Ka Diary
– 44,479 – 30/06/2004 – Tyres & Grills
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ince
my last Ka Diary entry, Kermit’s fuel consumption has
been the cause for some celebration.
Admittedly, Charlie and I have taken him on a bit of a trek - from York
to South London, to Scotland, then back to York, and long haul trips are
usually flattering to fuel
consumption – although even so, given how we’ve driven him (rather, the
motorway cruise we’ve adopted and how often we’ve used the air conditioning), his average fuel consumption has been
better than I would have expected.
I know that one of the
reasons for the better fuel consumption is my adversity to using the brakes on
the motorway. By this, I mean, rather
than accelerating up to the queue of traffic in front of you, I anticipate a
slow down and lift off nice and early.
After rejoining the M40 during our long weekend drive away, I didn’t
touch the brake pedal until the final point of deceleration as we pulled off -
one hundred and thirty seven miles later...
There
may be two reasons for this. One is
that I deliberately increased his tyre
pressures. His fronts were increased
from the specification 32 PSI to 34 PSI, the backs from the Ford-specified 24
PSI to 30 PSI. This increase was
partially because I knew we’d be carrying a reasonably heavy weight in the back
and I wanted to maintain his composure, but also to see what a difference it made
to fuel consumption.
I
cannot discount the influence of the Ecotek
valve, as much as I would like to.
His engine does seem more
efficient at higher engine speeds in top gear when using the Ecotek relative to
when not, but I have noticed something about the Calculated Load and Throttle
settings for any one cruising speed on level ground. It’s usually possible to “relax” the throttle, i.e. reduce it,
and maintain a constant speed, over some distance, usually two to four
miles. This behaviour is much more
prevalent with the Ecotek than without - and it is this behaviour that
underpins Kermit’s “supercruise” behaviour.
Indeed, without the Ecotek, I never observed (nor more 
importantly logged) this
supercruise ability.
However,
the motorway trip was not all good news.
On the M40, a dozy git in a Saab 9-5 overshot when returning to the
inside lane after overtaking us. His
nearside wheels drove along the hard shoulder for a moment, throwing up huge
quantities of stones. This has resulted
in some new stone chips on Kermit’s bonnet, a couple on his light brows, and worse, a myriad of
new chips on the MS Designs Front Grill
Surround. It needs respraying, but
for the time being we’ve taken the grill surround off. I don’t especially like or dislike the
grill, so with this in mind it is for sale if anybody is interested, at least
at the time of writing.