Several times I've cited the Ecomodder web site. It was started by the owner of a Geo Metro (actually a Suzuki badged as a Pontiac) who'd created a site to discuss modifications both to his car and his driving style to maximize fuel economy. The questions and email he received at that site convinced him that a more general mileage dedicated site with forums, a mileage log, etc., would be popular. He was right. I'm a fairly active participant at the site and recommend it highly. I've acquired a large amount of very informative and sometimes useful information there.
Many of the denizens of that site extensively modify their vehicles. Such modifications range from minor things such as replacing factory original side view mirrors with smaller ones to complete transformations that make the vehicle nearly unrecognizable. Possibly the most extreme is the Honda Civic owned and modified by an Ecomodder using the screen name "Basjoos." He achieves 95 miles per gallon and is frequently stopped by police, queried by bystanders, and even occasionally interviewed by the media.
My vehicle is owned by my company and is used, on occasion, to visit and transport clients and associates and hence is not a suitable candidate for such an extensive makeover. But what could I do to, for example, achieve an overall ("highway" and "city" combined) fuel economy of 25 m.p.g. (I'm currently at 21.6 m.pg.) without making my vehicle a spectacle? I'd have to work to reduce the aerodynamic drag coefficient, or Cd. As I've mentioned in a variety of previous posts, the current Cd of the LR3 is 0.41. If I make some assumptions, I should be able to find out how large a reduction in drag coefficient would be required to achieve a given fuel economy. The assumptions are necessary because drag reduction is most effective at highway speeds. I'll assume that my drag reduction ONLY affects my highway mileage, and that I'm doing highway driving 60% of the time. That should be enough, together with various other estimates, to determine what it would take to get to 25 m.p.g. If I were to be able to accomplish this, it would save me about 147 gallons of fuel annually compared to the current 21.6 m.p.g. I'm getting. Currently, that's worth about $588.
Using my previous calculation of highway mileage and calculating from there, I estimate that my "non-highway" mileage is 19.10 m.p.g. Surprisingly, I've never determined this number before, and it's much higher than I would have thought. Anyway, I now have to determine the Cd that would enable me to achieve a highway mileage of 28.67 m.p.g. Frankly, this seems out of the question, but let's see.
I have to make a few assumptions (as usual). I'll assume that, at 55 m.p.h., 25% of the energy in my fuel turns my wheels and that there are 125*10^6 (125 million) joules of energy in a gallon of gasoline. Thus, a gallon of gasoline delivers (125*10^6)/4 or 31.25*10^6 joules to the wheels. I'll assume that rolling resistance is a function of the tire coefficient and vehicle weight only. I'll assume that the tire coefficient of rolling resistance is 0.12. This may be low. In any case, if I invert the fraction (28.67 miles/31.25*10^6 joules) I'll have energy divided by distance. This is force and, when appropriately converted, will be in newtons. From there, plugging in the known (or estimated) numbers for air density, area, speed, mass, gravitational acceleration, and coefficient of rolling resistance, I can solve for the necessary coefficient of drag.
I know the suspense is killing my readers, the required Cd is slightly under 0.32. Is it possible to reduce the coefficient of drag of my LR3 from 0.41 to 0.32 without making obvious alterations? The only areas I can work with are the grill, under the hood, and the under body. I strongly suspect that grill blocks and belly pans will not result in a 22% reduction in Cd. Still, they will presumably result in a reduced Cd and are cheap and easy. Further, there's a wiki called Instructables that has an article on measuring the drag coefficient of your car. That will enable me to track my progress, which I'll then correlate with my (hopefully) increasing gas mileage.
No comments:
Post a Comment