VonoreTn

In 1979, I was doing assembly level programming for process control systems using pdp 11/03s running RT11. Prior to that I worked on CAD, when it meant Computer Aided Dispatch, ie 911 systems. One of my latest projects is pattern matching/statistical analysis for epidemiologists at a chronic disease data collection center. This is actually an ongoing project. There have been many projects in between.

Yeah you are really smart, you are successfully employed in the field that you chose and trained in, I get that.

It would be nice if I were able to pick and choose what weight I give to various operating parameters. By way of example I might choose to reduce the longevity of my batteries to gain extra MPG.

Yeah, that would be really smart for Ford to go after that large market of people who want to reduce their battery life to pick up a few short term mpg's. Wonder why they didn't think of that. I wonder if you thought about how much money it is going to cost you to upgrade the batteries to the new level you envision, because those lithiun ion batteries are not gonna be cheap, and you will want to upgrade your entire operational hardware which also will not be cheap. I suspect Ford was aware of all that and made some good common sense compromises to get a good product on the road with available technology for under $30K.

I'm just saying.....

You aren't still using the leaf mode of data feedback are you? I changed that over to the 20 minute graph the first day. I admit to going overboard on the EV mode, in my home development where I do a lot of short range driving, and I have to observe that it hasn't helped my longer term fill-up results, as just reported above. Your 42 long term is better than my 40 at 4000, but neither is bad compared to ICE engine only cars.

My gas fill-up MPGs seem screwy too when compared to the short trip computer. Gas fill up records indicate between 38 and 45 MPG. The 38MPG was when I got the car. The 45 was the last fill up. Which is in line with my long term fuel economy computer reading of 42MPG after 6,500 miles. I do not go crazy with the EV Mode, it seems to detract from my highway MPG when the battery is too low.

 

I have noticed that when I apply the brakes lightly the regenerative green circle comes on but the car does not slow down much. To match Ford's claim of 700 miles on a tank is doable but the concentration required leaves room for little else. The leave thingy is stupid and useless to me at this point.

If you use the term "hacker" with its proper meaning I take that as a compliment. If on the other hand you confuse the term with "cracker" I am insulted.

 

..............

Paul

I concur with aKirby, Jon, DaveM, etc. Ford would not endorse modifying their computer strategy, these cars are not meant to be learning prototypes, they are specifically engineered to best satisfy government standards, customer needs, liability risks, and reliability targets. Meeting all of the above targets does not leave any room for modifications to core operational parameters.

Please limit your experiments to legal and safe hypermiling techniques. And remember, too much air in our tires will wear them out in the middle early, thus the price of tires should be factored into our fuel economy savings.

I am a new owner of a FFH.

 

How does Ford provide software updates to the various systems in the FFH? Is there a website? I am most interested in upgrades to the computer(s) that control the hybrid systems.

 

Are there any available hardware or software hacks to improve mileage?

 

Paul

My impression is that Ford doesn't want you messing with the computer strategy, there are too many emissions, FE, warranty, and safety issues involved. Maybe the navigation maps will be updated eventually. The nav maps seem to be good on all the interstates, but not in all housing developments.

I would really enjoy reading magazines on hypermiling, with aftermarket advertisements, kind of like I like hot rodding magazines, but they are not available now/yet.

In my case, it always seems that I average almost 40 mpg no matter what I try to improve my mileage. I drive about 75% highway so I'm happy with those numbers but I've seen as high as 45 mpg and as low as 38 on a tank of gas. I've inflated the tires to 40 psi and it still rides very comfortably.

That's becoming my conclusion too, regardless of better short trip numbers, I'm going to average 40 mpg over the long haul, based on gas fill-ups. Inserted here is an update on my gas fill-up data.

R-Code mustang fastback. Was repainted to Calypso Coral. It was ordered with a C6 and is still equipped that way. The only changes I have made from stock are: dished pistons so I can run some form of modern gas, optical/electronic points hiding under the cap, an electric choke heater, and a cone locker to keep the rear wheels occasionally on the ground. Only a few tanks of 10% Ethanol when I had no choice and the carb needs work again.

