Eco cars.

[sniff petrol]

dougc said:

900T-R said:

dougc said:

Sounds quite similar to the numbers quoted for the Westfield XI. Doesn't that make about 70bhp from the old 1275 Midget lump?

Indeed, 65 bhp and accoding to Westfield it does 0-60 in 8.5s. Sacrilege maybe, but it would be interesting to see how such a car would behave with a modern, lightweight, low inertia engine of similar output.

[scheming]Wonder if you could put the Toyota 3 pot from an Aygo in a Westfield XI with a small turbocharger attached [/scheming]

What about a Dihatsu Charade 1.0 GTti or Starlet 1.3 turbo motor? Would be cheaper ans have more tunning potential.

[shoestring7]

shoestring7 said:

Didn't Caterham do pretty much this recently? Its probably on the news archive, but ISTR the fuel economy was impressive.

SS7

No, not a Westie. This is the one I was thinking of: 130mpg at Rockingham with bodywork mods, although the 'minimum 15mph' does rather give the game away!

http://www.motorsportdevelopment.co.uk/news.cfm/ti...

SS7

[briSk]

stock ford vct sigma 1.6s are a 35-40mpg cars i think.. so you must be looking at late 40s for this project. maybe something lighter still like a Tiger would be the starting point?

i suppose logically you'd be designing it as a sort of mini-Atom with the whole engine/gearbox and subframe of the aygo with a light passenger compartment up front.

hopefully if this stays up the listings some actual engineers might have some input over lunch..!

[Witchfinder]

I guess the ultimate eco performance car has to be the Tesla Roadster. http://www.teslamotors.com/

Yes, I know the electricity has to come from somewhere, but who says that somewhere can't be nuclear, solar, hydro or wind?

[lord summerisle]

sniff petrol said:

What about those 1.4 K-series Caterhams from the early 90's? What are they like on fuel? I'd imagine a bit better than a Metro/200 with the same engine for knocking around but like mentioned above a bit less at high speed due to worse aerodynamics.

if i remember blatchat correctly... the 1.4 K series caterhams normally produced 102bhp or the supersport option took it to 130bhp with mpg around the mid 50s... but to get the best from the engine it really needed the 6sp close ratio box which had a 1:1 ratio 6th as opposed to the usual 5sp ford box, to keep the engine on the boil.

i reckon the old citreen AXGT engine would be very good in a caterham

the entry level caterhams now use the 1.6 sigma engine producing 125bhp

Edited by lord summerisle on Wednesday 9th January 12:16

[briSk]

i was thinking about this. maybe, if we are saying it is going to be a seven type car, it should be based on the westfield with the 'FW' type bodywork. even if it were non-carbon the better aero has to be a benefit - you could also afford (in MPG terms) to lower the gearing a bit for more spritely performance.

[fuoriserie]

briSk said:

i was thinking about this. maybe, if we are saying it is going to be a seven type car, it should be based on the westfield with the 'FW' type bodywork. even if it were non-carbon the better aero has to be a benefit - you could also afford (in MPG terms) to lower the gearing a bit for more spritely performance.

you could also consider a mid-engine option, using a Sylva R1ot chassis, and stick a lightweight and frugal engine.

A more aerodynamic shape could help with this layout..