Green Options » lifehacks

How to Get 70 MPG Out of a Honda Civic

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:05:46 +0000

Although it could be one of the ugliest car hacks I’ve ever seen, Mike Turner of Hodges, SC, modified his 1992 Honda Civic to get 70 MPG.

As you can see in the picture and video clip, the modifications are relatively simple use of aluminum siding and plastic, which decrease wind resistance (vaguely reminding me of Aptera’s Typ1 electric car) and lowering the vehicle’s drag coefficient. It’s a much more extreme version of the modification seen on Ernie Rogers’ 76 MPG VW Beetle.

The reporter in this cheesy news clip from WCNC couldn’t have said it better: “It is absolutely hideous looking.” But you’ve got to appreciate how little this guy cares.

Click on the image above for video.

More Car Hacks:

A Truck That Runs on Coffee Grounds (and How Wood-Gas Powers Cars With Garbage)

Clayton B. Cornell — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:23:30 +0000

Photo Credits: deborah sherman photography

The Cafe Racer Truck Runs on 100% Recycled Coffee Grounds

A commenter on Ben’s wood-powered truck post pointed us to a similar car hack. The truck above is also powered by a wood gas generator, except this one runs on coffee grounds. The Cafe Racer is a 1975 GMC pickup that essentially burns up used coffee to create a combustible gas. The gas is filtered on its way to the engine and, Viola, a caffeine-powered truck.

It’s interesting to note that this and the last vehicle mentioned are promoting a specific fuel (wood and coffee grounds), since the onboard wood gas generators can gasify almost any type of combustible material.

Gasification is a non-selective method using heat and a controlled amount of oxygen to convert biomass into a flammable vapor. In addition to Coffee Grounds, the Cafe Racer could use wood chips, old tires, and municipal trash, almost anything—which, by the way, is the same technology Coskata is using to make cellulosic ethanol out of garbage.

As Wikipedia puts it, gasification “was an important and familiar 19th century technology” that was commonly used until petroleum took over around the close of WWII. Although popular at that time, wood gas conversions are a bit of a throw back, but you never know what could gain popularity as gas prices continue to rise. Additionally, wood gas generators aren’t restricted to vehicles, and have found use in heating, cooking, and electricity production.

So how can a wood gas generator power a truck?

The reason a wood gas generator can power cars and trucks is that the internal combustion engine is actually powered by vapor, not liquid. In a gasoline-powered engine, gasoline is vaporized before entering the combustion chamber. Diesel is a little different; it’s sprayed into the combustion chamber as fine droplets which burn as they vaporize. Either way, if you can put a clean combustible vapor into the engine, you’ve got power*.

(*Just to mention where this information is coming from, I thought I’d point out this interesting factoid: back in 1989, FEMA sponsored a series of “emergency technology assessments” that included a book on gasification conversions. The title of the book is “Construction of a Simplified Wood Gas Generator for Fueling Internal Combustion Engines in a Petroleum emergency.”)

Gasifying a solid material partially burns it, which preserves some of the energy that would normally be wasted in the gas (otherwise there wouldn’t be anything left for the engine to burn). The gas contains a mixture of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N), and a small amount of methane (CH4).

The big question for wood gas use is (as usual), how do these systems compare to other petroleum alternatives in terms of environmental impact? The group behind Cafe Racer claims that it’s a carbon-negative demonstration vehicle, but they don’t substantiate that on their website. I wasn’t able to find much on the issue, except the risk of death from carbon monoxide poisoning in poorly designed systems, but my gut instinct tells me this isn’t the cleanest way to get around. If you know of a resource on the emissions of wood gas generators, please send it my way.

The important point here isn’t so much that you can run a truck on wood gas produced from waste materials (even though that’s pretty cool), but that this technology could play a major role in producing petroleum alternatives in the near future (more on that later).

If you enjoyed reading about this, check out these links, and see more pictures of the Cafe Racer below:

Posts Related To Wood Gas Generators and Other Car Hacks:

Photo Credit: deborah sherman photography: http://www.deborahsherman.com/, (studiodeb on Flickr). Used by permission (thanks!).

Need a New Car? Nope, Just a New Engine!

