34 years ago this month in March, 1974, Car and Driver magazine ran a feature article about DIY modifications that improve fuel economy. The article was a response to the 1973/74 oil crisis - the first time people started seriously talking about improving fuel efficiency as a way to address energy security and high gas prices.
But the magazine did a lot more than just talk about efficiency. They grabbed the bull by the horns (okay, a Ford Pinto by the bumper) and actually did something about it. The article, called Project Car: Crisis-Fighter Pinto, documented six relatively simple modifications which actually saved gas. And most of them would benefit new cars today.
After the jump: the six modifications in detail.
The Car & Driver guys didn’t touch the Pinto’s engine. Instead, they reduced the amount of work the engine had to do. Fuel is burned to overcome two predominant forces: rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. At highway speeds, aero drag dominates, and that’s where Car and Driver spent most of its effort - and the $11 for supplies.
Mod #1: Front air dam.
They started by making & installing an air dam beneath the Pinto’s front bumper to divert as much air flow as possible away from the car’s aerodynamically dirty underside. That single change accounted for fully one quarter of their gains.
Mod #2: Partial grill block.
Another highly turbulent air pathway is the cooling system. Most cars’ grill openings are sized to keep the engine cool in absolute worst-case conditions (think Death Valley, pulling a trailer). By blocking part of the Pinto’s grill, they were able to improve efficiency without adversely affecting engine temperatures in normal driving.
Mod #3: Smoother tail (rear spoiler).
The aerodynamically ideal shape at the rear of a vehicle is a gradual taper that helps minimize the size of the turbulent wake left behind. But the slope of the Pinto’s rear window was too steep. By adding a six inch spoiler, they effectively changed the angle of air flow between the end of the roof and the back of the car. The result: a 7% MPG improvement.
Mod #4: Smoother nose.
While almost every new car sold today has a smoothly contoured front end, the Pinto’s face left a lot to be desired. To partly address this, they made and installed convex plexiglass covers over the car’s headlight buckets. That small change added 0.1 MPG.
Mod #5: Reduced parasitic loads.
Back in ‘74, most cars sported a belt-driven radiator fan. By removing two of the Pinto’s four fan blades, it was made more efficient. Today, most vehicles have electric cooling fans that run on demand only.
Mod #6: Reduced rolling resistance.
The stock Pinto came with bias-ply tires. Switching to steel belted radials netted a 5% MPG improvement. While all new cars today come with radial tires, LRR (Low Rolling Resistance) versions are available which offer an equivalent improvement over “standard” radials.
Car & Driver demonstrated that even with a so-called “economy” vehicle, the auto maker had left a lot on the table in terms of potential efficiency gains.
What’s more, they concluded, “they are all the type of changes you can make - without going broke - and the type of change the car makers will have to make for the coming model years. Bluntly, this is the way it will be.”
Unfortunately, this isn’t the way it turned out. Particularly when it comes to fuel-wasting, poor aerodynamics, the auto makers still have a lot of room to improve.
Resources:
- Discuss this post: “Car and Driver magazine ecomods a car: MPG up +25%”
- Aerodynamics forum - Ecomodder.com
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More sweet posts from EcoModder:
19 responses so far ↓
1 matt // Mar 12, 2008 at 6:55 pm
This is cool, but I wonder how relevant it is today. Tires have gotten better and less “roll-resistant” and I’m sure cars have gotten much more aerodynamic.
2 $50 for 25% mpg improvement? Not bad // Mar 14, 2008 at 12:40 pm
[…] to make a Ford Pinto achieve this increase. The changes, discovered and posted by our friends at Ecomodder, didn’t touch the engine and included removing fan blades, installing a front air dam and […]
3 $50 for 25% mpg improvement? Not bad » Hybrid News // Mar 14, 2008 at 12:44 pm
[…] to make a Ford Pinto achieve this increase. The changes, discovered and posted by our friends at Ecomodder, didn’t touch the engine and included removing fan blades, installing a front air dam and […]
4 dubyabee2 // Mar 14, 2008 at 1:59 pm
…uh wasn’t that the car that exploded on impact?…just sayin!
