MAX Weight

Trip starts Thursday night, October 4, 2007. Updates to follow.

 

Well, I made it!!
600 miles, Anaheim to Vegas and back,
three motorcycles, weekend racing gear and three adults, total about 2,400lb load, with 1,750 lbs being towed.
Avg 29 MPG there 27 MPG back @ 55 mph

I set the cruise control and let the computer do the thinking.and it worked great. The computer switches back and forth between the traction battery/ICE/and MIGs I & II a little more efficiently than when not using the Cruise control.

Only with the huge load and drained traction battery was there any issue with the cruise control. Going from Vegas to Anaheim (up the big hill just past state line) the traction battery gave out around 3100 foot elevation and the ICE went into generator mode running at full throttle (or almost, I judged this by the MPG reading which the lowest was 9.8 but averaged about 11.8 at full throttle).

The car slowed to about 45 MPH but no slower, so I think that MIG2 was doing most of the work, as all the electricity/power from the ICE was going straight to the MIG. Was worried about load on the MIG, but the temp was around 60 outside so not to extreme.

Here are some photos of the load:

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The bikes,

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A lot of math used to make sure the load was balanced, 160lbs on the tongue, and still about 2"s of suspension travel.

 

Yep, over that distance for sure. (I know some people have gotten pretty low mileage when they only go short trips)

It wasn't a fuel economy weekend for sure. My bike, the red/white/blue one got just 20 mpg on the track! Not bad really for a race bike but when you blow through 5 gallons of fuel in about an hour, for a sport bike, that's saying something.

I heard one person at the rtack say, "now that's economical" as I pulled in. The 28 mpg was probably a whole boat load better than the 10-12 that the big dodges and fords and tundras got that were twoing one or two bikes!

Still, not something I thnk I want to do every day.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(usbseawolf2000 @ Oct 8 2007, 07:25 PM) [snapback]522918[/snapback]</div>

The key I think is that the MIGs have huge torque reserves. At one point I think I was running on the MIG only with the ICE operating solely as an electrical generator. This is because the speed droppped to about 45 but not any slower.

Hyo - possibly but that is a long trip adn cold this time of year. Plus the bikes were partially prepped for the track and weree not street legal at the time.