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4 minute(s) of a 731 minute read
5-6-2019
Since I was cooped up all week I decided to tackle a quick and easy project. I painted the mechanical fan black. I think it makes a big difference as far as making the engine bay not look quite so dated:
I also found some pictures from my other phone that got lost. Here is a much nicer picture of the arduino setup and pigtail I built before it got installed. I love
doing electronics builds/installs. I've got a great idea for a custom arduino powered 52mm gage pod that I hope to be sharing in the near future.
My take on this is finally changing. I think if I get a group of friends that wants to go to the track; I'll happily tag along. I'm still not interested in hard launches, but I'm curious to see what it will do; and I have much more faith in it mechanically now that I've addressed pretty much all of the drivetrain items. I'll certainly post results here if/when it happens.
After a week of nothing but rain and snow since I got tuned last Friday (seriously, what a crappy week for weather), we finally got to take it out for frozen custard Saturday evening. This might be my favorite use for the car: cool summer evening/night drives to one of the few dozen local frozen custard joints with the wife. Filled up on the way home for my first true fillup (to track MPG) after the E85 switch. For a cold drive back from Chicago last Friday, I saw 14.5mpg. I was expecting something in the area of 13-14 max, so I was pretty pleased with that. Especially at a price of $2.36 a gallon.
Sunday morning I was up early for the first Cars and Coffee of the year at Lake Mills. Sadly I didn't take any pictures. As usual, it was a zoo. For the first time I've ever seen they had to turn cars away. Lots of gearheads with cabin fever trying to get out for the first nice weekend of the year. As far as I saw I was the only Z32 out of 650+ cars (from what I overheard for totals).
Feel free to skip the next paragraph, boring fuel economy info incoming:
After C&C I headed out to Platteville for an ultimate frisbee alumni event. It was a bit of a drive for 2 hours of ultimate; but it was also 70F and sunny for the first time in forever and the Z was running great. Sounds like a great excuse for a road trip. For the first time I experienced E85 range anxiety. Anticipating 13 usable gallons in my tank and 15mpg highway; I figured 200 miles is about what I could expect on a tank which is good, but not spectacular. I filled up again at Lake Mills before I left....FOR $2.09 a gallon! Woah. Not only was the price stellar, but it was ~E80. The drive at 80mpg from Milwaukee saw 14.8mpg. Not bad. The drive to and from Platteville was uneventful; but I reached Madison @ 170 miles and still just barely below a half tank and elected to push it before I filled up again. There are quite a few E85 stations around; but it definitely requires a small amount of planning to make sure I don't have to swap back and forth between fuels. I hit up Lake Mills once again (easy E85 access and now known good fuel) and saw 17.7mpg for the 200 mile round trip. I'm a numbers guy:
93 octane highway mpg ~21
93 octane fuel cost ~3.70
E85 highway mpg ~17.5
E85 fuel cost ~2.15
The fuel is ~44% cheaper, yet nets only a 17% reduction in highway MPG while delivering 11% more horsepower and 50% more driving enjoyment. I'm so glad I made the switch.