 

 

Jon

If you have a picture of it on a website or forum gallery I'd enjoy seeing it...

The 100 octane gas is illegal to use on the road because it contains lead. My '69 428CJ loves it when properly jetted and timed. Unfortunately I just use 1 gallon per tank to raise the octane enough to keep the pistons from suffering an early death.

 

Several local stations sell 100% gasoline here. There are signs on the pumps saying that federal and state regulations forbid the use of the gas for road vehicles. It is sold mainly to farmers and boaters. In this case it is regulations requiring that all road vehicle fuel contain some percentage of ethanol.

 

Jon

You have a 69 428 CJ? I loved those engines/cars. That engine was SO much better than the first 428's that came out in 68 in the Mustang in the GT-500. As I recall the CJ was conservatively rated at 335 hp, but was probably closer to 410. What model car is it in?

Thanks to the infamous L.A. traffic congestion, the freeway moved quite a bit slow in my 18-mile drive...part of it was 20MPH or slower. As a result, I almost got a near perfect 20-min stretch. Too bad my long-term average is not as good. Overall drive was 45.4MPG.

There is a math situation that might come into play in this situation. If you are sitting still or close to sitting still, you may be reading 60 mpg plus on the bars, but if you aren't going very far, these readings don't capture the fact that you will have to make up some of that super mpg when you get back in engine-on mode, and have to recharge the batteries by the amount of charge that was expended running the electric motors, which will hurt the engine-on mpg, hence better mpg on bars than for total trip. Wow! I should get some kind of award for saying all that in one sentence. Friends tell me I talk like that too

There are no federal laws or mandates that require E10. Those would be state or local laws if they exist.

I appreciate that my 100% gasoline source can keep selling it, he is barely making any money on it selling it at the same price as E10, he is just doing it on principle. He is in the middle of downtown Loudon, Tn, by the court house, off I-75 between exit 72 and exit 76, a mile to the east, on Hwy 11 which parallels I-75. If you take either exit you can get back on I-75 at the other without back-tracking. I think the name of the station is Loudon Market, and it says "pure gas" on its marquee.

Perhaps the poster 2 up is thinking of 100 Octane gas, which is illegal to sell for use on public roads. I know because I can pickup 40 HP on my Mustang with a Kenne Bell supercharger if I use 100 octane gas and throw the KB engine module switch to "Shoot-out" mode. But I can only use it at the dragstrip. 100 Octane gasoline should have no positive impact on a FFH.

BMW has engines with only a variable speed electric pump. The pump only runs when cooling is needed. I don't know how many Watts they use.

It was on the BMW E90. It has some merit, but I don't think it has really caught on, due to the very large cooling needs of cars running at high speeds. It has to be a very large amp motor. If you are using a sustained 100 hp, you are generating 250 hp of heat in BTU/hr, whatever that comes out. Ok, I'll convert:

Holy Crap! That's 636,250 BTU/hr, enough heat to warm 6 houses! :wacko:

BMW has engines with only a variable speed electric pump. The pump only runs when cooling is needed. I don't know how many Watts they use.

What model and year would that be? The only thing I found was this:

"Your BMW cooling system's pumping function is handled by its water pump, which keeps the coolant mixture moving.

The main BMW water pump is gear- or belt-driven but, in many cars, a secondary electric water pump is used for improved flow and cooling.

Critical to the pump's operation is the drive belt that turns it. On most newer cars this is the engine's timing belt. On older cars, the pump and belt are external and run off the main crankshaft pulley with a "V" or flat belt."

https://www.autohausaz.com/bmw-auto-parts/b...ng-systems.html

What a landslide! How about a few tons of massive rock :devil2: raining down upon a new FFH? No, I wasn't traveling that far, so just missed it. Got off at Exit 440, headed to Cosby. The weather was spectacular, as was the hike.

