Safe Speed Forums

There is always the Diesotto engine, diesel economy and torque from petrol. Prodrive are also involved with the GoEngine which uses variable compression to increase efficiency, I saw a mock up of this at the Autosport show in Birmingham earlier this year.

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

As for their tires, by overinflating them, the additional air provides additional tire temp stability.
However, whenever and to whatever extent conditions permit (visibility), they try to lose as little speed through turns as possible. This is as rough as they get on tires. Weighed against hypermilers tendencies to buy
a) the smallest tire that their car could have come with
b) something slightly smaller
c) the lowest rolling resistance compound they can
d) avoid accelerating and braking whenever possible (there are hypermilers who have never replaced any brake components)
they spend about as much on tires as a normal person would.

Example: My Caprice Classic Estate rides on the larger optional spec 235/70R15 tires, @ $136 per.
A hypermiler I know who drives a Caprice Classic Sedan, due to both the inherent 400 lb advantage, and the extra hundred or so pounds he's managed to remove from the car, coupled with his, um, kinetically delicate driving style - I go through a set of 'pursuit spec' rotors & pads yearly, his set is over six years old, so he's saving A LOT there - chooses to use 205/75R15 tires, @ $60 per. (Now I'm pist off; I'm gonna go burn some rubber .)
His alignment is also somewhat different from mine; again, his tries to minimize rolling resistance.Wouldn't you try to pass a slow moving car rolling on four spare tires positioned as if about to pull over at any moment?
Yup, that's the idea.No, but positioning your car to take up as much space as possible generally is. Catalyzing tailbacks and single lane traffic jams is also gauche.Pretty much what he said.
Hypermilers only go above 2500RpM when absolutely necessary for everyone's safety, like on-ramps, for example. They generally strive to keep their engines below 2000RpM, whether accelerating or cruising. (Decelerating is another quagmire entirely.)
The factory programmed my car to upshift to top gear as soon as 29MpH, provided less than 10% throttle, which equates to about 625RpM. If I drove that conservatively, that would be fine. Since I don't, I reprogrammed my shift points to favor 'miles per transmission', and 'miles per engine', rather than 'miles per gallon'.
Gentle acceleration in city and urban environments will yield me anywhere from 13 - 16 MpG, depending on the number of redlights, stopsigns, and other cars in my way.
Pleasurable acceleration in the same environment would yield about 8-10 MpG, depending on the number of 'opportunities' to accelerate.

I can't tell which is more complicated - Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition, or BMW's Variable Valve Lift/Throttle. The latter seems less like to detonate, however.

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

ah yes but pull over in which direction ?
i'd probably hang back until it was clear quite what manouver this strange road positioning & speed was part of.

and eventually get frustrated waiting and pass very very cautiously.

Awesome! - and I thought "pinking" was bad!

[quote="The Rush"]A hypermiler I know who drives a Caprice Classic Sedan, ...[quote="The Rush"]

Sorry, I couldn't resist! Isn't hypermiling in a Caprice a bit like using a 747 for aerobatics????!!!! I mean, SURELY there are better tools for the job?!

As for the tyres, I was meaning more that they'd wear out in the middle of the tread prematurely and need replacing before their time. I was "greedy" on my company 807 and ran it's first set of tyres just a couple of PSI more than the recommended maximum for a fully loaded vehicle even when it wasn't fully loaded most of the time. As a result, I got about 20,000 miles out of the front pair and I think I might have got about 22,000 had I run them a bit softer. One could argue that as my company pays for the tyres but I pay for the fuel, it was the right decision, but I still felt a bit bad about it! On the other hand, if these guys drive like they were driving in bare feet with a cattle prod strapped to the brake pedal and just pitch the car into corners to scrub speed off instead of braking, maybe they knock the outside edges off the tyres quicker too - so wearing out on the crown won't be an issue?

Where cars drive on the right side of the road - I.E. Amerika, Germany - they would be on the rightmost portion of the lane, and usually the right lane, [looking as if] ready to pull over into the shoulder.
Where cars drive on the left side of the road - the UK, Japan - leftmost piece of the lane, left lane whenever possible, ready to pull into the breakdown lane.Except that now, you'd spend less time hanging back waiting, and be far less frustrated when you overtook.Why yes, yes it is. That said, if the economics of getting rid of a car you've already been maintaining for a while, for something smaller, usually don't pencil out in favor of that next car, then lowering the operation and maintenance costs of your present vehicle would make sense, no? - especially if you already drive conservatively to begin with.
Besides, the more conservatively one drives to begin with, the easier it is to try hypermiling prior to shopping for a smaller vehicle.

