Feature
Ecomodding: Tuning Your Car for 100 MPG
Ecomodding Is About MPG, not MPH
There are all kinds of ways to look at high performance. Times being what they are, a growing number of people think mpg is a lot more important than mph. It's all about a secret subculture called "ecomodding."
The oil crisis of 1973 (there have been a lot of them, haven't there?) began in October of that year when a group of Arab countries stopped shipping crude oil to the U.S. in the wake of the latest conflict between Israel and Syria and Egypt. The following March, Car and Driver published, "Project Car: Crisis-Fighter Pinto." The subtitle promised: "Improve Gas Mileage by up to 25% for Eleven Dollars."
The story was about improving a car's fuel economy by minimizing weight, reducing rolling resistance and adding aerodynamic bodywork. The gasoline shortage and the resulting long waits at the pumps had forced motorists into taking fuel-efficiency matters into their own hands. Back then, recalls Phil Knox, a 56-year-old from Sanger, Texas, such information was hard to come by. The magazine article, he says, "gave me a little confidence to proceed" with a plan to increase the fuel-efficiency of his '64 Karmann Ghia.
Today, the process of making mechanical and aerodynamic changes to a vehicle in order to boost mileage is called "ecomodding," short for ecologically modifying.
It's a Movement
Today, ecomodding is rapidly becoming a movement. Forums devoted to ecomodding specific vehicles — such as priuschat.com and metrompg.com — are launched frequently and gain popularity rapidly.
One site, ecomodder.com, went online in December 2007 and 45,000 readers were checking in daily within three months. "It just sorta went viral," says Darin Cosgrove, 38, of Brockville, Canada, who cofounded the site with Benjamin Jones, 19, of Hanover, New Hampshire.
A self-described gearhead, Cosgrove's interest in ecomodding dates from his days as a defensive-driving instructor during the mid-1990s. "One of the things I had to do to get my certificate was present a seminar to other student instructors, and the topic that I chose was driving efficiently," he says.
Not long after, a buddy of his built a workshop, but he didn't have a project for it. The friend agreed to let Cosgrove use the space to convert a gas-powered 1992 Geo Metro into a strictly electric machine. "The only way I was able to do it was because of the Internet," says Cosgrove, a Web developer. "I found forums where people are talking about building electric cars out of gas cars."
With advice gleaned from the forums, Cosgrove yanked the gas engine and installed an electric drivetrain using donated lead-acid batteries and about $700 in parts scrounged from an old forklift and a golf cart. Today, he drives the electric car around town, getting what he figures is the equivalent of 80 mpg. For highway trips, he still uses gasoline, but in an ecomodded '98 Geo Metro that now gets 76 mpg, up from its original EPA highway rating of 46 mpg.
Hot Honda
Andrew Johnmeyer of McKinleyville, California, is, like most ecomodders, also a hypermiler, using specialized driving techniques as well as mechanical modifications to help maximize his car's fuel economy. He has taken a 1994 Honda Civic and removed the outside mirrors and then added a front airdam, fender skirts and flush-fitting hubcaps. And he's installed an ignition kill switch on the console between the front seats.
"Let's say you see a stoplight up ahead that turns red," he says. "You can flip the switch, turning your car off and coast up to the stoplight. That way you've got infinite miles per gallon all the way up to that stopping point, and then your car's not idling and wasting fuel."
Johnmeyer's bag of tricks also includes installing a higher-temperature engine thermostat. He's guessing that a higher operating temperature will promote faster, more thorough combustion — literally, more bang for the buck. It's one of those ideas that people get.
"When I first got this car, I set a goal for myself of trying to get 55 mpg and I've almost got there," Johnmeyer says of his Civic, which was originally rated at 39 mpg on the highway. "Then past that, I've got to hit 60 mpg. There's always the next frontier, as it were."
Dream Prius
Most ecomodders like to view themselves as environmentalists. Others, including Jud Engels, owner of a map-making company in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, don't want to be associated with "tree huggers," as Engels put it. He became an ecomodder, he says, simply to save money.
Fuel bills from his 2002 Cadillac Eldorado sedan and 2004 Chevrolet Silverado pickup became excessive, Engels says, so he replaced the thirsty vehicles with a Volkswagen Jetta TDI and a Toyota Prius. He soon began wondering how he could get even better mileage. He found various online forums, learned what he needed to do and used his Photoshop skills to create an image of his "Dream Prius" — the car he is fixing to craft.
Engels has removed the rear wiper of his Prius, installed aerodynamic hubcaps and otherwise done some of the easy aerodynamic mods. Next he's fitting some fender skirts front and rear, and he's even thinking about an extended nose to improve air penetration and a "boat tail" to clean up wake turbulence.
