74 mpg!

[moTthediesel]

I haven't posted on here in a while, but I thought you guys would get a charge out of this. We finished up working on our newest version of the TD Porsche 356 we've been wrenching on for the last 3 years. Now with a hydro head 1.6 and dual Honda bike rads mounted in the front fenders, it's getting closer to what we want it to be. We had it entered in the May 8 "Green Grand Prix" (http://www.greengrandprix.com/index.htm) in the fuel economy run. We had almost no debugging time on the car, never the less, my wife and I loaded up for the 4 hour trip down to Watkins Glen.

Here we are ready to push off .



We had a couple of breakdowns along the way, it blew a rad hose off on a back road east of Syracuse and coasted into the yard of a truck and tractor repair shop. Turns out the owner also builds pulling trucks, here you see him looking at our little tiny power plant, he got quite a kick out of it!



After we finally made it down there we met up with a crew from the Canadian version of the Discovery Channel, they are going to do a bit on our car for the "Daily Planet" show. It won't be shown in the US, but maybe some of you Canucks will get to see it. I let the on-air guy, Alan Nursall, drive it a little on camera -- I think he liked it! Here's a pic of me and my navigator Steve with one of the Discovery Ch. cameramen. We had a blast with those guys, they were lots of fun --



The deal is that all the competitors fuel at the Valero station in the Glen, you pump until the first click of the pump. Then all the cars, running at 1 minute intervals, lap Seneca Lake (80 miles) staying within 10% of posted speed. When you return to town you fuel again - same station - same pump - again fueling until the first click. We burned 1.08 gals for the loop, running with about 50% bio-diesel in the tank - yeah, that's 74mpg! Believe it or not, some of the other competitors did even better, but we did "win" our class, though I'm not sure just what that was, maybe the "Diesel Porsche" class? Anyway, I was tickled with that result, though having done 74, I won't be happy now until we can break 80 --

Here's a shot of us being flagged off --



No problems at all driving home on Sunday, except for having to drive through a nice Mothers Day snow without having the heater hooked up, but it was still a great time!

[Baron VonZeppelin]

I don't know really what to say right now - other than full fledge Congratulations !!

sumvabiscuiteater ! 74mpg ... w0w

Could throw about 200 questions at you though ....

But will go easy and just ask what speed was that you were to stay within, on average ?

Way to go man, that car and the achievement is truely awesome.

[macka]

Its on this week on Discovery Canada. Its garage mechanics week. I'll try to record it onto my computer for you and get it hosted and posted.

[moTthediesel]

But will go easy and just ask what speed was that you were to stay within, on average ?

Most of the route was 2 lane state roads with a 55mph speed limit, so we tried to average about 50. We also went through Geneva NY which is a pretty good size town, and lots of villages with lower limits. The idea to achieve maximum mileage is to "drive with load" that is to say, conserve momentum and limit engine loads. I tried to do this by staying below 550F on the EGT. My steady-state reading when traveling 55-60mph on flat ground is about 450F in 4th @ 2100 rpm. I find that lugging the engine up hills results in increased temps, so on steep grades (and there are plenty of those down there in the Finger Lakes country) we shifted down to 3rd and let our speed drop down to 45 or so. On one long upgrade we did see about 650F, but most times we could keep it where we wanted it. On down grades we coasted when possible, even key-off on the long grade on 414 South approaching Watkins Glen. We passed a county cop going the other way half way down that hill with us going about 65. Thankfully,  he didn't come after us, that would have been a first for me - to get a speeding ticket with the engine off 

[moTthediesel]

Its on this week on Discovery Canada. Its garage mechanics week. I'll try to record it onto my computer for you and get it hosted and posted.

Thanks, I'd really appreciate that!

[burn_your_money]

Very cool!

What kind of mileage did you get on the trip down?

[carrizog60]

what gearbox do you have?

[moTthediesel]

Very cool!

What kind of mileage did you get on the trip down?

For the whole trip, including the economy run, we got 61mpg.

[arb]

YOu could put it up on torrentreactor.net  or some similar bit torrent site so we call can see it. Every Saturday we watch Doctor Who on BBC 1 in the UK this way as it is not shown here until months later, and then with about 10 minutes taken out for the long commercials we put up with here..

Great job on the conversion !!!

[moTthediesel]

what gearbox do you have?

I had Rancho build me a special VW type 1 swing axle box. It has a 3.78 1st, a 2.06 2nd, a 1.21 3rd. and a 0.7 4th, with a 3.44 R&P. The guy I dealt with at Rancho said it was the tallest ratio box he'd ever seen them build 

That whole gearbox with welded gears, a 4 spider diff, core charge, and delivery - cost less than just a tall 4th gear set would have been for the original Porsche box --

[lovinthedeez]

thats awesome  .  I used to go to Alexandria Bay all the time when I was at school in potdam.  cool car too

[fdnyguy]

Now if we could get Americans into the diesel scene, maybe the automakers will leave some diesels here and let us enjoy them more instead of sending them to Europe {no offense..}

Saw a website where a Mercedes in a Chrysler 300 achieved 41mpg. Big car luxury at VW mileage.

And congrats for the work you did in achieving that awesome mileage. Maybe next year it won't be cold on the ride home.

Stay safe, stay well. Jimmy.

[fck]

 

totally awesome!

[FoXBoXRaCiNG]

Spectacular! Standing ovation on this end!

[rabbitman]

Nice ride!! MORE PICS!!!!