Volumized trending on gas mileage

how do we send you tank info? There's no email listed on the website and the contact page doesn't have provisions for attaching the file.

 

You still can't attach a file. I downloaded the log spreadsheet off his website, so I would rather just attach that and send it. Instead of having to copy and paste or retype everything.

 

PM sent with e-mail.

Thanks again.

 

Hey chopper, do you still want me to keep sending #'s, even though they are inaccurate now?

 

I forget... Did someone ever figure out how long it takes for this thing to pay for itself? Seriously thinking about it with gas heading towards $4/gal by summer.

Oh, and I wonder how it would work if you added this too:
http://www.savefuel.ca/hydrogen/taxincentive.php?id=tax

 

This is based solely on my numbers durring the testing period, but here is the payback information.

ALL HIGHWAY:

Without the VPE the highway average was 18.20 MPG.
With the VPE the highway average was 19.55 MPG.
That is a 1.35 MPG increase with the VPE.
With the Tacoma’s 21 gallon tank that is a 28.35 mile per tank increase.
That essentially saves you 1.45 gallons per tank.
At $3.00 per gallon, that saves you $4.35 per tank.
At $228.00 for an ECO-2 through the group buy that would take 52.41 tanks of fuel for you to make your money back.

MIXED CITY AND HIGHWAY:

Without the VPE the mixed driving average was 15.90 MPG
With the VPE the mixed driving average was 18.25 MPG
That is a 2.35 MPG increase with the VPE
With the Tacoma’s 21 gallon tank that is a 49.35 mile per tank increase.
That essentially saves you 2.70 gallons per tank.
At $3.00 per gallon, that saves you $8.11 per tank.
At $228.00 for an ECO-2 through the group buy that would take 28.11 tanks of fuel for you to make your money back.

 

So assuming I fill up 3x/week like the past few months that would probably be 9 weeks or so. So it would pay for itself in just over 2 months.

At $8/tank, 3 tanks/week that would save roughly $1100/year. wow!

Then again, I usually fill up with around 17-18gal so I'm not sure how that affects the equations.....

 

I wouldn't bother with the hydrogen thing. It's snake oil. Any hydrogen it could generate would be too small to be noticable. Water molecules are extremely stable and take a lot of energy to break the molecule apart (on the order of a nuclear powerplant). Mythbusters busted the "Brown's gas" devices.

As for the VPE, I don't think it's doing anything (there's still no valid scientific reason as to why it should work). Plus, the numbers don't make sense. The before/after gap in mixed driving is huge compared to highway driving (when it should be the opposite as it takes more energy in stop-n-go traffic than it does to keep the truck moving steadily down the highway), but there is no difference for towing. Annecdotal evidence is the worst type of evidence and is often unreliable. Just driving back and forth to work, I can get quite varied data depending on how traffic is, my driving for that day, weather, etc.

The spreadsheet isn't really a valid method for determining it's efficiency. The data isn't random enough (skewed towards large datasets from a few trucks), the testing conditions aren't controlled, the data collected isn't controlled (people may guess, approximate or leave out critical non-confirming data). The only way to truely test it is to do a double-blind study and put it and a fake unit on a fleet of trucks that are equiped the same and run them in a controlled environment, similar to EPA testing.

 

I remember that Mythbusters episode. They got it to produce hydrogen IIRC, but not enough to run the engine ONLY on hydrogen. That device supposedly makes enough to give the engine an extra kick.

hmmmmmm..... I think I smell a mythbusters request!

 

There's less energy in hydrogen than in gasoline. A pure hydrogen engine looses about 20% of it's horsepower. A mixture can only reduce your power.

 

I figured it was BS.... I'm still trying to figure out how they can claim it works in the winter! How does it keep the water from freezing or thaw it out when it does?

 

At the risk of being seen as a dick here I am going to say that this is where your statement should have ended.

I take personal offense to those of you who have bashed our testing as not scientific. At no point did 007Tacoma or myself say that we were running a completely scientific study. We did the best that two guys could do funding the study completely out of our own pockets and outside of a lab. we simply set out to provide our data and observations as a service for the members of TacomaWorld. At no point did we ever tell anyone to purchase the device, we simply provided our information and let everyone draw their own conclusions. Cvillechopper then took our information and sought to have other members add to it. To increase the sample size, and to provide some controll trucks as well. Again, another member of TacomaWorld who is freely giving his time and effort to provide information to the members at no cost to them.

Anytime you'd like to provide a fleet of identical trucks out of your own pocket, or find some other organization willing to do the same to perform a "correct test" I would enjoy reading the results. Untill such time, I'd take it as a personal favor if you ended your statements at "You don't believe the device works, and there has been no doccumentation as to how it works," and stop pissing on the efforts of people who tried to do what they could to help.

