75 mpg or bust... '97 Paseo build

[Daox]

This morning I ordered some preheating components.

First on the list is a

1000W Kat's circulating tank heater

1000W Kat's circulating tank heater

. I went with the 1000W for quick heat up. I figure my warm up times will be slightly worse than what Darin (from ecomodder) saw on his warm up tests (my engine is larger and heater is slightly less power than his test) with the two block heaters on his Metro.




With the quick warm up times, I decided to not go with a timer, but instead a

remote control switch

remote control switch

. According to the chart, even 30 minutes of preheating should give me a very respectable warm up. It also allows me to charge the battery as soon as I plug in the car, but only warm it up when I need to go instead of having a 1000W heater running all the time.


To top it all off, I purchased a

Kat's 80W battery warmer

Kat's 80W battery warmer

to preheat the battery as well. This is in attempt to allow me to use the alternator delete over winter. However, its quite underpowered when compared to the 1000W heater and I don't know how much it will really help. I might have to do something in addition to it. My calculations show it will only heat the battery ~13 degrees F in an hour, and I am only planning on running the block heater for 45 minutes to an hour.

More on that here: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ter-14333.html

[Tercel GTS]

Sadly I'm clueless to extreme cold. In my life I've seen 2 cars with a block heater.

[Daox]

Consider yourself lucky.

[Daox]

A while back I talked about an EGR mod. I've decided to pick it up and look at it again. So, today I gathered the components and layed them out to see what would need to be done to get this setup installed in the Paseo. Here is the layout I figured out.





So, I need to weld a block to the exhaust manifold. I believe this is 409 stainless steel. Does anyone have any experience or tips for welding mild steel to 409SS?

[Daox]

For the first time in quite a while, I did some work on the Paseo. Late in fall I hit a deer and bent up the front quarter panel. Its been sitting ever since. I got another fender, had it painted and am now ready to put it back on the car. In the mean time, I've really needed new tires. The old ones were suffering from dry rot. So, the other night I took the wheels off and brought them to the local shop along with my new set of Kumho eco solus HM KR22 tires. They are about the only 13" tires I could find that are LRRs (low rolling resistance). I was hoping to find a set of Civic VX wheels (very light weight) to combine with the new tires, but couldn't find any in time, so I stick with the steelies.

[Daox]

I haven't made really any progress on the mods that are unfinished. The solar panel mod is still not working, but I plan on working on that this summer. The EGR mod is on hold right now as well until I get time to work on it.

Anyway, the real reason for the post is that, me and my wife have both gotten new jobs and she no longer needs a larger car to haul things around. The result of this is that she is now the main driver of the Paseo. Now, she is a pretty good driver in that she gets good mileage, but not to the extent that I am. That plus the very short commute (3.5 miles for her) hurts mileage big time. So, in an effort to salvage the fuel economy she is getting I am developing an automatic start/stop system. Many OEMs are going to be doing this in the future to meet new fuel economy standards, so its really nothing new.

The way it works is pretty simple really, very similar to Honda's IMA for manual transmission vehicles. You would get in the car, turn it to ON and the car powers up, but engine doens't start. As soon as you push in the clutch, the engine fires up and you put it in gear and go. You drive around and shift normally until you approach a stop sign / light. You then shift to neutral and a few seconds later the engine dies. As soon as the clutch goes back in, the engine starts up again and you go. The modification will have a on/off switch so has no impact on the normal operation of the car if you turn it off. So, you can still start the engine with the key if you want.

So, I actaully have most of the work done on this one already. I've done the programming of the micro controller and figured out the wiring schematic. The one tricky part I had was adding a switch that allowed the controller to know when the car is in neutral. To do this, I am using an LED and photo resistor. The LED will be mounted on one side of the shifter mechanism and the photo resistor on the other. As the shifter moves up and down (into and out of gear), the shifter bar will block the light of the LED from shining on the photo resistor. So, it pretty much works like a garage door laser that stops the door from coming down if something is blocking it. That tells me when I'm in neutral. You'll probably get a better idea of what is going on after I get the components and start doing the actual work on it.

[Tercel GTS]

Radio shack or napa sell micro switches that would be mounted near the transmission end to pick up if the shifter is moved either to up or down positions. That would give you a N indicator.

[Daox]

I had thought about putting mechanical switches in on both ends of the shifting cables. However, I like the led/photoresistor idea because it has no moving parts and therefore has nothing to wear out. The shifter is also a bit easier to get to for modification purposes. Drill two holes, a bit of glue and its done.

[expertmax]

This is a good project ! The best way to do it is to purchase an Arduino. That is the way I would wire it !

You will need :
1x Arduino
3x 2n3055 npn transistors
1x relay
1x 5A fuse
1x soldering board
lots of wires !

Inputs :

- Neutral position switch (like tercel gts said)
- Engine speed signal (BLU/BLK on Igniter)
- Clutch start switch (BLK/RED on switch or starter relay)
- Fused 12v input from battery

Outputs :

- 12v to starter relay (BLK/RED on relay or clutch switch)
- 12v to ECM (C22 BLK/WHT)
- 12v to relay (crankshaft position sensor, any wire, for inj. cut off)

See image :

Conditions to start the engine :

Input 1 must be at 12v (logic 1)
Input 2 must be at the voltage when engine is less than 500rpm. (analog 500)
Input 3 must be at 0v (logic 0)

if(input_1 == 1 && input_2 < 500 && input_3 == 0){
while(input_2 > 500){
output_1 = 1;
output_2 = 1;
}
output_1 = 0;
output_2 = 0;
}

Conditions to stop the engine :

Input 1 must be at 0v (logic 0)
Input 2 must be at the voltage when engine is more than 500rpm. (analog 500)
Input 3 must be at 12v (logic 1)

if(input_1 == 0 && input_2 > 500 && input_3 == 1){
output_3 = 1;
delay(1000);
output_3 = 0;
}

There you go ! If you have any questions PM me I will be more than happy to answer !