I think you're already making up the difference in the education those undergrads are getting, even if you never see an mpg improvement come from your work. Have you guys done any experimentation on the mechanical side of things, which I imagine would come mostly through through intake or catback/exhaust modification, spark timing, or wheel changes?

 

OOooh... another person on Motley Fool (where I also asked if anyone had tried an SRI/CAI mod) commented about supercaps. Play with those at all in your trials?

 

Well, to put it bluntly, we have a very modest budget. So we have to depend on readily available resources and materials. Also, because it is the kid's car we are trying to avoid significant downtimes.
As part of the initial exploratory discovery we had the students produce a list of potential enhancements and yes... we had alot of bright suggestions which included a good incidence of the enhancements you mentioned.

In the end we singled out the least intrusive, adaptive (and affordable) mods that fit the curriculum best.

Cheers;


MSantos

 

Is one of your investigated mods a regen-inhibitor to maximize glides? SoC is rarely if ever a problem for me.

 

That is a good point. We actually considered that but we found that the biggest issue we wanted to tackle was the assist.
Provided that you maintain the state of charge within good limits (5-7 bars) the regen can often be cancelled by our foot-work. Now, if we operate the AC on Auto, drive in stop and go traffic and so on ... all while lacking good regen oportunities then maximizing the SoC becomes a priority.
Unfortunately, it is not as easy to control the assist as it is to control the regen - especially when you cannot afford to accellerate slowly from a stop. We found that inhibiting the assist during these moments can help a little and surely helps avoid a forced regen - which is the worst of FE penalties for some of us.
Also, when we have a good battery charge we can then extend our glides far longer thus increasing the overall FE - which we cannot easily do if we get kicked into a dreaded forced regen.

Cheers;

MSantos