Racing Prius?

@slvr_phoenix, as far as I now, the Landspeed Prius kept the Prius atkinson cycle engine. It has been modded more electronically, electrically and in it's aerodynamic.

There is however a "Racing" Prius developped by TRD. That Prius have the Yaris Otto cycle engine swapped in.

By design, I'm pretty shure you cannot "unlock" the current Prius engine. It uses the Atkinson cycle and is built for that. More efficiency at the cost of peak HP.

p.s. I know I'm not that technical, but all that information is in here if you search a little

 

Don't take it ANY lower than with the TRD suspension, without swapping out the TRD shocks and struts for something with LOTS more rebound and jounce damping.

As it is, with (heavy) 16" Bridgestone RE01's on Touring wheels, whoop-de-doos in the road have my car dragging the undercarriage at regular intervals; those little plastic flaps in front of the front tires are actually wearing down from scraping the pavement so often!

Also, lowering it any further reduces suspension travel that much more, which messes with the handling especially on rougher public streets.

 

The only people who refer to the PSD as a CVT just don't know any better. Yeh, we all know that Henry Ford thought of it first.

 

There's this thing called Google, it allows you to search the *entire* internet to find the answers to your questions.

Also, the search function on this site might help, too; the questions you've asked have been re-hashed so many times that you're even likely to find more than one "right" answer.

 

Toyota offers an online service which you can subscribe to; for a nominal fee you can search it for 24 hours, download whatever you want, and print it out for your reference. Like shop manuals, but better.

Here you will find all of the information you're seeking, including the hard numbers you said you want...all unbiased by another's opinion and uncolored by inaccurate memory.

If you're ever going to mess with a Prius (and get it to run again when you're done), your first task is to locate the url for the site I've just described. If you can't do that, you're not qualified for the project.

Don't mean to sound harsh, but that's just how I see it.

 

Pinto Girl,

Whoa you're back?! When did that happen?

People here have been looking for you.

 

Did you bring a note from home? You been AWOL and we been worried.

There are a few things you can do to a Prius without being able to find a shop manual on line, but not many.

 

Oh yeah, 4.3L/100km is ok fuel consumption around town but on the highway that increases to a shocking 5.2L/100km! Totally unacceptable when compared to a similar sized 2 litre car which averages about 8L/100km. :boink:

The reason Prius uses 0.9 litres more fuel per 100km at highway speeds is higher drag due to moving through the air faster. The reason conventional vehicles get such shocking bad mileage around town is they are so very wasteful. They idle when stopped and are forced to pull when the engine is not at its most efficient RPM and throttle. Automatics dump heat from torque converters and hydraulic systems while Prius has a hard time getting warm enough. A conventional vehicle only hits peak power for a short time in each gear, Prius can hold it's maximum power RPM from stationary to maximum speed or at smaller throttle it can run at the most efficient from 0 to what ever speed you chose to drive.

I can't begin to express my disappointment at my Prius using 3 litres per 100 kilometres less at highway speeds than the 2 litre EFI manual Camry it replaced.

 

change the tires. my tires (listed in my signature) work well. a little too well.

with tires that wide ( i still need spacers.. preferably lighter tires and spacers) i never set off trac or vsc.. well.. i do.. but only when i'm really really trying.

if it really bugs me.. i turn trac off entirely. :blah:


btw.. welcome back pinto :tea:

 

First step is to learn about autocrossing a little. You don't want 17" wheels. Unless the car comes with 17s you want light weight 15" wheels. 205/55/15 will fit a 15x6 wheel and is only slightly shorter than stock.

The second is, this car is pathetically slow. Unless there is a hybrid class you WILL lose. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Racing a prius = epic failure

 

Has anyone had luck autocrossing a Prius lately? I might be able to attend a local event later this year, if I can stuff my 225/45/15 Kumhos on my 2004 Prius. I still have my 2001 15" Celica OEM rims. I still have to check if the bolt pattern is the same.

I know the suspension is too soft on the Prius for fast cornering, but I don't plan to modify my car too much. I need it for my 120 mile commute still.

 

225/45 will not be safe unless those are 7" wide wheels. also you don't need that much meat under these cars. 205 or 215 is overkill.

 

I think the OEM Celica wheels were 15x6.5, and 225s did fit on there, safe enough for autocrossing. I'm worried they might rub the wheel wells or suspension on the Prius, or I might need spacers. The 225s were good for the Celica, but I agree the Prius might be better on skinnier tires.

 

Get the Race organisers to change the RULES.

Because of the times we are in with everyone concentrating on Oil, motorsport people should add a new category to their existing line up and introduce rules for a new competition that rations energy, this would run alongside traditional fastest time wins (no limit on Gas)

A hybrid category could limit the amount of fuel you have for a whole event. This would be a real test of skill and driving efficency. Fastest time would still win but the skill of the driver would count for more. If he could keep momentum and save energy he gets rewarded by being able to use more accelerator where it counts.

Let me give an example

If Formula 1 changed to a new rule of say a total of 200 litres of fuel Inc all testing etc for a weekend it would really cause a stir and frantic development of new technologies.

Let the car design,propulsion system, shape weight etc be a free for all.(apart from Crash worthiness)
There would be a set distance to cover in the actual race and quickest past the post would win, but ....all limited to a set amount of fuel. If you run out you lose.
Racing used to be all about technology and innovation along with driver skill. this might be a way to return to racing roots.
Le Mans 24hr race might be more suitable place to start as Diesels have won this year and last.

A watered down version of this, might just work at your autocroos events...it wouldn't hurt to ask !!!

 

I would offer that you should give local bracket racing a chance at the local drag strip. In bracket racing as long as you can run your number and cut a good light you can win money and bring home trophies.

There may not be any corners involved and it may sound less exciting, but to compete on a level playing field with all kinds of other vehicles is exciting. Plus... Winning is far more difficult than it sounds, trust me on this...

 

It will not hang in it. The power needs to be delivered from the engine not the Ele. Motor. The Ele motor is the only reason it has a small amount of Torque. If you decide to race it it will spend pretty much the entire race in the engine mode and not in the Elec. mode. So at that point its not a hybrid. These cars are built to get you from Point A to Point B with good MPG's. They are not meant to be a race car, a sports car, a cool car, its just a car to save a couple of dollars at the pump.

 

Go do it and have fun.
You don't have to race in auto-cross for trophies you can just race to improve your own times.
Do it.
Only thing that stops me doing auto-cross is I have a crap memory.

 

I read a report on the plug in Prius that Toyota are testing.
Besides giving 70+ mpg its also giving 136HP
They have installed a second battery in parrallel with the first and this is the reason for the extra horsepower.
Currently Prius are running 17.8 - 17.9 quarter mile times
With the increased HP they should be good for something like 16.7

 

Im not sure if this should be a new thread or not but here goes.
The only real differrence between the Otto cycle and the Atkinson cycle is the timing of the closing of the intake valve.
This raises 2 questions seeing as the prius has variable valve timing
1- If you wanted more horsepower would it be possible by reprogramming the valve timing in the ecu to change the engine from atkinson cycle to otto cycle above a certain rev range say from 3500 or 4000 rpm and above.

2-Perhaps this allready happens to some degree?
at higher rpm does the valve timing change to a more otto cycle?

The idea of a lean mean and green racing machine really appeals
If you could trim a prius down to 2200 pounds (about a 1000kg) and by changing the high rpm timing to otto and stuffing a dirty big lithium battery in the boot get a combined output of 200 whp you should have a car capable of doing quarter miles in the 12 second area
Now wouldnt that upset a lot of people
Of course it would have to have a giant 100mpg sticker right down its sides
Nick