Agreed. I'd never hold up traffic with a P&G routine. If there's a pack of cars approaching, I narrow the window or cancel it altogether until everyone has safely passed.

 

lol, well that supports you guys for sure, I doubt we will ever fully agree about tire pressure

I can say that if you want to find the perfect performance tire pressure there are a couple of tricks the autoX guys use. I mentioned it on another thread as well somewhere; you guys can try this out for yourself to see if your tires have too much PSI or maybe not enough for day to day use as well...

Take some white shoe polish or chalk and apply it at 3 places along the tire. As you drive the chalk should come off all the way to the edge of the rubber (usually tires are pretty well defined) which ensures that your tire is behaving properly when you are cornering; if the chalk is warn past the line then you have too little PSI, if it hasn't been rubbed off at all then your tires have too much PSI.



Other methods such as this one are pretty good too
Optimizing Tire Pressure

Of course the ultimate way to ensure your tire pressure is perfect, is to drive for a bit then immediately get out and hit the tire in 3 spots across the tread with a heat gun. If all the temps are the same your tire has the perfect balance.

Really to get better mileage you have to reduce the amount of rubber on the road (at least the laws of physics dictate that) which means going up past that optimum pressure. There is a happy medium though, if you get a tire with an ultra high treadwear rating and a V or continuous track type of tread it will reduce friction and you could run the optimum pressure for the best of both worlds.

One other quick note; You should see the smoke coming off of my wheels on the course as I come into a corner hot, my braking is reduced greatly when I run higher PSI. This is the main reason I reduce the pressure back to 32 after coming off the course.

Yes but these cars are specifically designed to turn on and off! There is a good possibility they will not agree it is safe to do in a standard gasoline car.

 

Thanks that's very interesting stuff. You're right, we'd probably opt for economy over handling if we had to choose.

As for the turning-off stuff, I meant that Honda & Toyota don't seem to feel it is illegal to have the ICE off while moving, and that safety/liability is not an issue either. Bet they've had an army of lawyers go all over this issue.

 

Hybrids don't shut both power sources off, plus they can automatically restart the gas engine with no driver input, so this is not a fair comparison.

 

Actually they do. Honda's IMA system has the ICE and electric motor coupled together with no clutch between them. So if you are in neutral in an MT Insight or MT HCHI and the ICE shuts down, the electric motor stops spinning too. I'm less familiar with the CVT Insight and the HCHII (which is CVT) but I believe shifting either into N under appropriate conditions will kill the ICE/electric motor combo.

I believe the Prius will also glide with both its electric motors and its ICE shut down.

Nope. You need to shift the MT Insight back into a gear.

It isn't a comparison. Just stating the fact that these cars are built to coast power-off and this is apparently legal. And the mfrs apparently think it's safe. Actually it would be great to see this shutdown/restart technology built into non-hybrids.

 

It would be interesting to see a non-hybrid have this technologoy put in.

I think where the concern is with non-hybrids right now is you have to reboot the computer system and everything from fuel pumps to transmissions could be affected. I suspect the manufacturer never intended to have them turning on or off while they are moving. One important note is with the hybrid vehicals they have systems that run the steering and brakes while standard gasoline engines typically have them running directly off pumps on the engine (I know not all vehicals, the Fit has electric steering as an example). We don't really know how it impacts each car, some may be safe while others could have problems.

 

The way to get around the rebooting is for the mfr to provide a button that simply stalls the engine by stopping the injectors temporarily. Then the computers never shut down.

Yes steering gets heavier if it is hydraulic-assist, though it does still work. Electric steering would be better for this, or just manual steering. The Insight and Fit are so small that I can't figure out why power-assisted steering is needed at all?

Brake booster on the Insight is handled by a sensor which refires the ICE if the vac in the booster drops too low, so that is do-able.

It would also need an internal switch to re-fire the ICE when the car is put back into gear or "D", plus probably some programming for the CVT.

Something like this would be great.

 

The reboot takes place in a non-hybrid when you roll the key back to ignII. Never do a engine off coast and not reboot the car. Never go to full off/lock. Never FAS if you haven't praticed and understand all the basics and advance tools. By the time one completes there study into getting much better mpg. Many find they don't need to go extreme. Many learn they can get epa hwy in town. And stay above epa hwy on the hwy. Going extreme just puts the cherry on top. But its not needed to vastly improve mpg.

To talk about hybrids as they are here now is misleading at best. While many Insight drivers pull the power steering fuse. If you can't drive Insight without power steering you really need to get to a Doc. or to the gym. In some instances its hard to get a true engine off coast in a hybrid. Once you key back on they may want to recharge the battery. So much for that coast. One of the many reasons why the number one thing to getting good mpg out of a hybrid is to not use the pack. And do all you can to stay away from the hybrid system. Thus learning to do your very best work at hand with the ICE. Its a shame one has to buy a hybrid to get the very best FE engines made. I honestly believe if Honda had put lean burn on the R-18 it would be right on the heals of a HCHII mpg wise and could be coaxed into better mpg than the HCHII in the hands of the right driver. Take a HCHII. If your doing things right. It will turn off the engine at a dead stop. But it will keep A/C running. It will also go in pure EV mode. But its in a very narrow if not usable speed. The system see's any load it fires the ice back up. This a area of design the PII wipes the floor with HCHII. They all have there cavets and issue's. The Hybrid pilot will find these issues and study to see what the work arounds are for them.

Non-Hybrid hypermiling is the true essensts of this driving style. And a driving style anybody can do in any car or truck.

psy