set for about four hours.
When the engine is stated on a cold morning, the computer will increase the idle speed to about 1100 rpm to help warm up the engine. With modern engines, they can be driven gently very soon after starting. But that’s not the problem. You do need to see where you are going!
The inside of the windshield is often cold enough to freeze the moisture from your breath to the inner surface. To use the defroster, the engine has to be warm enough to remove the frost on the windshield. This normally requires idling, which cost you fuel.
There also may be frost on the outside of the windows. Plastic scrappers are used to remove this frost, usually while the car is warming up (idling). And of course, you will have to remove the snow from the vehicle.
If you have a garage, you can alleviate some of these problems. Even an unheated garage helps. Heated underground parking? Great! I had an insulated, heated garage, but rarely used the furnace. The heat from the engine would provide enough warmth to keep the entire garage at a reasonable temperature.
Now it’s time to join the traffic. In some ways the hypermilers have an advantage because they are already doing things that the rest of the drivers are forced into. Accelerating slowly helps to prevent spinning wheels on icy roads. Braking gently helps to keep your vehicle under control.
Switching to snow tires is a good idea for safety. All season radials become hard at about 7 degrees Celsius (44 degrees F). Traction for both accelerating and braking is reduced. However, snow tires have a greater rolling resistance, and will reduce your mileage. They also seem to wear faster if driven a lot on bare roads.
Another winter challenge is new snow. An inch of snow on the road will dramatically increase the power required to maintain a given speed. It can also hide icy patches, which can make both starting and stopping a problem.
There are more challenges to winter driving, but I believe that safe hypermilers will do well. So go placidly through the roads, be safe and enjoy yourself.
Ken Moore
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Checking Your Mileage
Hello High mileage Drivers!
Since my last post, I have been driving. Unfortunately, I also have been filling my tank. The good news is gas prices have continued to decline (for now). With using some of the hypermiling techniques, I have been able to maintain fairly good gas mileage.
Being a Power Engineer, I want to know what is "good" mileage. I have been doing it the old fashioned way, using the trip odometer and the gas pump quantities. This gives me an average for that tank. However, it can vary dramatically depending on the type of trips I have made.
On a recent long distance trip through the mountains, I could average just under 43 Imperial miles per gallon. (Note: Canada uses Imperial gallons which are about 1/5 larger than US gallons). I did not use the cruise control through the mountains. Cruise control reacts to a reduction in speed and will do everything it can to maintain the set speed, even go full throttle and kick down the transmission. we do not want this.
I would still like to monitor the car's performance more closely. I purchased a handy little item called a "Scan Gauge II". This unit is designed to plug into the ODBII computer connection. It has a two line display, and will display four parameters at one time. It has the ability to display almost any information your car's computer has. I usually have mine set to display RPM, speed, water temperature, and of course mileage (in liters/100 kilometers)
When the Scan Gauge is first installed, you will have to set some of the parameters. The guide book is very easy to follow. It also give you the option of whether or not you want to save the settings. This is nice if you want to take it out of your car and test your buddy's car. just set it up for his, but don't save the settings. When you take it out, it will still have your settings in memory.
Once I put the Scan Gauge II in, I got a brutal education about driving, especially in the city. I have it set to show Liters/100 kilometers. The weight of the car shows on acceleration and inclines. Starting can be as high as 89 liters/100k, even when being gentle. I seems to take forever before it starts coming down to reasonable levels. On going up gentle hills, if I hold my breath, it will come down to about 10 L/100k. Once I get to flat land cruise at 80 kph, it settles arounf 6 - 7 L/100k.
In my opinion, the Lumina has two things going for it. It has a streamlined shape, which helps with wind resistance. It also has an overdrive transmission which seems to be set very well for the car's weight.
If you would like to find out more about the Scan Gauge II go the website:
www.scangauge.com/
I think next time I will put the Scan Gauge in my truck. It is a 2002 Ford Ranger Extended Cab with a 3.0 liter V-6 and a 5 speed manual transmission. It has a roll up box cover, so I will be able to test things like tailgate up versus tailgate down, covered box versus open box. I'll let you know next time I post. See you then.
Ken
Since my last post, I have been driving. Unfortunately, I also have been filling my tank. The good news is gas prices have continued to decline (for now). With using some of the hypermiling techniques, I have been able to maintain fairly good gas mileage.
Being a Power Engineer, I want to know what is "good" mileage. I have been doing it the old fashioned way, using the trip odometer and the gas pump quantities. This gives me an average for that tank. However, it can vary dramatically depending on the type of trips I have made.
On a recent long distance trip through the mountains, I could average just under 43 Imperial miles per gallon. (Note: Canada uses Imperial gallons which are about 1/5 larger than US gallons). I did not use the cruise control through the mountains. Cruise control reacts to a reduction in speed and will do everything it can to maintain the set speed, even go full throttle and kick down the transmission. we do not want this.
