Thread: Tri-State Fuel Economy Run 9-18-11

Tri-State Fuel Economy Championship 9-18-11
[MA, NY, VT]



"Bikes vs Cars" will be the theme of this new event put on by Steve Mauk of Max BMW Motorcycles of NY. Steve will organize the motorcyclists and I will be rounding up the cars that will face off in this competition.

What: Fuel mileage contest through the Berkshire Mountains of MA. The route will be on challenging roads and will run 105 miles in distance. The route will be traversing Mount Greylock, which is the highest point in MA. Your “economic” driving ability will be tested. There will be a time limit to complete the run. Any street legal vehicle is allowed to participate. This event will run rain or shine.

Where: The start and finish will be from Carpinello Service Center/Sunoco, 364 Main St. Williamstown, MA 01267.

When: Sunday, September 18th, 2011. Arrival time will be 8:00-8:30am, first car off at 9:00am. They have gas and diesel and have a large enough parking lot that we won’t be in the way.

Cost: Free! This is a fun event for like minded enthusiasts.


I curently hold the record for an SR powered vehicle at 60.73 mpg in my '93 SE-R.

Classes:

1. Best overall mpg for gas cars.

2. Best overall mpg for diesel and hybrid cars

3. Best MPG for bikes under 700cc.

4. Best MPG for bikes over 700cc.



Awards: This event will conclude about noon, and our plan is to proceed to the Freight Yard Restaurant & Pub located at 1 Furnace St. #3, North Adams, MA 01247 for lunch and awards.

To register for this event: simply send me an email to mikek (at] icerace (dot] com with your name, make/model/year vehicle, and your location. Or simply reply to this thread with the same details. I keep an email list of all registered drivers and will send the route instructions to them directly.

Note: I will add more details as I get them. Additional classes may be added if needed.

Mike

Updated registration list for the Tri-State Fuel Economy Run:

Gas Cars:

1. Ron Kienhuis, 2001 Subaru Forester - Long Island, NY

2. Gabrielle Isenbrand, 1993 Honda Civic Del Sol S - Esperance, NY

3. Ken Snowman, 1990 VW Jetta [gas] - Springfield, VT.

4. Mike Kamm, 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R - Averill Park, NY

5. Will Meredith, 1998 Honda Civic EX - Binghamton NY

6. Ernie Yue, 2001 Ford Focus - Mechanicville, NY

7. Jake Mangini, 2008 Suzuki SX4

Hybrid/Diesel Cars:

1. Jonathan Bartlett, 1995 VW Cabrio [TDI swap] - Sterling, MA

Trucks:

1. Carter Willey, 1980 Iveco Zeta 100 [diesel] - Esperance, NY

2. William Lum, 2006 Dodge Ram 2500 [diesel]

Motorcycles under 700cc:

1. Steve Mauk, 2011 BMW G650-GS - Williamstown, MA

2. Bob Zeliff, 2010 BMW F650 twin - Bridport, VT

3. Bruce Lemeiux, 2009 BMW F650GS - Pownal, VT

4. Doug Morrisson, 1964 BMW R27 - Chester, VT

5. Joe Warner, 2010 BMW G450X - Danvers, MA

6. Andrew Phillips, 2010 BMW G450X - Dofftown, NH

7. Rebecca Cooke, 2010 BMW F800ST - South Hampton, MA

8. Diane Wiley, 2008 BMW G650X Country - Valley Falls, NY

9. Zac Wiley, 2010 BMW G450X - Brookfield, CT

Motorcycles over 700cc:

1. Jeff Frisch, 2011 BMW 1600 GTL - Troy, NY

2. Tim Lukowski, 2011 BMW S1000RR - Cohoes, NY

3. Brian Becomb, 2010 BMW S1000RR - Pownal, VT

4. Al Wiley, 1994 BMW R100GS-PD - Valley Falls, NY

Some of the guys are bringing powerful bikes to see what they are capable of in economy driving mode. The S1000RR is currently the most powerful production street motorcycle at 193 h.p. I'll bet it can still get 50 mpg.