 

Yes, Powell is the sleepy little town :boring: just north of Knoxville. Close enough for convenience, while just far enough to escape it all. It's a quick 8-mile ride to work, and in the mornings, I get 45 - 51mpg's. On the return trip after work, it slips to 35 - 45mpg's, depending upon how the day transpired

 

The AJ HWY (Andrew Johnson) is the 11E road that travels to Morristown, via New Market and Jefferson City. It's not an interstate, but a nice secondary road, slightly north and parallel to I-40/I-81.

I guess from a geological time perspective, we just missed the landslide when we went through that zone 4 days before the Monday of the slide. (that icon might not fit, but it's fun to use them !). So you work in Knoxville and it's only 8 minutes away? What a great setup! I bet you know where Harbor Freight is on Broadway, just north of 640. I am always looking for an excuse to drive the 50 miles over there to buy inexpensive tools....

We live about 15 miles from 11W, which runs through Loudon, and Lenoir City.

We just put some 100% gas (no ethanol) in our Fusion to see if that improves the mileage.....I think that might be considered a legal hypermiling trick.. :backtotopic:

What that means is that they have to have the system firing with some minimal amount of fuel. They can't have it spin and not fire at all. Maybe emissions related.

 

Jon

I see what you are saying. I had assumed that the ICE was completely stopped, like not rotating when the electric motor only was engaged, by virtue of a one-way-clutch behind the flywheel. Do you know of a website that gets into that level of detail on the FFH operation?

As promised, here is what that air filter restriction guage looks like on my 05 Ford Focus. Just got a shot of it now

 

It is supposed to be good for the life of the engine according to Ford at 150k miles or greater.

Thanks! I'm not seeing one of those on my FFH. Will that green and red change color or position somehow as the filter clogs up?

Good info. I wasn't worried about the longevity of the belt and pump as they have improved greatly over the years. I was just curious about the choice. Ford moved everything else over to electric because unlike normal vehicles there is a ready supply of high voltage available for motors that are normally pretty inefficient at lower voltages. The power steering and A/C compressor are both electric driven. There is even an electric vacuum pump that kicks in when the ICE is not running for vacuum driven devices. It seemed that having only one thing on a belt would have made them want to drop that belt pretty badly. There would have also been an advantage as an electric pump would have helped provide cabin heat and defrost when the ICE was idle as the block would retain heat for quite a while. The reliability of a belt driven pump must have been considerably better than an electric for them to keep it I would think.

 

From an engineering perspective this vehicle is a unique beast. It is fun to reverse-engineer the design decisions, eh?

 

Jon

On a V8 engine, the power going into the engine driven water pump is about 4 hp, at 4000 engine rpm, with the thermostat open. On this smaller FFH engine, let's say it will be 2 hp. A 2 HP electric motor is a large motor, and will pull a lot of watts (~1500), at any voltage. Electric fan motors, which are a major generator/battery drain on a conventional car are about half a hp, (370 watts) max. This may have something to do with why they use an engine driven waterpump.

Fun Fact:

 

 

 

...........I think I read that they can not completely turn off the injectors even when the ICE is essentially just being dragged along for the ride because of emissions or lubrication or something like that.............

Jon

That's scary that the injectors would be on with the ICE off. The gas is either going to leak past the rings and get into the oil, or build up in the combustion chamber and send a lot of rich mixture to the catalytic converter when the ICE comes on again. I can't see that either scenery would be desirable. Are you sure about that?

Hi VonoreTN,

 

How's things, neighbor? I'm in nearby Powell! Going to the Smoky Mtns next Sunday, to see the colors.

 

I often go to Morristown TN, via AJ Hwy. If I'm careful, then I can amass 51 mpg, on the 94-mile roundtrip. It does require patience, though, but it's 4-lane and there's plenty of room for speedier drivers to safely go around. It's a nice ride.

 

Happy motoring!!