You can think me a dick for my feelings on this, but all I am asking for is a little common curtosy.

Regards,

 

I don't think you're a dick and my post isn't intended as a knock on you or your efforts or a personal attack on you, so don't take it that way. That said, you're entitled to your opinion as am I and I'll give reasons for anything I state regardless of what anyone thinks or whether or not they want to hear it. It's not discourteous to challenge your assumptions. It would be discourteous to everyone to let it go unchallenged (testing that stands up to scrutiny is good science). I hope that doesn't make me a dick.

Even though you're not telling people to buy them, people are deciding whether or not to purchase something with their hard-earned money based on what you're posting. If it were a $10 dollar item, who cares but these aren't cheap. People need both sides including reasons why to make good decisions. They also need valid reasons as to why what you're posting may be wrong or even if it invalidates the claims of the device (which I think it does because it's inconsistent). That's also part of "drawing their own conclusions."

There's plenty of psuedoscience gadgets and techniques that make all sorts of claims (e.g. acetone, copper bracelets, etc). I feel it's important to hear both sides. As for the burden of proof, it's on the manufacturer of the device, and they've provided none (which is a big clue it's bs).

I applaud your efforts to try and figure it out but don't shoot the messenger just because I disagree with your conclusions or if I've pointed out why it's not a valid test. I merely pointed out that what you've done can be explained. To be valid, it needs to be tested it in a way that isolates emotion, driving inconsistencies, etc. The best way to do that is with a double blind (the data recorder, installers and the participants don't know which device is the true device). We also need a way to rule out environmental issues like wind, temperature, road conditions, traffic (e.g. a "treadmill" in a temperature controlled garage). Don't take it as a knock. Look at it as a way to create a better test.

As for Cvillechopper's data, I've taken part in Cvillechopper's fuel survey and continue to do so and value the effort. But it has to be realized that there are flaws in that technique (like internet surveys) and that conclusions based on non-random data with no controls on the data need to be taken with a grain of salt. For all he knows, I've given bogus data (I haven't). There's no way for him to check. It's not his fault, but it has to be realized.

Suppose that I had submitted 1000 data points into his spreadsheet and everyone else submitted 1000 data points total. My truck dominates the data. So what if I was just getting great mileage (or posting to purposely skew), the data would be skewed toward my truck. So you're really only getting results for my truck (because it overshadows everyone else's).

Again, as with any posting, it's easy to misconscrew my posts as a personal attack on you because you can't see my face. It's easy to imagine me scoffing at you but I'm not.

 

I posted those two devices up on mythbuster's forum to see what people said. I might add some of those people are worse than TTORA.

One of them mentioned a NASA lawsuit against ecosystems support regarding false advertising, however I'm unable to find anything about that. Even on the Mythbuster forum they so "politely" told me to search.

 

What happened to make them inaccurate?

 

I couldn't agree with you more Robr. I've said many times that the data set is subject to many potential flaws simply due to the fact that you have to trust in other's desire to provide accurate (or at least now intentionally inaccurate). Also, to have accurate analysis, you need a much larger data set than we have yet collected (still getting data occasionally) and you need the data to come from more sources.

It is very imperfect but it's better than nothing. I will offer this personal observation. After putting the VPE on, I did get an appreciable, sustained gain in mpg. After switching to synthetic, I got a larger gain than the VPE gave. I average 18.54mpg overall right now with my DC SB TRD Off-road and fully expect another increase when I go to synthetic in the diffs and tranny as well as when I put iridium plugs in. Was the VPE worth the money? I think so but the return from synthetic was much more per $$ spent. I'm aiming to get my mpg up around 20 over all so I'll end up spending more money to get that last 1 1/2.

 

Hey Cville! Your truck is pretty new so I'm wondering how many miles you had on it when you installed the VPE. Everyone gets a sustained increase in MPGs as the engine breaks in. Looking back on my fall numbers my average at around 12K miles is well over 1 mpg higher than it was at 3K miles (I'm using those numbers because they were 1 year apart with similiar weather conditions and no unusual driving involved.)

My January and Febuary 1 yr spaced results are about 2MPG higher since I removed the secondary filter and installed an aFe Dry Pro and now that I've been playing with the scangauge (which isn't a fair comparison because I've modified my driving a bit) I'm up over 3 mpg from a year ago.

I have a few tanks of info to send you. I'll get them converted to excell when I get a chance.

 

I'm thinking of adding some columns to the excel log file for my own use. Will that mess up how you import the data into your master file?

 

Nope. I enjoy seeing the types of things others want to track. I might even add some to the master.

 

I have 33" tires now and didn't get the speedo recalibrated.