The way he drove before the price of gasoline cut itself in half during the autumn of 2008 was an agony of anaesthesia, but he regularly got at least 27MpG out of a two ton, four door aerodynamic truck with a proper boot and a 5.7L V8 - which I inherited as a replacement for the one I rev'd the bearings off of.
He kept the car, but he did swap in the smaller version of the engine our cars came with, a 4.3L L99 V8, which allowed him to regularly score 32MpG.1)I inflate my tires similarly, never less than 36pSI, the police pursuit spec, whereas the 'civilian' specs call for 28 - 32 pSI.
2)I wouldn't feel bad about it at all; maybe your company treats you better than mine does us.
3)Despite inflating their tires to at least 44pSI, staying under 60MpH, accelerating very gently, braking a lot less and more softly, and adjusting the wheel alignment and rotating the tires more often does seem to spread the wear around more evenly.

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

It's fair enough as far as other motorists are concerned (although with our narrow little roads, it wouldn't actualy make much difference to the degree of obstruction they created), but if I was on my pushbike, I think I'd be quite scared of these guys. A fondness for driving with two wheels in the gutter and a deeply ingrained reluctance to use the brakes wouldn't seem like the best combination of qualities that a cyclist would look for in a car driver!


Understood, but presumably, the more conservative your driving style to begin with, the less you stand to gain by "hypermiling"? I guess his annual mileage makes all the difference. I can convince myself (using the same arguments) that I can hang on to my old 3 litre (that's a BIG engine this side of the Atlantic!!!) "gas guzzler" now that it's a third car and only does about 5000 miles a year. If it were my main car and I was doing 20,000 miles a year in it, however, and I knew I could more than halve my fuel bill by buying a more modern diesel powered equivalent, it wouldn't take me long to recover my outlay! Is there much choice over there of vehicles that do (say) 50MP(US)G?


It's hard to imagine, over here, how anyone could "DOWNsize" to an engine of "only" 4.3L capacity! We now pay road tax based on the CO2 emissions of the vehicles we drive. There are various bands ranging from £zero for the most economical up to £400 a year for the absolute worst "gas guzzlers". I think something that averaged 32 MP(Imperial)G on the standard EC drive cycle (never mind hypermiling!) would either be in the top "gas guzzler" band or maybe the next one down! For older cars we pay on engine size. There are just two bands - "small" engines being udner 1500cc and "large" (yes, go on, laugh!) ones being above 1500cc! It's a pity because I love the sound of a big, tuned Yank V8 on full song. I was at Le Mans last year and the Corvettes sounded awsome!

I suspect I will need pictures to keep you from saying "two wheels in the gutter" or the like again, as that is the last thing a hypermiler would do. Maybe there are differences between our urban, city, and highway roads which encourage this phrase?
I do know that if I see more than two bicyclists an hour outside of Manhattan, I'm already driving much more conservatively, they are that rare the outer boroughs of New York.
As to the deeply ingrained reluctance to use the brakes, how would you accelerate, brake, and drive in general if, from now on, you only had 50% of your original braking capacity? How would your driving technique evolve? (Excuse me while I sick at the thought of driving like the car is made of glass ...)Presently, according to www-dotfueleconomy.gov, there are only two options that score at or above 40MpG: The Toyota Prius, and the Honda Civic Hybrid.
So, um, no. Not much choice.Presently, the Amerikan definition of "gas guzzler" applies to CARs that get less than 15 MpG City, and 18 MpG HiWay.
The rules are different for trucks; that's why our auto industry is in the quagmire it's in now, we were too kind to 'trucks'.We don't focus on engine size, we focus on the performance that is most important to us, be that acceleration, handling, fuel economy, etc.
As far as I am concerned, an engine is in need of artificial aspiration if it is less than 300 cubic inches.
And yes, I love the sound of a big V8 on full song ...

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I'm in the back end of rural nowhere, so as you might imagine, the roads are pretty small. The one that goes past my front door is about 10-12 feet wide and has no markings of any sort. It has the odd bit that's wider (maybe 15 feet) but generally it's less than that and there are periodic passing places. The nearest "A" road is about 20 feet wide with white lines down the middle and (in most places) at either side. My nearest "trunk road" is about 25 feet wide in most places. At the side, the tarmac just stops where the grass starts. There's maybe about 8" of tarmac before the single white line and there are drainage grids set into that part of the road every now and then. After that you've got the continuous white line and then one carriageway. Down the middle, there are the white lines and cat's eyes. In towns they vary a lot. We have plenty of towns that are getting on for 1000 years old!