Benjamin Jones — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:34:01 +0000

Image source: motoringfile

Engine Repower is a new (as far as I can tell) service that gives car owners the option of replacing their old, worn out engine with a rebuilt engine of the same vintage instead of simply buying a new car or repairing specific problems. When a first saw this page, I was very interested, as I am a proponent of keeping your car as long as possible to reduce wasteful manufacturing processes, even in the face of promises of lower emissions made by newer cars.

For more on repowering, follow the jump!

Here’s what Engine Repower has to say about their service:

Technology and auto manufacturing have advanced dramatically in the past two decades. Cars and trucks last longer. Paint is better. Bodies are more corrosion resistant. Interior materials are more durable, and even suspension and other components last longer. So when an engine “dies,” it does not have to be the end of your vehicle. When a car or truck suffers major engine damage, the first response and reaction of many consumers is to buy a new or used vehicle. Sometimes disposing of your current vehicle might make sense, but often it’s simply not necessary.

Obviously, being an advertisement, they are very high on themselves, but they do make some good points. When cars die, it seems it is most often due to accidents or blown engines. Very rarely do cars rust so badly or generally devolve to a point of undrivability before the engine begins to have trouble. Also, one of the biggest issues with emissions from old vehicles is that those vehicles have fallen out of spec and are no longer getting the best fuel economy or releasing the least emissions.

The Engine Repowering Council seems to focus on domestic vehicles, but using their find-a-shop feature, it’s likely that you can find someone to rebuild an engine of almost any make. These engines almost always come with warranties and, in my opinion (as someone who has worked at a shop in the past), will be rebuilt as carefully as anything else coming from that shop. So, if you’re considering this, pick a shop you know and trust, and that offers a good warranty.

While the service is certainly not ideal (you can’t just put a newer, cleaner engine in an old car), the ability to put life and reliability back into an old car is about as close as you can get to recycling and reusing in the automotive world.

Car and Driver Increase Pinto Fuel Economy with $11 of Ecomods

Benjamin Jones — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:06:59 +0000

Recently Darin at EcoModder dug up a Car and Driver article from the middle of the US gas crisis in 1974. It may be a little dated, but considering recent gas price increases these kinds of DIY hacks are becoming relevant once again.

The material prices may be a little different, the cars may be a lot different, but surprisingly little has changed in terms of fuel economy and gas prices. The Car and Driver article is interesting because not only is it old, but it’s still relevant today.

As someone who has been around ecomodding for a while, I can vouch for the efficacy of many of these modifications, and have done some of them myself. So, if you’re really interested, I encourage you to get out there and do some yourself. None of them are engine modifications, or particularly difficult, so don’t feel intimidated by them. Some of the biggest fuel economy gains can come through aerodynamics and rolling resistance modifications.

Read about the modifications after the break.

Car and Driver made a total of six modifications to their Ford Pinto, increasing highway cruising fuel economy a whopping 25%. Here is a quick run down on the mods and the theory behind them:

Front air dam: You can see this hanging down from the bumper in the first picture. The purpose of an air dam is to divert air from going under the car, which is generally very unaerodynamic. This modification reduces drag and is very commonly employed by people whose cars have “dirty” undercarriages.
Grill block: The radiator creates a surprising amount of aerodynamic drag, and covering it up is usually okay as long as you monitor your engine temperature so that the car doesn’t overheat. Most people can do either a full or a partial block without running into trouble.
Rear spoiler: Spoilers come in all shapes and sizes. Usually they exist for show or to increase traction, but in certain circumstances they can be used to improve airflow behind the vehicle, which accounts for a surprising amount of aerodynamic drag. It will take a bit of knowledge and engineering, but in this case the spoiler improved fuel economy 7%.
Smoother front end: As you might guess, the front of the car, being the first part to come in contact with the air that’s being pushing out of the way, is very important to good aerodynamics. Usually cars are designed with style in mind and not aerodynamics, so changing your car’s nose to a more aerodynamic shape will help it cut through the air more easily.
Reduce engine load: Back in the day everything was belt driven, meaning the engine had to do quite a bit of extra work to power things like the radiator fan. Nowadays, with things like electric radiator fans, power steering, and A/C, this isn’t such a problem. However, it is important to keep in mind that the A/C will kill your fuel economy if you use it too much come summertime.
Lower rolling resistance tires: This can actually get to be pretty expensive, but it is one of the things that vehicles like the Honda Insight employ to help deliver fantastic fuel economy. Manufacturers and legislators are even trying to make LRRs standard in order to affect an across the board increase in fuel economy in one place most people wouldn’t look.