I would still like to monitor the car's performance more closely. I purchased a handy little item called a "Scan Gauge II". This unit is designed to plug into the ODBII computer connection. It has a two line display, and will display four parameters at one time. It has the ability to display almost any information your car's computer has. I usually have mine set to display RPM, speed, water temperature, and of course mileage (in liters/100 kilometers)
When the Scan Gauge is first installed, you will have to set some of the parameters. The guide book is very easy to follow. It also give you the option of whether or not you want to save the settings. This is nice if you want to take it out of your car and test your buddy's car. just set it up for his, but don't save the settings. When you take it out, it will still have your settings in memory.
Once I put the Scan Gauge II in, I got a brutal education about driving, especially in the city. I have it set to show Liters/100 kilometers. The weight of the car shows on acceleration and inclines. Starting can be as high as 89 liters/100k, even when being gentle. I seems to take forever before it starts coming down to reasonable levels. On going up gentle hills, if I hold my breath, it will come down to about 10 L/100k. Once I get to flat land cruise at 80 kph, it settles arounf 6 - 7 L/100k.
In my opinion, the Lumina has two things going for it. It has a streamlined shape, which helps with wind resistance. It also has an overdrive transmission which seems to be set very well for the car's weight.
If you would like to find out more about the Scan Gauge II go the website:
www.scangauge.com/
I think next time I will put the Scan Gauge in my truck. It is a 2002 Ford Ranger Extended Cab with a 3.0 liter V-6 and a 5 speed manual transmission. It has a roll up box cover, so I will be able to test things like tailgate up versus tailgate down, covered box versus open box. I'll let you know next time I post. See you then.
Ken
Friday, November 14, 2008
Gas Prices
It' great that the price of gas has come down, but I think we all know this is temporary. I have been looking at all ways to reduce my gas consumption, both driving techniques and so called "mileage enhancers"
As far as driving techniques go, driving gently seems to be the key. Accelerate slowly, and coast when waiting for a light to change. I also watch ahead a couple of blocks and try to gauge the traffic lights. The idea is to coast toward a red light so you are there when the light turns green. It takes a lot less fuel to accelerate the car from 20 mph to 30 mph, than accelerating the same car to 30 mph from a dead stop.
I do not slipstream trucks. The benefit is not worth the risk (as in death!).
The benefits so far have been pretty good (especially compared to my wife's driving!). I have a 96 Chevy Lumina, (heavy by today's standards). In the city, I can get about 30 mpg. On the highway I can get about 42 mpg.
I am also trying to build an "Hydrogen on Demand" generator. This device does not make your engine run on hydrogen. It adds a hydrogen oxygen mix to the gasoline fuel in the manifold. I have built and tested part of it - the electrolyzer which uses 12 volt dc to split distilled water into hydrogen and oxygen. No, this does explode spontaneously (that was my first concern).
It does produce an oxygen-hydrogen gas, sometimes referred to as Brown's gas, after the inventor. This gas does burn very nicely when a flame is applied (glad I had a shield up!).
The next part will be to finish the entire unit and install it in the Lumina. Some modification will have to be done to the car's computer. The O2 analyzer will see a high O2 content in the exhaust and enrich the fuel mixture. I need to fool the analyzer. This would not be required if you have diesel engine.
This project was taken from the following website if you would like to have a look:
http://www.lwrfueluse.com/
There are a number of similar websites that you also might want to check out:
www.runyourcarwithwater.com
www.gas4free.com
www.waterfuelx.com
If you have any thoughts, or have tried this project, I would appreciate hearing from you.
Ken
As far as driving techniques go, driving gently seems to be the key. Accelerate slowly, and coast when waiting for a light to change. I also watch ahead a couple of blocks and try to gauge the traffic lights. The idea is to coast toward a red light so you are there when the light turns green. It takes a lot less fuel to accelerate the car from 20 mph to 30 mph, than accelerating the same car to 30 mph from a dead stop.
I do not slipstream trucks. The benefit is not worth the risk (as in death!).
The benefits so far have been pretty good (especially compared to my wife's driving!). I have a 96 Chevy Lumina, (heavy by today's standards). In the city, I can get about 30 mpg. On the highway I can get about 42 mpg.
I am also trying to build an "Hydrogen on Demand" generator. This device does not make your engine run on hydrogen. It adds a hydrogen oxygen mix to the gasoline fuel in the manifold. I have built and tested part of it - the electrolyzer which uses 12 volt dc to split distilled water into hydrogen and oxygen. No, this does explode spontaneously (that was my first concern).
It does produce an oxygen-hydrogen gas, sometimes referred to as Brown's gas, after the inventor. This gas does burn very nicely when a flame is applied (glad I had a shield up!).
The next part will be to finish the entire unit and install it in the Lumina. Some modification will have to be done to the car's computer. The O2 analyzer will see a high O2 content in the exhaust and enrich the fuel mixture. I need to fool the analyzer. This would not be required if you have diesel engine.
This project was taken from the following website if you would like to have a look:
http://www.lwrfueluse.com/
There are a number of similar websites that you also might want to check out:
www.runyourcarwithwater.com
www.gas4free.com
www.waterfuelx.com
If you have any thoughts, or have tried this project, I would appreciate hearing from you.
Ken
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