Crikey!!! Is there significant demand for more economical cars? Do you think the hypermilers would buy more economical cars if they had acces to them or is it more of a "sport" at present? (i.e. would there be no "fun" in getting 60MPG if you didn't have to try hard)?! Have a look at our official site for car fuel consumption data if you fancy a bit of light entertainment sometime!

http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/search ... Search.asp


I think it's worth making the distinction between what "we" (the driving public) focus on and what "the government" focuses on. The government engine size taxation split is something pretty arbitrary. They expect cars old enough not to have official CO2 figures to die out altogether soon, so they're not really bothered. Insurance companies tend to go on engine size - which always made me laugh. I used to pay a lot more for my old 3 litre Scimitar (which had about 130BHP) than my wife did for her 1.8 litre modern car - which had 140! Consumers, however, tend to go on performance more. My current 3 litre car has just under 200BHP (and that's normally aspirated)! One of my colleagues has a 1.3 litre Toyota Starlet with about 120bhp at the wheels! I am regularly the butt of his "poor specific output" jokes . That said, he's already blown his engine up twice and mine's getting on for a quarter of a million miles! The Starlet's pretty horrid to drive, as you might imagine. Not unlike a motorbike. If you fall out of its (ridiculously narrow) power band it virtually stalls. You need to be careful if you want to use the aircon AND the headlights at the same time! Isn't 300 cubic inches about 5 litres???!!!!:shock:

Rush, how many miles per gallon would you get from one of the latest common rail turbo diesels?

Dont forget, though the US mile is the same as ours, the US Gallon is a good bit smaler since the pint is 16Floz compared to our 20. US cars are not quite as thirsty as they sound

(An old book I have somewhere (British, self taught! A sort of English/english-US/english Phrasebrook) points this diference out rather nicly. It goes something like this

Going out for a pint/beer.

The British drink Beer out of enourmous 20FlOz glasses, If a brit asks you out for a beer you can expect to have to consume rather more than just one of these! )

_________________
"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

If the majority of your roads are that small, that would make 'ridge riding' very rare, indeed.If I remember correctly, the price of gasoline recently dropped from $4.25 or more per USGallon to under $2 per in the span of about 3 months. Prior to that, we never really started to complain until gasoline went over $2.50/G.

Amerikan consumer demand for fuel economy is actually a demand for cheap gasoline, which we have been accustomed to since our grandparents were driving. There is talk of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard reaching 36 MpG by 2020 ... IF that happens, and it becomes impossible to buy a car that gets under 20 MpG unless driven by a taxi driver on meth, then the Amerikan consumer won't have a choice.

I believe the most popular Amerikan cars are four cylinder versions of the Accord, Camry, Corolla, and Civic, but simply by a slimmer margin than in other countries. In Amerika, there is a faint negative social stigma associated with driving a car less than 15 feet long, even if it is a luxury marque.

Hypermilers who have the freedom and the resources to acquire a new[er] car nearly always select a four cylinder vehicle, which means anywhere from 1.5L to 2.5L, depending on the vehicle's size. Those who are stuck with what they have, can still drive like hypermilers.

Some other things ...

Stopwatches and accelerometers have no idea how 'specific output' is relevant to anything. My ex's Police Package Caprice would regularly demonstrate the irrelevance of specific output to 'riceposeurs' by letting them 'draw' first, then reeling them in and passing them before reaching 60MpH.

There was one notorious V6 musclecar - the Buick T-Type / Grand National /GNX. A turbocharged 3.8L V6 very conservatively rated @ 250 Horses and 350 Torques. Far as I'm concerned, the Corvette has one major blemish in its history ...
The 'vette crowd was so miffed at being upstaged by these Buicks, that they caterwauled at GM, threatening to 'abandon' the Corvette if Buick didn't retire the Grand National. GM buckled uinder the threat, the Grand National was retired.

Those cars were BADASS, and most of the survivors have only gotten more fierce with age. I personally know of two Grand Nationals and one T-Type that still get 30MpG, and, thanks to the magic of turbocharging and PCM reflashing, eviscerate the quarter mile in less than 12 seconds at over 110 MpH. No wonder 'vette owners were whining ...

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

In England, social stigma depends on one's accent, rather than one's car, whereas in Wales, social stigma
depends on how much beer one can drink. It's strange how each nation identifies "weaklings" in a different way.
Perhaps they are all wrong?

Thinking about the OP, (may need your help with this analogy ed ), when I cycle I am the engine of course and my body is very good at letting me know how much energy I have expended on any given journey.

Now I have a regular route to work of four miles and on some days I peddle like mad up to my cruising speed, (popping wheelies and pretending I’m Lance Armstrong racing to a finish line), and on other days I just ease along up to my cruising speed and yet in both situations I get to work in the same time. The quick bursts don’t seem to make any difference in the overall journey time but they do to my final body heat.

In other words, on the gentler accelerating days when I’m not goofing around I get to work less sweaty which I assume means less energy expenditure. I know it’s not very scientific but then I’m not a scientist.

