Most of us want better mileage but many never really try.
Well I decided to pick a few brains of people who are a little obsessive when it comes to getting better gas mileage.
Well here is what I did and what it got me. Yes there are pics at the end. Maybe it will give you guys an idea for a project for the winter.
The car is a 1997 Volvo 960. I ran my usual base line route I always take after making any kind of mpg mods to the car. Speed is held to 65 mph and tires are inflated to 40 psi.
My base mileage on this run was an even 28.0 mpg which was run in July.
Well to the meat of the facts. At the front I enclosed the openings between the bottom of the fenders to the edges of plastic splash pan with aluminum boxes and ABS plastic covers. This is an open area under the battery and the corresponding passenger side. The reason for the boxes is in case I need to change the bulbs in the fog lamps I can just pop off the cover to get to it. Also I had to move the horns because they were in the way of the mod.
Heading towards the rear I cleaned up around the independent suspension and installed a steel air deflector plate which is attached to the bottom of the suspension cross member. This was done to keep the air from being pulled up into the IRS frame work while it is flowing under the car. From there I ran an aluminum plate all the way back to bottom of the rear bumper. I did leave the rear muffler exposed due to the heat.
All in all I got an astounding 3.0 mpg increase with this mod. This has been probably the best mpg increase from all the mods I have made.
When I bought the car Feb 05 I got 25.3 mpg on the highway and today 31.0 mpg. 5.7 mpg or 18.4% increase is nothing to complain about. Plus I figure next spring I'll spend a little time cleaning up the rest of the under carriage. That should be worth another 1/2 to 1 mpg.
For those that are interested in all the mods.
This Volvo RWD car weighs in at around 3500 lbs and has a Cd of .36
I started with an Auto-Rx engine cleaning. A clean engine is an efficient engine. That helped me get the car to 26.3 mpg, Then I swapped out all the fluids for synthetic and I saw 27.4 mpg. I then increased the tire pressure from 36 psi (factory) to 40 psi and saw 28 mpg. With the addition of the belly pan mods I now get 31 mpg.
My Scan Gauge matched the gas pump when I filled up with 8.238 gallons of gas for 255.7 miles. And that was not with LC FP60 either. I forgot to throw it in the tank when I filled up at the start. I do run LC20 in this car BTW.
Pics of the mods and car
Well I decided to pick a few brains of people who are a little obsessive when it comes to getting better gas mileage.
Well here is what I did and what it got me. Yes there are pics at the end. Maybe it will give you guys an idea for a project for the winter.
The car is a 1997 Volvo 960. I ran my usual base line route I always take after making any kind of mpg mods to the car. Speed is held to 65 mph and tires are inflated to 40 psi.
My base mileage on this run was an even 28.0 mpg which was run in July.
Well to the meat of the facts. At the front I enclosed the openings between the bottom of the fenders to the edges of plastic splash pan with aluminum boxes and ABS plastic covers. This is an open area under the battery and the corresponding passenger side. The reason for the boxes is in case I need to change the bulbs in the fog lamps I can just pop off the cover to get to it. Also I had to move the horns because they were in the way of the mod.
Heading towards the rear I cleaned up around the independent suspension and installed a steel air deflector plate which is attached to the bottom of the suspension cross member. This was done to keep the air from being pulled up into the IRS frame work while it is flowing under the car. From there I ran an aluminum plate all the way back to bottom of the rear bumper. I did leave the rear muffler exposed due to the heat.
All in all I got an astounding 3.0 mpg increase with this mod. This has been probably the best mpg increase from all the mods I have made.
When I bought the car Feb 05 I got 25.3 mpg on the highway and today 31.0 mpg. 5.7 mpg or 18.4% increase is nothing to complain about. Plus I figure next spring I'll spend a little time cleaning up the rest of the under carriage. That should be worth another 1/2 to 1 mpg.
For those that are interested in all the mods.
This Volvo RWD car weighs in at around 3500 lbs and has a Cd of .36
I started with an Auto-Rx engine cleaning. A clean engine is an efficient engine. That helped me get the car to 26.3 mpg, Then I swapped out all the fluids for synthetic and I saw 27.4 mpg. I then increased the tire pressure from 36 psi (factory) to 40 psi and saw 28 mpg. With the addition of the belly pan mods I now get 31 mpg.
My Scan Gauge matched the gas pump when I filled up with 8.238 gallons of gas for 255.7 miles. And that was not with LC FP60 either. I forgot to throw it in the tank when I filled up at the start. I do run LC20 in this car BTW.
Pics of the mods and car