Yesterday's weather was perfect. Most of you know that I usually document the pre-event prep I do to my car[s] for these competitions. I didn't this time, because I simply was way behind and didn't finish it until 4:00 am the morning of the event!


First up was recycling the choroplast belly pan from the B210. The '91 Sentra is longer and a bit wider than the B210 so it isn't quite a full belly pan. This is looking towards the front of the car. On the left you might notice an 18" square section that has been cut out. That's where it caught fire while I was welding the new seat mounts in above it. I was lucky that I had an extinguisher handy and was able to put it out quickly and didn't lose the entire car.


Looking under the tail to the back bumper cover.


Starting to fabricate the side skirts and rear wheel fairings.


These are rear wheel spats, to direct air around the rear tires.


Front end closed in. That slot in the bumper is all the air intake this car needs for cooling . Note how low the edges are left low in front of each front wheel, again to direct air around the [aerodynamically dirty] open front wheels.


New for this year is a roof extension to try to help remedy the customary air flow detachment that all "three box" type sedans suffer from. Hatchbacks and wagons are a better body style for aerodynamics. Ever wonder why the trunk lid lines have been raised higher and higher on sedan bodied cars built in recent years? They say that airflow generally cannot stay attached to anything more than a 12 degree angle from the roofline down to the rear window. I mocked up the supports from cardboard.


Then I bent them from aluminum strap. I used 3M body moulding tape to attach them to the trunk lid. The lexan sheet was recylcled from the rear window of my former '86 Sentra ice racer.


Complete rear section. Now it was 2:00 am the morning of the event. I decided I needed to close in the front wheels as well. So I spent the next two hours fabbing up front wheel fairings. After a shower I got 1 hour of sleep and then it was off to the event. If it looks like the rear lower bodywork isn't finished, that's because it isn't. I wanted to connect the upper to the lower and build a full boat tail but ran out of time.


Ready to go on Sunday morning in Williamstown, MA.



Event results write up coming soon. Gotta take a nap and catch up on some sleep.

that is awsome, i wish they did stuff like that here where i live. oh Vadim eat your heart out we have a new MPG king,lol...

Thanks. The long story short is, that I have raised my previous record of 60.7 mpg to 76.12 mpg. Although no one else I know of is hypermiling an SR20, and that I have no direct competition, I still consider it the record for SR powered cars. There much more about it in this thread.

This is great you have dubbled the stock mpgs ! Are you allowed to run spare tires on the cars as they must have less rolling resistance or it must have stock ?

Thanks! You can pretty much do what ever you want. That's what I like about it, it's unlimited. I have tried the space saver spares but I am of the opinion that they aren't as good as I would have thought. The problem is that they are not radial tires. I use 155/80R 13's @ 50 psi. These are at minimun tead depth of 3/32 of an inch. I don't think you can get much better than that.

Mike

OK now for the results. Quite a few people dropped out at the last minute, but it doesn't matter. I was going for a record more for myself.

Gas Cars:

1. Mike Kamm, 1991 Nissan Sentra SE-R - 76.12 mpg

2. Ken Snowman, 1990 VW Jetta [gas] - 53.51 mpg

3. Gabrielle Isenbrand, 1993 Honda Civic Del Sol S - 49.05 mpg

4. Ron Kienhuis, 2001 Subaru Forester - 36.01 mpg

Hybrid/Diesel Cars:

1. Jonathan Bartlett, 2005 VW Jetta TDI diesel - 79.38 mpg

2. Al Walker, 2004 Toyota Pruis - 70.6 mpg


Trucks:

1. Carter Willey, 1980 Iveco Zeta 100 [diesel] - 24.28 mpg [this is a 4 ton truck!]

Motorcycles I don't yet have the motorcycle results, except for the winner who beat all comers.

1. Steve Mauk, 2010 BMW G650GS that was completely stock but hypermiled to 103.65 mpg!

I'm curious to what a ga16 Sentra would rank on mpgs my guess would be 80+ .

Yes, I would say that the GA is the better engine for mpg contests. In fact the GA14DE might even be better. We talked about it earlier in the thread link I left in post 5 of this thread. You should check out that thread. Lots of good thoughts exchanged on the subject.