Based on fuel mileage he got while drafting a big rig for 20 miles, Engels believes he can get 70 mpg at 70 mph in his Dream Prius. He figures the total cost of the modifications will set him back about $2,000.
Kawasaki Hot Rod
Benjamin Nelson of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, had no experience with electrical or mechanical engineering when the ecomodding bug bit him. "What really got me started on it were the hybrid cars, the Prius and that sort of thing," the videotape editor says. "They're great!"
But Nelson got to thinking, "There's got to be something simple that a regular guy can do for not a ton of money. So I got an old beater of a motorcycle, took out the engine and transmission, put in a motor and some batteries, and off I went."
It wasn't quite that simple. He spent $100 for a Kawasaki rust bucket with a seized engine, a broken transmission, no clutch, a detached seat and a badly dented gas tank. Following instructions from forum folk, he methodically converted the gas motorcycle into a purely electric one.
It was a proud accomplishment for Nelson, as was what followed. The motorcycle qualified for "hobbyist" plates as a street-modified vehicle. "It goes 38 mph and it's a hot rod!" he says. And because the bike has retained its original vehicle identification number, it's titled, licensed and insured as a 1981 Kawasaki, which doesn't cost much. Even the hobbyist plate doesn't come with an annual registration fee, just a one-time fee.
Using a meter to measure the amount of electricity that flows from an outlet to the motorcycle's battery charger, Nelson calculates that the machine gets the equivalent of about 300 mpg, and that includes $6 per month extra he pays a utility for electricity generated from green-friendly sources.
"So all of the electricity that's powering the motorcycle is renewably generated," Nelson beams.
Tackling the Fifth
Knox, the Texan who started ecomodding before there was a term for it, couldn't stop with the Karmann Ghia. After that project, he modified a 1970 Volkswagen Transporter microbus, a '62 Dodge D-100 pickup and an '84 Honda Civic CRX. He's currently ecomodding his fifth vehicle, a '94 Toyota T-100 pickup.
With modifications he's made to the truck, he's watched its fuel-efficiency at a steady highway speed of 75 mph (well, he does live in Texas) improve to 32 mpg from 23 mpg. Judging from the number of messages Knox has posted at various message boards, one might think ecomodding has become an obsession with him. It's something he wonders himself.
"I've tried to quit, because this stuff will drive you insane," he says of his passion for mpg, "but I can't seem to quit it."
The oil crisis of 1973 (there have been a lot of them, haven't there?) began in October of that year when a group of Arab countries stopped shipping crude oil to the U.S. in the wake of the latest conflict between Israel and Syria and Egypt. The following March, Car and Driver published, "Project Car: Crisis-Fighter Pinto." The subtitle promised: "Improve Gas Mileage by up to 25% for Eleven Dollars."
The story was about improving a car's fuel economy by minimizing weight, reducing rolling resistance and adding aerodynamic bodywork. The gasoline shortage and the resulting long waits at the pumps had forced motorists into taking fuel-efficiency matters into their own hands. Back then, recalls Phil Knox, a 56-year-old from Sanger, Texas, such information was hard to come by. The magazine article, he says, "gave me a little confidence to proceed" with a plan to increase the fuel-efficiency of his '64 Karmann Ghia.
Today, the process of making mechanical and aerodynamic changes to a vehicle in order to boost mileage is called "ecomodding," short for ecologically modifying.
It's a Movement
Today, ecomodding is rapidly becoming a movement. Forums devoted to ecomodding specific vehicles — such as priuschat.com and metrompg.com — are launched frequently and gain popularity rapidly.
One site, ecomodder.com, went online in December 2007 and 45,000 readers were checking in daily within three months. "It just sorta went viral," says Darin Cosgrove, 38, of Brockville, Canada, who cofounded the site with Benjamin Jones, 19, of Hanover, New Hampshire.
A self-described gearhead, Cosgrove's interest in ecomodding dates from his days as a defensive-driving instructor during the mid-1990s. "One of the things I had to do to get my certificate was present a seminar to other student instructors, and the topic that I chose was driving efficiently," he says.
Not long after, a buddy of his built a workshop, but he didn't have a project for it. The friend agreed to let Cosgrove use the space to convert a gas-powered 1992 Geo Metro into a strictly electric machine. "The only way I was able to do it was because of the Internet," says Cosgrove, a Web developer. "I found forums where people are talking about building electric cars out of gas cars."