_________________
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I think the human body on a pushbike is an infinitely more efficient way of conerting energy to motion than any car. I was struck by something my wife told me - that walking a mile and running a mile used about the same number of calories - you just use them up in a shorter time if you're running. It's an interesting comparison that you make but I'm not sure how valid because cars a very non-linear in their energy use compared to humans on bikes. When you're "giving it plenty" on the bike and you arrive sweaty, I gues that's a bit like a car engine dumping more waste heat into it's cooling system when you "leather it". however, a car (one with an internal combustion engine anyway!) always HAS to waste some heat in order to work, whereas I think the human body is much more efficient and there is a rate of doing work that involves almost NONE of the energy being wasted as heat, I'm way out of my depth here though!

That's hit the nail on the head! AND I think it's not too different over here, now you come to mention it! We need to separate out the desire for fuel efficiency as an end in itself and simply as a means of spending less money! I think there are probably very few motorists in the fist category on either side of the Atlantic now you've made me think about it!


I've never visited the US, but my wife spent a bit of time there (a good 25 years ago now)! She was told, by the people she was staying with, that there was a certain "kudos" in owning a Japanese car because they were more expensive model-for-model than the equivalent American car due to the import duties. "Rich" people, therefore (OK, not "Hollywood" rich, just "slightly-better-off-than-the-neigbours" rich) could afford a Jap car. Is that (was that ever) true? Over here, (probably everywhere, in fact) I think it's true to say that there's a bit of a social stigma attached to having a "frugal" car. I mean "frugal" to buy as well as "frugal" to run. It's not necessarily bad to have a "small" car (especially if it's something sporty). In fact, I think the pecking order is something like "Big, fast, expensive car", then "Small fast expensive car", then Big slow expensive car", then Small, slow expensive car"...and so on, down to "Small, slow, cheap" car.


Not sure I understand this! Whats a "riceposeur"?

How big / heavy were they though? Surely 250 horse doesn't make a "Musclecar" does it? I had a mental image of American musclecars as having at least 400? I always thought of Corvettes as being pretty quick. Surely the equivalent 'Vette had a lot more??? Also I must confess to being painfully ignorant of standing quarter times! It's not a measure that's used much over here. Someone once told me that a sub-10 second quarter was pretty good, but he was a biker so I'm not sure how relevant that is to cars!

It was, but Honda, Toyota, and Datsun did not threaten Amerikan market dominance here until they started building cars here. Once they did, Amerikan marques could not lean on such ignorant stigma as an excuse to build with inferior quality.I don't know what the pecking order is, but frugality is the antithesis of consumer culture - you need more than you actually need to survive, in order to be a part of modern society. If blatant frugality is offensive to consumer culture, then any and all 'unnecessary' add-ons are social status symbols, at least to somebody.'Riceposeur':
a) a lower option-package car made to look like the flagship option package, I.E. a BMW 525i blatantly made to appear as an M5, or a Honda Civic DX 'impersonating' an SiR, but in any case, without the ability to back up the badges worn. 'The prefix 'Rice' exists for the fact that this started with Japanese cars in the late eighties and early nineties.
b) any car which wears add-ons which appear functional, but are in fact either non- or counter- functional, I.E. stick-on vents or air intakes, or large aftermarket wings
c) drivers of said cars

Buick Regals, including T-Types, Grand Nationals, and the 574 GNXs, all weighed about 3400 lbs, plus up to 200 extra pounds for extras.
'Musclecar' will always be a relative term; in the 80s, torque- and power-to-weight were more important, and the T-Type engine had more of both than the vast majority of what was available in the 80s. In fact, Buick was significantly underreporting both figures; and to the annoyance of Corvette owners, had plenty of room to adjust their figures upward whenever they felt like it [the GNX's 275 horses and 360 torques was still significantly underrated].
During the Buick's Turbo V6 reign, it always had more torque and power per pound than the 'vette of that year.

Only the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 can achieve a quarter mile (402.336 metres) in the low ten seconds - 10.2 secs @ 143.6 MpH. A quarter mile under 13.5 seconds @ over 105 MpH is achievable by most 'performance cars' bought between $25K & $40K, after additional tuning.
Anything over 15 secs @ less than 90 MpH is considered unremarkable; most people whose cars score slower than 15.5 secs, don't know or care how slow their cars are.

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

OTOH a car in the garage uses no energy at all whereas the human body consumes energy even when sleeping on an empty stomach. Medics call it the basal metabolic rate of about 1200 kcal/day which is about 60watts.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

80% of our food intake is used just to keep us warm in fact, which is why cold-blooded creatures and my ex mother in law can survive on eating a single bug to keep them going for days.

_________________
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.