1. Although 95MPG is impressive, this is the visual equivalent to free trade coffee.

Posted at 12:16PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by William Munns

2. Ugly as hell, but I can't argue with the results. I wonder what would happen if someone did this with a VW Rabbit Diesel?

Posted at 12:50PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Orv

3. nice improvement, but oh god my eyes they burn

Posted at 1:40PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by zigzagjoe

4. Sometimes the beauty is in the ugliness... well hackiness is awesome atleast. Maybe a lick of paint and it would be a thunderbirds collectible.

Posted at 2:21PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Ali Raheem

5. Ewwwwww...

Great idea; disgusting implementation.

If he just paid a body shop $1-2k to do it right he would have probably seen a 0.1CD. Someone should introduce this man to Bondo and Paint.

Posted at 2:23PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Ginsu

6. yeah, thats a really sweet mod there, but even if your not going for asthetics it looks like it was slapped together in a garage one night.

the start of something awesome.. keyword is start.

Posted at 2:57PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by xrazorwirex

7. thats the madest thing i've seen in a while, i proper love it!
never really realsied how aerodynamics can effect mpg so much.
it would be wicked to see more cars like this (and more people beening inventive with being "green" in mind) ....*drifts off into post apocalyptic hacking fantasy*

Posted at 3:36PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by }{itch

8. the uber green hack that somebody should do is make a solar powered hydrogen distiller (or whatever you call the device that splits water apart). Then use that to fill up the cells in your hydrogen car.

i think ill wait for someone else to do it first, given that i dont want to blow up... anytime soon...

Posted at 4:27PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by xrazorwirex

9. it may not look the best, but i'd take it for 95 MPG, he ought to enter this, the automotive X-Prive

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/08/01/automotive-x-prize-announces-first-31-teams-accepted-to-competit/

Posted at 4:44PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by sean smith

10. To be fair as far as aesthetics go, its not like the car he started with has won any recent beauty pageants

Posted at 4:47PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by McSquid

11. 95mpg? I don't believe that for a minute.

Then there's this gem:

"Most of my driving is at night, especially in the winter, and night driving is costing me 2 to 3 mpg in additional electrical load from the lights."

I won't believe that simply having your goddamn headlignts on will cost you anywhere near that much.

Also, I wouldn't want to be in that car in any kind of crosswind or behind any kind of large vehicle.

Posted at 5:20PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by josh

12. josh: headlights/wipers/heated windscreen/fans and other accessories use 6.6% of the total useful energy output of a gasoline engine, and headlights are a large percentage of that. (the 6.6% figure is from my own calculations and some approximations - if someone could find a better figure it would be great).

Looking at it another way, of the ~10kw out of the engine, an extra 100w (or 1%) could go to the headlights.

Having said that mpg will be lower at night due to using the brakes more because the driver sees obstacles/bends/hills later.

Posted at 5:37PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by O Mattos

13. can someone confirm - is MPG miles per US gallon, or Miles per imperial gallon, or does it depend who's saying it?

Posted at 5:40PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by O Mattos

14. Check the Honda Insight. I get 72mpg and it looks a lot nicer.

Posted at 5:43PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Emmanuel

15. He should look into metal halide lamps, rather than dimmers or cutting out one light, for his headlights.

It's pretty recently that they've been able to make polycrystalline alumina transparent enough for that application, but some prototypes should be available if he contacts the manufacturer.

Also, he may want to consider giving over control of his alternator's field coil current to a microcontroller: it'll allow regenerative braking and perhaps some other tricks, especially if he switches to a system with more windings.

Posted at 6:44PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Joel

16. @5: I doubt there are any body shops that could do it for $2000. The corner of my Crown Vic got hit and they quoted me over $2k to fix it -- more than half of that was just for paint. I bet to get this kind of thing done at a professional shop would be at least $5k.

@11: I'm not too sure about his figures either. 50 mpg sounds high for a Civic -- my '94 Civic Si topped out at 40 mpg if it was gently driven. But as long as his measurement methods are consistent, it's still a 53% improvement no matter what the actual numbers are.

2-3 mpg for the headlights suggests the headlight load is around 2% of his engine output. That sounds high; he'd have to be cruising on only 5 horsepower or so. Later I think I'll run the numbers and see if I can approximate how much horsepower he's actually consuming...

Posted at 6:48PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Orv

17. @14: Yeah, but even a used Insight will cost you at least $10k.

Posted at 6:49PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Orv

18. I think this is fantastic. I just wish others had some more positive comments. I mean, look at the work this guy has put into this. I doubt if any of the armchair critics have attempted anything similar.

I wonder if it would help at all to completely remove the belt from the alternator and have one that uses ram air to spin the alternator with a propeller, similar to some ordnance on NAVY jets. Would that offset anything or just cause more drag and make it a useless mod? Just wondering. If he's commuting at mostly highway speeds it might be an option.

Posted at 7:11PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Duke Starbuckle

19. OK, running the numbers for 95 mpg at 60 mph, I figure that amount of fuel would produce about 8.5 horsepower at the rear wheels. Assumptions I used to get there:
- 30% overall efficiency for the engine and drivetrain (a guess, but a typical number for most cars)
- 114,100 BTU/gallon of gasoline

I don't know enough to figure out whether this is reasonable given the C/d and frontal area of his car, though.

Posted at 7:20PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Orv

20. @18: I don't think it would help; the energy has to come from somewhere. Reducing the load on the alternator is the way to go, and it sounds like he's on the right track there.

Posted at 7:21PM on Jan 2nd 2008 by Orv