I hope you avoided the landslide on I-40, that happened this morning. A friend and I took my FFH to the Maggie Valley and Bryson City last Thursday. The FFH averaged a hair over 40 mpg for the whole trip, including going up a steep mountain to get a good view of the Maggie Valley from a couple thousand feet up. If you can get 51 mpg, you're doing something right.....

I don't think I've been to Powell, are you talking about the town near I-75 and West Emery Road? If so, I'm south of you at Rarity Bay. What's the AJ highway?

Ok, here is something I tried last night based on logic I had done in my head, the logic being that the more miles you spend with the ICE off, the better your mileage. Since the ICE will go off under light load up to 47 mph, I figured that if I drove from my home to Maryville, Tn. on highway 411, where the speed limit varies from 50-55, at just under 47 mph, I could get optimum mpg. The nice thing about this road is that there are few stop lights, light traffic, small rolling hillls and 4 lanes, so I never blocked traffic.

And it worked. Going to and from Maryville, about 60 miles at 45 mph on speed control, I averaged 51.2 mpg, based on the trip FE readout. The ICE was going off going down the minor hills. I know that you can get slightly better mpg if you take the speed control off, but the problem with that is that if you accidently exceed 47 going down a hill the ICE kicks in, plus without speed control it is easy to drop off too much speed going up hills. That takes way too much focus. It was cool enough that I did not need AC, or much blower. It was night, so my lights were on.

50 mpg puts me in the same range as large engine motorcycles. When someone figures out how to get the ICE threshold speed to 65 mph, without a 1000 lbs of more batteries, that might be an mpg break-through.

The FFH uses heat from the ICE for cabin heat. There are two separate cooling systems, the ICE cooling system has an ICE driven water pump and the motor/electrics cooling system is driven by an electrical water pump.

 

Heat from the ICE is free. The question is if the ICE needs to run more to provide the requested heat and if that is more or less "expensive" that providing that same heat through an electric heater that drains the battery.

 

From what I can see in the service manuals it appears that keeping the emissions system up to temperature in the cold (which all cars have to do) will cause the ICE to activate more than most cabin heat requests.

 

The only part I don't get is the belt driven pump. There must have been a good reason and I doubt it was cost savings. The pulleys, belt, pump, and loss of efficiency would have not been less expensive than an electric water pump.

 

Jon

Jon,

I agree with everything you said, and maybe I can add some insight on your apprehension regarding the belt drive on the ICE water pump. I worked on drive belts at Ford for 17 years as a mechanical engineer. Since about 1996, Ford has switched from the classic Neoprene material drive belts to EPDM material drive belts. These belts withstand higher temperatures much better than the older Neoprene belts. Credit goes to Dayco and Gates for coming up with the processes required to manufacture belts with this material. GM switched over at about the same time, Chrysler and Toyota took a few years longer to switch. Where Neoprene belt ribs would crack at about 40 thousand miles, EPDM rarely ever crack unless severely over-heated. Thus these EPDM belts will practically last the life of the car. The flat V-ribbed belts that are used today are very efficient, more efficient than chains or gears. In the range of 90-95% efficient, depending on the load. And much cheaper, since they don't have to be sealed in a liquid tight compartment. The belt on the W/P will be one of my least concerns on my FFH.

Electric water pumps are less efficient than engine driven W/P's, since they include the inefficiency of creating electricity with a generator first, a process that at best is around 70% efficient. Electric W/P/s are good at low engine speeds, but have difficulty keeping up with an engine/belt driven W/P at higher engine speeds. For sustained high speed driving, you in general will get more water flow out of a engine/belt driven W/P. Nascar cars and almost all endurance racing vehicles use engine/belt driven W/P's.

fsb99

Thanks! That works, and raised my standard of living. I made a minor adjustment, in that you don't have to remove the key at the end, just back the key position back one to position 2. Apparently once you go to position 4, start, it re-zero that last engine on mpg record.

