Upcoming Hyper project.

[Melv]

After a winter of riding my Bmw through snow/sleet frost wind. I've decided that in the interests of
A. I need a project.
B. I like saving money.
C. Bikes and snow are awful.

I have a commute that varies betweens 30 and 36 miles each way, the greater distance being motorways and the shorter cross countries.

I used to occasionally do it in an unmodified 2003 xsara picasso 1.9 hdi with child seats in. I managed an average of 68mpg on the motorway route.
We've since swapped it for a mini clubman cooper S (petrol) the best I can manage is 45ish.

So as a toy/project I'm going to run on of the following.

Volvo (older diesel 1980's early 90's)
106 1.5 d or AX 1.5 d
Corsa 1.7D early model.
Citroen ZX 1.9D
Or maybe an older passat/golf?
Ideally it'll be a 106 as simplicity is key and I'm not fussed about Power steering, central locking ABS airbags etc.
The car will be purely for me and not required to carry the wife and kids so it'll be stripped of anything I can do without (seats, trim, dash, carpets, headlining)
I'm also thinking of taping up all the unused panel gaps.

I might even go so far as to drill the bumper liners and reduce the insides of the doors and fix the passenger window in an up posistion to reduce weight further. I aim to kill the engine where I can which will require some research as I want to do it momentarily with a gearknob mounted button.

I'm also going to invest in a 2nd fuel tank (marine and lightweight) to run veg oil OR diesel using this kit.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Complete-vege ... 3cf98ad7fc

I get paid £200 a month to cover my commute which is a monthly average of 1200 miles a month. If I can crack 90 mpg on 80p a litre veg oil (the wvo comes later on) then I stand to save £150 every month!.

I'll take advice thats given as I've moved from getting 300bhp for a car to getting MPG out of another (a different style of race)

Watch this space.

MELV OUT

[frv]

Hi Melv and thanks for your first post

Your project sounds very interesting and the 106 or AX would probably be my pick out of those options too, they are known for stellar MPG driven correctly, i.e. hypermiling the sh!t out of it

I toyed with the idea of a "kill-switch" for my car but never got round to it. I'm not technically minded enough, don't do as many miles as you and I would have had to pay someone some money to do it! I've been "keying-off" and in my car it works fine as I don't lose the lights and it only takes a second or two.

I had a BMW 3 series years ago and rear wheel drive and snow don't go too well

That veg oil kit looks the bee's - great feedback from buyers too

Keep us informed on your project please......

[tighterse]

From experience I can say go for an older Passat. I had a courtesy one for a few weeks once when my Touran was in for repairs and found 70 mpg from the 1.9 version was easy. The older ones with no DPF run quite happily on up to 60% Lidl's veg oil as a friend of mine will testify. Currently 89p per litre in our local store.

I know all about skinning on the expenses - that's what started me on hypermiling although it wasn't called that then.

[Karl]

I'd be all over an AX diesel if you can find a good one. They have astonishing MPG - taking full advantage of the lightweight plastic panels.

I used to run an old Cav 1.7 TD (red top) on SVO many years ago. I was getting veg from Tescos for less than 70p a litre and running it pure. I had an inline heater to help thin it out but it ran fine without. I certainly got a lot of looks filling it up!

I'd be interested to hear what you go for, keep us updated.