Lifetime Fuel Economy: 39.49 mpg

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Hypermiling, Here I come...

See if you can find the switches!

I worked for a couple days on getting this done; it took longer than expected because I forgot some connectors at school. While hypermiling in my mustang, I noticed some problems; first, the ignition gets extra wear as a result and the steering shaft runs the slight risk of locking in place if you turn the key too far back. Second, it's really annoying to have the radio turn on and off 4-5 times on your way to work, especially if you have a cd player resetting each time. My solution: eliminate the ignition cylinder. The ignition on the Escort was already messed up from years of use - you could pull the key out in any position, and the door chime constantly harassed me because it thought the key was in. Cutting the wire to the chime is by far the best thing I've done to this car. :)
I installed a toggle switch to turn on the radio, a toggle switch to turn on the computer and fuel pump/injection, and a push button starter switch. I used a 40 amp auxillary headlight relay to reduce the current through the computer power switch, the stereo toggle is a 20A switch, and the starter button is a heavy duty one, so no relay was needed there.
For those of you who worry about melting switches, my stereo produces 40W to each of 4 channels. I only have one speaker in the car, so it draws (approximately) 40W/12V = 3.3A plus some to run the tuner and display, so 20A will be plenty.
I did my best to conceal my switches and make them look O.E.M. - I must give credit to my friend Jeremy, who came up with the first starter switch concealment like this in his '89 camaro.
Here they are; the cigarette lighter is actually the start button.

3 comments:

David said...

That's awesome!

David said...

Oh, and its time to go change the oil in my cavalier....you know the one that gets 38 miles to the gallon? Yeah, that one!

Beat it! (I already know you will, its just a matter of time :-)

Unknown said...

Oh, I sure hope so! I assume you're looking for the same or better economy in your four door replacement for the baby. You should check out what the VWs can do - follow the tdiclub link on my main page.