Series One with turbo diesel

[cajunz]

Who'd have thought we'd have two early 240z's on our little town. There's a guy driving #900 and I just met a guy driving #2200ish today. The car is in decent shape and when he popped the hood, he had an '82 Maxima diesel with a rayjay turbo. Neat setup and he said gets nearly 40mpg. The car didn't have the original engine in it when he bought it.

[motorman7]

A Diesel in the series 1 sounds like a great idea. I for one would like to see Detroit produce a high mileage Econo car that weighs about 2000 pounds and has a 1 liter turbo diesel with 6 speed for a drive train. I'm betting you could get 60 MPG with that.

[Arne]

A Diesel in the series 1 sounds like a great idea. I for one would like to see Detroit produce a high mileage Econo car that weighs about 2000 pounds and has a 1 liter turbo diesel with 6 speed for a drive train. I'm betting you could get 60 MPG with that.

Probably more, a lot more. We get already 50 MPG in our Golf, and that's a 2.0 liter turbo-diesel in a 3000 lb. car. The Mini D in Europe has a 1.6 liter turbo-diesel on a 2500-2600 lb. car, gets 60+. So what you are asking for (and I would have happily have bought instead of the Golf) should get 80, I should think.

[motorman7]

I agree with you on the well over 60+. I think crash tests and horsepower are a bit overrated here in the US. Personally, I have just decided not to crash , so no need to beef up the car weight with all that safety stuff. As for horsepower, I was very content with my little Datsun roadster's 94 hp back in the '70's when I was a teen. It's plenty of horsepower today to get me where I need to go. No need for 300 Hp in that baby. Of course Motor Trend, Car & Driver, and Road and Track magazines wouldn't like it, but they don't pay my gas bill.

Anyway, just cool to see a lightweight turbo diesel out there. I'm all for it.

[jmortensen]

Not to pee in the cheerios, but there are much better cars for mileage than a Z. Aerodynamics is key, and Z's aren't very low drag. If you want a hypermile diesel, best to start with the slipperiest shape you can.

[coopdog240]

How about a Hybrid Turbo-Diesel-Electric?? 100mpg or more??

[240260280z]

I always liked the shoe-shaped gen1 Honda Insight, low mass, low frontal area, aero shape and efficient motor.

Rip out the electric stuff and stick in an efficient 4 banger diesel.

[Walter Moore]

One or two long, cold, (-20F or lower) winters with a diesel as your daily driver is usually sufficient to disabuse intelligent people of the concept. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt, not interested in going back.

Just my $0.02...

[240260280z]

One or two long, cold, (-20F or lower) winters with a diesel as your daily driver is usually sufficient to disabuse intelligent people of the concept. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt, not interested in going back.

Just my $0.02...

but did you use this?

[motorman7]

One or two long, cold, (-20F or lower) winters with a diesel as your daily driver is usually sufficient to disabuse intelligent people of the concept. Been there, done that, have the t-shirt, not interested in going back.

Just my $0.02...

Living in SoCal, I don't even comprehend cold weather :-)

[Walter Moore]

but did you use this?

Yes I did. You will never get most Diesels to start in cold weather without either keeping the engine running all the time, or keeping the block heater plugged in whenever and wherever you park the car.

The really disheartening problem is that Diesel fuel "gels" in cold weather, and when it does you are just flat stuck. There are always trucks from southern states that freeze up while they are moving when it gets really cold. As the ambient temperature goes down, the fuel that you use has to be progressively lighter. Local truck stops deal with this by cutting the Diesel with ever larger percentages of kerosene, but as the fuel gets lighter, the fuel mileage gets lower. Most of the increased MPG of Diesels is because the fuel is denser, providing more energy per gallon. By the time that you get to really cold temperatures, like -20F or so, most of the fuel economy advantage of the Diesel engine is gone. You are stuck with a car that is incredibly difficult to start, runs poorly, and isn't really any cheaper to operate.

[Arne]

Plenty of late-model VW diesels from Canada on the TDI forums. They seem to deal with Winter just fine.