5 SVOboy // Mar 14, 2008 at 3:47 pm
It’s not 100% relevant (the fan part doesn’t apply at all to today’s cars), but the equivalent of going from bias ply to radial today would be: going from regular radials to LRR radials.
There are still lots of potential gains to be made aerodynamically in modern cars, and that’s where Car & Driver found the largest gains.
6 Doug // Mar 14, 2008 at 6:45 pm
WOW! 15mpg highway in stock configuration. That’s pathetic- even our “Gas Guzzlers” today do better. Malaise era Pinto indeed.
7 Another Day Ruined » Comment on $11 worth of mods plus new tires - Car and Driver … // Mar 15, 2008 at 6:35 pm
[…] diandra wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWOW! 15mpg highway in stock configuration. That’s pathetic- even our “Gas Guzzlers” today do better. Malaise era Pinto indeed. […]
8 Jono // Mar 16, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Electric fans are a step in the right direction for sure, but why not an alternator that disconnects itself physically when not needed. Alternators are made to be able to recharge the battery quickly even though this is not usually necessary. Lots of over kill. How about a peltier device (thermocouple) to generate some of the electricity needed from all the waste heat that a gasoline engine creates.
Same with water pumps. Lots of churning the coolant even when very little coolant recirculation is needed.
9 Jono // Mar 16, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Oh, one other thing…. if people were a little bit lighter the car would not have near so much work to do! LOTS of room for improvement in that arena.
10 Netcaretaker // Mar 17, 2008 at 7:52 am
Wow, 15 miles to gallon with either a 2.0 or 2.3 liter engine was the start? And it got to just over 18 after they were done? I have to say that things have improved a bit already don’t you think? 2.4 liter Honda Element - 24.5 mpg, and it is a brick of a car for aero.
And yes, it did explode, we used to call it the Flinto -all you needed to do was strike it to get a flame.
11 Ron // Mar 19, 2008 at 8:05 am
Amazing what a little wrenching can accomplish on any ordinary car. Nice post Darin!
12 Bob // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:08 pm
The easy gains have already been made since the 70s. Notice they only got this compact car up to 18mpg highway with all their mods. By tinkering with the aerodynamics you are likely to make things worse on today’s cars, not better… unless you have access to a wind tunnel.
They also destroyed the cooling capacity of the car by blocking off the grill and removing blades from the fan… how many gallons of gas can you buy for the engine damage that can result from overheating?
13 SVOboy // Mar 24, 2008 at 7:42 am
Thanks for the comment, bob, unfortunately I’m going to have to disagree with you.
If one has any concept of aerodynamics, it’s not hard to make improvements over today’s vehicles. In fact, while some of them are better than they were in the past, there has been little across the board aerodynamic improvement in a while.
People who block their grill or change their radiator fan are very conscious of the way it affects engine heat. I’ve never heard of an engine overheating, and even if it began to, it’s as simple as removing the grill block. Truckers and bus drivers do it, Honda even designed a factory grill block you could add to you car for just that purpose. I would say it’s fairly safe.
Thanks again.
14 charlie // Apr 14, 2008 at 2:38 pm
This was a carbureated car but also may have had higher octane fuel. My dad had a 67 400 ci pontiac and pulled a small travel trailer and got 15 mpg in 71. 76 500ci caddys got pretty good mileage also. I had a new 8900 gvw 76 3/4 ton 4wd chevy silverado with the 300hp chev 327 cam and 600 holley that got 15 mpg with 4:10 gears and 16.5 tires. My company NCR went from 72 torino station wagons to the pinto station wagons (automatic) and they were real slugs but the little 2.3 ended up being a pretty good motor.
Charlie
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16 ThinkDwell » Blog Archive » More MPG // May 23, 2008 at 5:43 am
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