To see your last trip summary again, you can put the key back in, turn to position 3-"on" ("start" is position 4, for reference), wait until your all of your dash displays are set and remove key. You should see the summary again. It may require you to close the doors first.

maxpower220

These numbers do not suprise me. I get 40+ on the highway, but I do these things maybe different:

1. I don't use speed control, thus while I might hit 75 going down a hill and 65 going up, I will only average 70 mph.

2. I make sure the A/C is in recirculation mode, which allows you to run less blower for the same cooling

3. I keep the A/C temperature set at 72 and the blower speed as low as possible

4. I rarely floor the gas pedal, maybe only on steep hills to maintain 65 mph.

5. Headlights off during the day unless it's raining.

From my experimenting I'm pretty sure I would only average 35 mpg if I put it on speed control at 75 mph without the A/C optimized. But 35 mpg puts you in good company with expensive luxury diesel cars, plus on a 1000 mile trip, you'll get there an hour before I do, so don't feel bad.

After some in town driving and a long road trip I have some numbers on our car. On the interstate in N. Florida/S. Ga, at 75mph, we got a consistent 34.6 mpg. For long stretches at 60mph, the computer said that we were getting around 39.5 mpg. Driving around town for a couple of days with 4 adults in the car, we got 41.2 mpg.

The manual says that gas mileage should improve as time goes on, so we will see. It also advises using mileage over 4 tanks of gas to get an accurate mpg figure.

Rickkel,

Thanks for the A/C insights. Here's another one. When you hit just the A/C button, it doesn't automatically put in in the recirculation mode which is significantly more efficient and comfortable than the regular mode which is constantly trying to cool and dry incoming air from outside. Push the button right below the AC button with the picture showing an arrow going in a circular pattern. I used to work in climate control at Ford, and we confirmed this fact with data many times in the windtunnel.

I live in San Diego that normally has very mild weather which means minimal to no use of the A/C.............

Also thanks to others on the tip for getting last trip data restored, I'll try that when my Wife returns with the car. And also the tip that you can reset the long term average fuel economy. So that makes 4 average mpg's that I am aware of now: the long term, the easily resetable trip mpg, the last engine on mpg, and the vertical bar graph that updates every 2 minutes for the last 20 minutes.

On the bar graph you can change the period of time, and the bar is always one tenth of the period, 20 minutes was just the preset default.

I find the 2 minute update useful on trips for trying different driving techniques for 2 minutes at a time. I assume that since most of us on this forum are data driven, we are not still using the tree leaves.

What does that gaugie thing look like?

On the 05+ MY Focus' that have these supposed lifetime air filters, there is an actual restriction guage that is hooked into the air filter canister thingie.

Lee,

Thanks for you report. What is your overall mpg so far at 4400 miles? I don't have the light steering wheel vibration, I wonder if it's a tire. I don't think anyone has hassled me yet or even noticed I'm driving a hybrid. I don't look at it as a political statement, I just consider it to be a very smart drivetrain, that will get you diesel mpg, on clean burning regular gas.

Does it annoy you too, that if you forget to look at the last engine-on driving summmary, you lose it permanently when you open the door?

I just completed a 2900 mile trip from South Florida to Arkansas, Kentucky and back. .........Lee

At some point I will figure out how to access the filter, either by removing the battery, or coming in through the wheel housing and removing the plastic wheel liner cover. I did that on my 00 Mustang when I moved the battery to the trunk 2 years ago. If you think of your engine as a giant vacuum cleaner sucking in everything airborn along the highway including dust, moisture, etc. I agree it needs to be replaced or at least cleaned regularly. I like your idea of the gauge. For service, it would be easy to put a capped nipple just past the air filter, and have a specified inches of water vacuum at an rpm in neutral, to determine if you need a new air filter.

Ford has been using these supposed lifetime airfilters for a while now. I have one of those on my 2005 Ford Focus. These air filter canister things from my understanding are considered to be a vital component of the evaporative emissions system as they are used and designed to prevent any evaporative emissions to be emitted.

 

On my Focus, I have 77k miles now and it is still doing well. There should be a restriction guage that should indicate when the filter needs to be replaced. I believe the estimated service life of these lifetime air filters is 150k miles on average.