Whoa, that's NUTS. That same guy lightened his flywheel by removing his ring gear(no 12v starting and he probably removed the 12v starter too), has cut valve springs a little to reduce friction, has a fuel injection monitor, injection booster, removed an exhaust valve arm off the cam!!, removed LEDs from the dash cluster, removed and capped and end seal to reduce friction, rotor reduction, removed the 'heavy yellow components'(I'm not going to post what that was people got in trouble on this forum from nanny admins because of this in the past), my Japanese sucks he switched his CVT/MT ECU for the opposite not sure which was which but he said it didn't work when testing, he's been fixing IMA battery/ies, he covered the engine bay with aluminum foal and then spray foamed over the entire top of the engine bay to keep things hot but also as a radiant barrier against the sun, removed the 8.5kg power steering motor, resonator, condensor+a/c, black homemade completely flat wheel covers, MIMA, second battery but bad experience because the self-discharge is double, reduced the resistance via a 6 position switch with 6 resistor settings to IPIN? in the car to boost brake pedal regen(with two packs), he made a bed by making the center cross member the low point and had some setup with a pad going all the way forward to the dash supported by a homemade wood frame, it's flat, long, and looks comfortable. Homemade electric water pump instead of the belt driven one(OMG this guy doesn't need a belt!).
Definitely a MUST READ to go through his posts, if anything just to look at the pictures if you can't read anything. Click "maintenance handbook" for the goodies.
Seems he went to a lot of trouble to get that 122 mpg over (if my rough calculation is correct) 1200 miles. I did 126.1 mpg over 1692.4 miles and I didn't remove any hardware and the car is as functional (possibly more so with the OBDII C&C and Calpod switch) than the day it rolled off the assembly line.
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Silver '00 MT
90.2 LMPG
80+ psi in RE92's for the past 2 years without incident
Calpod switch
Warm air mod
Grill block
EPS fuse removed
FAS/fuel injector interrupt circuit
grid charger
OBDII C&C gauge
That's what my dashboard will look like eventually. More instrumentation than the Space shuttle, that's my goal!
Here's some pictures of the inside of Roland's El Camino EV. He has a whole bunch of instruments and if one circuit goes out, he just switches over to one of his back up circuits.
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Rush
#1 - 2000 Silver #4965, not working now, 175k Miles, 61 LMPG - will probably turn into all Electric
#2 - 2000 Silver #4095, 212k Miles, 55 LMPG, OBDIIC&C by Peter, GCIM1 by Mike, New MaxIMA by Eli www.TucsonEV.com
Tucson AZ
Seems he went to a lot of trouble to get that 122 mpg over (if my rough calculation is correct) 1200 miles. I did 126.1 mpg over 1692.4 miles and I didn't remove any hardware and the car is as functional (possibly more so with the OBDII C&C and Calpod switch) than the day it rolled off the assembly line.
We don't know how he drives though. He might be driving in a way where he is driving faster than you or there could be some urban stop and go where he isn't using a pulse and glide technique or possibly not as effectively. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have any before and after comparisons while driving in similar conditions. I'm curious what would happen if we put you behind the wheel of his car, granted he's in Japan and that isn't likely.
I'm more curious about the non-engine modifications such as how much that belly pan helped out. Since I'm converting mine to electric I get to bypass all of the issues that come with messing with engine and trying to get rid of the inefficiencies there. It's why I sold my MIMA, too much to mess with when lean-burn and keeping the HV battery full is enough of a pain to maintain in cold weather. I know someone who is extremely skilled at handling aluminum and once I'm converted and get a good baseline in consistent weather I'm going to have him build a frame for a belly pan like this and install it.
I do have a concern that this may not be suitable for a northern winter where we can catch a chunk of snow or ice and tear a big chunk of the aluminum belly pan off. I live in a neighborhood where there is a good dozen or so times that I need to wait for a stop light to turn green while far behind it and gain significant speed to try and shove my car through a hump of snow left behind from the wake of a snowplow. That tore my drivers side belly pan one time and another time I didn't realize that the area past the hump on the opposite side of the stop light was not plowed and I got myself stuck and had to get towed by a generous guy with a pickup truck and a tow strap that I was extremely lucky to have crossed my path. I always make sure that the little tow hook is always in my car and when the snow gets deep it's in my glove box. There are many people in my neighborhood who don't have cars and use SUVs are pickups for their ground clearance and I've had people approach me asking how this little car gets along in the snow, my answer is that snow tires are mandatory on the front tires in deep snow to keep moving forward.
I too have seen a couple grainy pictures of a 1/2 block in the upper grill. Saw it on a red car and one of the lighter blue ones. Both were grainy and hard to make out. I think a chrome Honda-family one would look cool, like the Fit EV...
I haven't been able to find a part number either. Anyone looked at the wiki edit history to see if we can contact that user to ask? Maybe post it in the page's discussion area?
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