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itjstagame
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
quote:
Mike Kamm wrote:
quote:
toga94m wrote:
I mentioned this question to Mike today, though I came up with it a little late. Of the drivers today, how many are engineers/scientists/otherwise techie? I'm an electrical engineer by day.
Tom,
Welcome to our message boards! I remember you asking me that question and I asked it outloud at the awards luncheon. The answer was that other than yourself, Hobbit, and our Bryon Seyfried, the rest of us [as it was said in notorious A.M.E.C. humor] are just your typical "dumb-ass mechanics!" 
Greg is an Engineer (Mechanical Engineer I think), but was a mechanic, car lover long before that. But he's really good with electronics, he built and tuned the megasquirt and rewired the RX7 himself (plus he's rebuilt that rotary and many others at least 5 times).
I'm a Computer Programmer and have an 'ok' electronics knowledge but like programming and tuning and have lots of odd ideas and things to hook various inputs into a laptop and control various things with rudimentary circuits. I like cars a lot too but have never rebuilt an engine, I can do any maintance task required, have lots of 'junk' and have done one frame off restoration.
Now of course we're all trying to be Aeronautical Engineers too and mod our cars for aero. I think that's one of the most important things for economy.
Lastly, I think more/different classes are a good idea too, maybe not neccesarily for rewards, etc, but seeing everyones % improvement over EPA combined or highway economny would be interesting. fueleconomy.gov has all car stats from 80's forward and a calculation to convert older window stickers to the 'new' EPA. Another category I think would be interesting to see would be one based on displacement somehow. Granted diesel and turbo make big differences as does rotary, but maybe we could use some method to normalize. I only know the NAPA rules but they seem pretty good, I think it was like 1.4* for turbos and .8* for rotaries and well I don't fully recall but they definately had a normalization system.
Last edited by itjstagame, 10/6/2008, 9:54 am
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10/6/2008, 9:46 am
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Mark Long
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
I volunteer to work the next event. I have already run twice and am not going to do any better than Sunday.
Does anyone have the list of winners? I would like to add that to the results.
---
Mark Long
34 E
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10/6/2008, 10:19 am
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Mike Kamm
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
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Mark Long wrote:
The results for both the Summer and Fall Economy runs are posted on our results page.
Wow the competition was stiff!
The average MPG was 49.56.
Nice work Mark!
And after getting 48 mpg last time out [with plenty of doubters - including me] you come back out and nail 50 mpg! Nice!!! 
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10/6/2008, 10:22 am
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Mike Kamm
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
quote:
Mark Long wrote:
I volunteer to work the next event. I have already run twice and am not going to do any better than Sunday.
Thanks Mark!!!quote:
Mark Long wrote oes anyone have the list of winners? I would like to add that to the results.
The winners were:
Best miles per dollar: Jonathan Bartlett - '97 VW Passat TDI
Best overall mpg for diesel and hybrid cars: Jonathan Bartlett - '97 VW Passat TDI
Best ton-mile per gallon: Jonathan Bartlett - '97 VW Passat TDI
Best carbureted mpg: Tom Compoli - '82 VW Rabbit
Best overall mpg for gas cars: Tom Compoli - '82 VW Rabbit [carbureted]
Note: corrected 10/7/08
Last edited by Mike Kamm, 10/7/2008, 10:16 pm
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10/6/2008, 10:34 am
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Mike Kamm
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
Here are a few of my photos of the event.
 We owe it all to these guys for resurrecting this event after 54 years. They took the first steps and created the event from scratch. Dave Burnham on left and Bryon Seyfried on right.
 This is Hobbit, our only Prius driver, but as mentioned earlier in the thread, one of the best in the country. This car is not only his sleeping quarters but a rolling test bed as well. I wish I had remembered to get a picture of his interior, with it's meters, gauges, switches, led's, etc.
 I wished that we had stickers for the event but ran out of time to have some made. I printed this off at home and taped it to the inside of my glass.
 These are my last minute [literally] and not so good looking aero mods for this event. You can't tell from the picture but there are clear plexiglass headlamp covers there. I opted for only a half grill block due to B210 radiators not being as efficient as modern car's. The air dam was cobbled from a scrap Ford Contour front bumper cover. White duct tape finished the corners off. The B210 sits really high off of the ground. This did hurt the results but I did not have time to lower the suspension. I snapped this picture at 1:30 am. I was so tired I couldn't hold the camera straight. 
 Somehow, Bob Addis' New Beetle managed to illude everyone's camera. I snapped this picture as he was leaving the go-kart track! Bob was runner up [I know how that feels Bob] by only 1 mpg. His TDI VW logged 70 mpg!
 "Top Cat" Tom Compoli stunned the troops with his carbureted '82 Rabbit with 63.24 mpg. A race car no less! I still can't believe it myself!  Yes it is gutted and has one aluminum seat, but he was running on wide tires an all. Another Rabbit in attendance only got 37. All he did was lower it for this event? Is that worth 25 mpg itself? If so, my car's rockers panels will be making sparks at the next one! 
 I personally checked every car to make sure it was filled to the rim. On several member's car's I had to fill it myself as they gave up early and considered it "full" when it clearly wasn't. Some cars really like to bubble and burp and you have to have patience. After all, if you don't get this part of the procedure right, the rest of it is a farce.
 The last car to be filled was mine. There was much anticipation as evidenced by the onlookers.