With advice gleaned from the forums, Cosgrove yanked the gas engine and installed an electric drivetrain using donated lead-acid batteries and about $700 in parts scrounged from an old forklift and a golf cart. Today, he drives the electric car around town, getting what he figures is the equivalent of 80 mpg. For highway trips, he still uses gasoline, but in an ecomodded '98 Geo Metro that now gets 76 mpg, up from its original EPA highway rating of 46 mpg.
Hot Honda
Andrew Johnmeyer of McKinleyville, California, is, like most ecomodders, also a hypermiler, using specialized driving techniques as well as mechanical modifications to help maximize his car's fuel economy. He has taken a 1994 Honda Civic and removed the outside mirrors and then added a front airdam, fender skirts and flush-fitting hubcaps. And he's installed an ignition kill switch on the console between the front seats.
"Let's say you see a stoplight up ahead that turns red," he says. "You can flip the switch, turning your car off and coast up to the stoplight. That way you've got infinite miles per gallon all the way up to that stopping point, and then your car's not idling and wasting fuel."
Johnmeyer's bag of tricks also includes installing a higher-temperature engine thermostat. He's guessing that a higher operating temperature will promote faster, more thorough combustion — literally, more bang for the buck. It's one of those ideas that people get.
"When I first got this car, I set a goal for myself of trying to get 55 mpg and I've almost got there," Johnmeyer says of his Civic, which was originally rated at 39 mpg on the highway. "Then past that, I've got to hit 60 mpg. There's always the next frontier, as it were."
Dream Prius
Most ecomodders like to view themselves as environmentalists. Others, including Jud Engels, owner of a map-making company in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, don't want to be associated with "tree huggers," as Engels put it. He became an ecomodder, he says, simply to save money.
Fuel bills from his 2002 Cadillac Eldorado sedan and 2004 Chevrolet Silverado pickup became excessive, Engels says, so he replaced the thirsty vehicles with a Volkswagen Jetta TDI and a Toyota Prius. He soon began wondering how he could get even better mileage. He found various online forums, learned what he needed to do and used his Photoshop skills to create an image of his "Dream Prius" — the car he is fixing to craft.
Engels has removed the rear wiper of his Prius, installed aerodynamic hubcaps and otherwise done some of the easy aerodynamic mods. Next he's fitting some fender skirts front and rear, and he's even thinking about an extended nose to improve air penetration and a "boat tail" to clean up wake turbulence.
Based on fuel mileage he got while drafting a big rig for 20 miles, Engels believes he can get 70 mpg at 70 mph in his Dream Prius. He figures the total cost of the modifications will set him back about $2,000.
Kawasaki Hot Rod
Benjamin Nelson of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, had no experience with electrical or mechanical engineering when the ecomodding bug bit him. "What really got me started on it were the hybrid cars, the Prius and that sort of thing," the videotape editor says. "They're great!"
But Nelson got to thinking, "There's got to be something simple that a regular guy can do for not a ton of money. So I got an old beater of a motorcycle, took out the engine and transmission, put in a motor and some batteries, and off I went."
It wasn't quite that simple. He spent $100 for a Kawasaki rust bucket with a seized engine, a broken transmission, no clutch, a detached seat and a badly dented gas tank. Following instructions from forum folk, he methodically converted the gas motorcycle into a purely electric one.
It was a proud accomplishment for Nelson, as was what followed. The motorcycle qualified for "hobbyist" plates as a street-modified vehicle. "It goes 38 mph and it's a hot rod!" he says. And because the bike has retained its original vehicle identification number, it's titled, licensed and insured as a 1981 Kawasaki, which doesn't cost much. Even the hobbyist plate doesn't come with an annual registration fee, just a one-time fee.
Using a meter to measure the amount of electricity that flows from an outlet to the motorcycle's battery charger, Nelson calculates that the machine gets the equivalent of about 300 mpg, and that includes $6 per month extra he pays a utility for electricity generated from green-friendly sources.
"So all of the electricity that's powering the motorcycle is renewably generated," Nelson beams.
Tackling the Fifth
Knox, the Texan who started ecomodding before there was a term for it, couldn't stop with the Karmann Ghia. After that project, he modified a 1970 Volkswagen Transporter microbus, a '62 Dodge D-100 pickup and an '84 Honda Civic CRX. He's currently ecomodding his fifth vehicle, a '94 Toyota T-100 pickup.
With modifications he's made to the truck, he's watched its fuel-efficiency at a steady highway speed of 75 mph (well, he does live in Texas) improve to 32 mpg from 23 mpg. Judging from the number of messages Knox has posted at various message boards, one might think ecomodding has become an obsession with him. It's something he wonders himself.
"I've tried to quit, because this stuff will drive you insane," he says of his passion for mpg, "but I can't seem to quit it."
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