All these modifications came together to give increases that looked something like this:

Pretty impressive for not too much work, eh? There are a lot more simple things you can do to increase fuel economy, but this article was certainly one blast from the past that is still applicable today.

Car Hacker’s Hummer Gets 60 MPG

Clayton B. Cornell — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:50:16 +0000

If you haven’ heard of the Motorhead Messiah, Jonathan Goodwin, let me introduce you: he hacks cars for a living, and he can get 60 mpg out of an H3 Hummer while doubling the horsepower and cutting emissions in half. Unbelievable? Yes, but this is no joke, and it’s doesn’t defy the laws of physics either. The hacked H3 is a hybrid with the gasoline fuel system removed. In its place, Goodwin installed a biodiesel-burning jet turbine to recharge the electrical system:

Goodwin leads me over to a red 2005 H3 Hummer that’s up on jacks, its mechanicals removed. He aims to use the turbine to turn the Hummer into a tricked-out electric hybrid. Like most hybrids, it’ll have two engines, including an electric motor. But in this case, the second will be the turbine, Goodwin’s secret ingredient. Whenever the truck’s juice runs low, the turbine will roar into action for a few seconds, powering a generator with such gusto that it’ll recharge a set of “supercapacitor” batteries in seconds.This means the H3’s electric motor will be able to perform awesome feats of acceleration and power over and over again, like a Prius on steroids. What’s more, the turbine will burn biodiesel, a renewable fuel with much lower emissions than normal diesel; a hydrogen-injection system will then cut those low emissions in half. And when it’s time to fill the tank, he’ll be able to just pull up to the back of a diner and dump in its excess french-fry grease–as he does with his many other Hummers. Oh, yeah, he adds, the horsepower will double–from 300 to 600.

Power and Efficiency? The notion seems contrary to everything we’ve seen from the auto industry in the last 20 years. But Goodwin is disproving the ’status quo’ by concrete example, the Hummer hybrid being one of many. He’s gotten 100 mpg out of a Lincoln continental and developed a bolt-on kit for diesel engines that doubles fuel economy and reduces emissions by 80%. Goodwin’s a model iconoclast, with a love for the environment and big vehicles.

So Goodwin decided to prove that environmentalism and power could go together–by making his new lemon into exhibit A. First, he pulled the gas engine so he could drop in a Duramax V8, GM’s core diesel for large trucks. Diesel technology is crucial to all of Goodwin’s innovations because it offers several advantages over traditional gasoline engines. Pound for pound, diesel offers more power and torque; it’s also inherently more efficient, offering up to 40% better mileage and 20% lower emissions in engines of comparable size. What’s more, many diesel engines can easily accept a wide range of biodiesel–from the high-quality stuff produced at refineries to the melted chicken grease siphoned off from the local KFC.

Goodwin’s endorsement of diesel engines makes sense, and he has a 3-part plan to wean the nation from gasoline. First, aggressively mass-produce diesel passenger vehicles. Converting just 1/3 of our nations passenger vehicles and light trucks to diesel would eliminate Saudi Arabian oil imports. Second, start producing diesel-electric hybrid cars, the holy-grail for biodiesel enthusiasts. After reading this article I’m convinced it’s possible (the whole ‘diesels are too heavy argument’ is ridiculous). And third, produce hybrids with a dual fuel mode, such as hydrogen or propane injection. I’ve heard of propane injection, which shoots a small amount of propane into the combustion chamber along the diesel fuel, increasing mileage, horsepower, and decreasing emissions.

“Detroit could do all this stuff overnight if it wanted to,” he adds.

For a thoroughly interesting read, see the FastCompany.com article (November 2007).

Photo Credit.