 I had no idea the result would be so close. I overfilled it just a bit and that might have been all it took.... to lose that is.
Note to self: Remember to wear your A.M.E.C. hat next time. Your age is showing!
 Mark Long seemed to enjoy my embarassment. 
 Claude took this picture early on in the run, [Jr. didn't have enough patience to stay behind me for very long.] I don't know if they realized it or not, but what I was doing here is referred to as "ridge running" in hypermiling terms. The idea is to not drive in the middle of the road where everyone else does. There is less rolling resistance if you stay out of the worn areas of your lane and run offset.
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10/6/2008, 12:55 pm
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Mike Kamm
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
Some of you might be wondering, what happened to Ernie Yue and his 250cc Ninja motorcycle yesterday?
Here's the note I got from him:
Mike, just letting you know that I changed my mind and I'll be a no show. I rode the bike yesterday and it was just too cold after 1/2 hour, even with four layers of clothing on. I need to get some heated gear before I can do a longer ride.
Best of luck today, looking forward to seeing those results!
Regards,
Ernie
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10/6/2008, 1:16 pm
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Tom Compoli
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
it was fun guys. i cant wait till the next one so i can do it again and prove it can be done with my car so theres no questions. mikes car wasnt far behind me so at least i know it cant be a total fluke of a win. this time ill hook up a switch to disable the alternator instead of a magical force turning it off and then turning it on. aerodynamics will also be in place and ill go from there. special thanks to mike bills (67) for tuning the carb before the race. :-)
also if you need me to give up the one throphy i can, im happy with the carb one. but wasnt there a seperate trophy for hybrid vehicles?? even though they were my first throphies for driving, i felt a little bad having two. suggestion, maybe next time we can fine tune the classes. like turbo, fuel injection, carb, and what not. maybe a truck class too?? cause i will also spank with my cummins diesel truck. :-)see you guys at octobers meeting!
--- 
Is a proud member of the D. Carl #14 Fan Club! |
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10/6/2008, 3:06 pm
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Mike Kamm
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
quote:
Tom Compoli wrote:
also if you need me to give up the one throphy i can, im happy with the carb one. but wasnt there a seperate trophy for hybrid vehicles??
You're right the Hybrids had their own class [with the diesels that is]. quote:
Tom Compoli wrote: suggestion, maybe next time we can fine tune the classes.
Yes, we will need to tweak the classes a bit to eliminate overlap. Again, congrats Tommy! You earned both trophies! 
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10/6/2008, 3:36 pm
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Bill Clark
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
re: the rest of us are just your typical "dumb-ass mechanics!"
Although I've been a gearhead since I was five, and a dumb-ass maybe longer, I was trained as a mechanical engineer. No smarter than when I was five, just more training.
re: The carbureted cars did remarkably well but were all stripped down featherweights with no regular (luxury) items installed.
Except for the big free flowing 1 1/4 exhaust system instead of the original 1 1/8 inch, and the Pertronix ignition, my Met was bone stock. It did have the stock highway 4.22 gears rather than the 4.55s in earlier Mets (some people put Midget 3.55s in Mets, but not this one) and the original size 5.60 13 bias plys, blown up to 40psi. It had the original Zenith 30 carb and the factory manifold allowing a flooded intake to drain. It had all the luxury items that came with a 60 Met including a floor mat, a glove box door and an oil filter a trunk lid and vent windows. Its fighting weight on Sunday was about 50 pounds higher than normal because of the tools and spare parts I had in the trunk.
re: I think longer is better though, to take out some variance with the filling, which I still think isn't quite as exact as is really needed for stiff competition.
A car getting 50mpg over 121.5 miles will use 2.43 gallons. If the first and last fillup differ by 2 oz or 2/128 or 1/64 or .015625 gallons, or 4 tablespoons, the mileage measured will be off by .31 miles per gallon. On a car getting 70 mpg, a 4 tablespoon difference is more than 1/2 mpg. The filling is critical on these short hops. I don't have any great ideas, but if it could be done safely, maybe feeding from a boat gas tank in the trunk would provide a better measure.
By the way, the 1954 Motor Trend reported that a Met would get 39mpg on a circular track at 45 mph or 30.1 in traffic so Sundays 37.86 were somewhat representative of a Met. I'm hooked and looking for 40.
Bill
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10/6/2008, 6:08 pm
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toga94m
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Re: AMEC Economy Run II and Go-Kart Challenge
To further prove my engineer geekiness, here's a short sample of the info logged by my handheld (hiking) GPS unit. I plotted speed and elevation (vertically) against time, going left to right. This is the last 7 minutes before we all stopped at the stopsign for our cat cards.
I probably wasn't doing pulse-n-glide properly, since I often broke 60mph, and was doing it in 3rd gear rather than 5th. But I was thinking that as long as the engine's doing work, let's use all the 90ish horsepower that's available, and it's all at higher revs. The '94 Miata has a 1.8L 4-cylinder.
If you look at the glide durations vs terrain, it's easy to see where the downhills are. That one long glide into the last valley was 51 seconds (give or take when the GPS chose to log a point).
It's even more fun to plot the GPS coordinates for those same 7 minutes on a topo map (thanks to www.gpsvisualizer.com!) and see the track through the hills, with the low point coming as we crossed the water.
tom
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10/6/2008, 8:39 pm
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