Road Trip Observations with Torque Pro

[hybridbear]

You may be wondering how I'm able to get elevation data while driving. The answer is simple, the car knows. Tap on the gears on the MFT screen and go to "Help" and go to "Where Am I?". The car will then tell you your current latitude & longitude along with the elevation.

[ptjones]

Sixth topic part two: ICE behavior, elevation & fuel octane

 

Going south to California we really start climbing in elevation after passing through Kansas, Oklahoma & Texas. I believe that in Oklahoma the gas was still 87 octane. However, in Albuquerque the gas was 86 octane. We drove on the 86 octane gas south from Albuquerque up through the mountains and then down to Phoenix. Then we filled up with 87 again in Phoenix. However, none of those tanks were full tanks. Coming north we filled up with 87 octane in Phoenix and were running that up the mountains to Albuquerque.

 

I noticed that the ICE behavior changed running 87 octane at higher elevations instead of 86. With 86 octane the spark advance would drop down to only about 5-8 degrees under a heavy load. Running 87 octane it stayed at 30 degrees under heavy load and 40 degrees under light load. Thus I decided to fill up with 88 octane today in Albuquerque instead of 86 octane. It was only $0.10 per gallon more so it cost about $1 extra to try this experiment.

 

So far this morning I'm seeing similar behavior. The spark advance is about 20-25 degrees at 35+ kW and 30-35 at 25 kW and 40 at 16-20 kW.

 

I've tried to research the interaction between octane and spark advance but I'm not fully understanding it. Why would the higher octane at high elevations lead to more spark advance? Is that a good thing or bad thing?

Good Job! Just as I had suspected the computer advances timing until it detects detenation and that is why you get better MPG's with higher octane gas. The more you advance timing the better your gas mileage. As you go up in elevation air pressure goes down which means your flame front moves slower in the cylinder head so you need to advance the timing to compensate for that. :)

Paul

Edited October 22, 2015 by ptjones

[ptjones]

hybridbear what do you think about installing Wolverine Model 9 125W pan heater on transmission and plug it in the car 120vac outlet? You could turn it on while your traveling and watch what happens to MPG's on the roll. :shift: :)

 

Paul

[hybridbear]

hybridbear what do you think about installing Wolverine Model 9 125W pan heater on transmission and plug it in the car 120vac outlet? You could turn it on while your traveling and watch what happens to MPG's on the roll. :shift: :)

 

Paul

I think that's getting a little extreme. But you could certainly try it.

 

I also think that there are diminishing returns with transmission fluid temp. Once you start driving and it heats up it doesn't matter much if it's 140 F or 170 F. The key is getting the transmission fluid above 70 F because it just feels like the car is sluggish when the transmission fluid is colder than 70 F.

[ptjones]

I think that's getting a little extreme. But you could certainly try it.

 

I also think that there are diminishing returns with transmission fluid temp. Once you start driving and it heats up it doesn't matter much if it's 140 F or 170 F. The key is getting the transmission fluid above 70 F because it just feels like the car is sluggish when the transmission fluid is colder than 70 F.

This would only be a problem until the trans. fluid heats up to140*F it would sound like. The problem I'm seeing is when I'm driving 16-18hrs strait, average MPG's go down by 2mpg for each 10*F drop in temperature. I see this happen at 5-7k ft which would negate any tire psi or air density issues.

 

hybridbear"On our last day in California we went to Joshua Tree National Park. Entering the park from the south you do a pretty steep climb at 35-45 MPH speed limit. This type of climb causes the ICE temp to increase more so that during a similar climb at 55-65 MPH. This caused the ICE coolant temp to reach 225. The highest peak we saw was 227 F. The grille shutters begin to open at 215 F. At 225 F the ICE fan came on and the grille shutters were about half open."

 

I was wondering if you visually documented shutter operation with temperature change, I used a web cam with laptop on the FWY driving 70mph and when WT hit 215*F shutters fully open. At 214*F shutters fully closed which I did a few times. Getting off the FWY shutters didn't close until 210*F about 50mph. In all case the shutters were fully open or fully closed. I wonder if the CMAX and FFH don't have the same program? That would seem odd, but I suppose anything is possible. :)

 

Paul

[acdii]

Sixth topic part two: ICE behavior, elevation & fuel octane

 

Going south to California we really start climbing in elevation after passing through Kansas, Oklahoma & Texas. I believe that in Oklahoma the gas was still 87 octane. However, in Albuquerque the gas was 86 octane. We drove on the 86 octane gas south from Albuquerque up through the mountains and then down to Phoenix. Then we filled up with 87 again in Phoenix. However, none of those tanks were full tanks. Coming north we filled up with 87 octane in Phoenix and were running that up the mountains to Albuquerque.

 

I noticed that the ICE behavior changed running 87 octane at higher elevations instead of 86. With 86 octane the spark advance would drop down to only about 5-8 degrees under a heavy load. Running 87 octane it stayed at 30 degrees under heavy load and 40 degrees under light load. Thus I decided to fill up with 88 octane today in Albuquerque instead of 86 octane. It was only $0.10 per gallon more so it cost about $1 extra to try this experiment.

 

So far this morning I'm seeing similar behavior. The spark advance is about 20-25 degrees at 35+ kW and 30-35 at 25 kW and 40 at 16-20 kW.

 

I've tried to research the interaction between octane and spark advance but I'm not fully understanding it. Why would the higher octane at high elevations lead to more spark advance? Is that a good thing or bad thing?

 

Higher octane is slower burning, so in the higher elevations they use lower octane fuels to compensate for the lower oxygen and pressure. Advancing the spark with lower octane causes detonation, so the knock sensors adjust timing to compensate. Average cars run fine on it in higher elevations, but some run better on higher octane. It was 85 Octane in CO at the Kum and Go. Yeah I LOL when I saw the first one. My F150 took a big hit in MPG on the way through there with the 85 octane, but ran just fine all the way up, in high hear.

 

 

You may be wondering how I'm able to get elevation data while driving. The answer is simple, the car knows. Tap on the gears on the MFT screen and go to "Help" and go to "Where Am I?". The car will then tell you your current latitude & longitude along with the elevation.

Thats where it is, I completely forgot about that, I found it in the F150 when I went through CO to Chino.

[mwr]

You may be wondering how I'm able to get elevation data while driving. The answer is simple, the car knows. Tap on the gears on the MFT screen and go to "Help" and go to "Where Am I?". The car will then tell you your current latitude & longitude along with the elevation.

On my FFH, "Where Am I?" gives latitude & longitude but no elevation. Maybe because I don't have Nav.

[hybridbear]

I was wondering if you visually documented shutter operation with temperature change, I used a web cam with laptop on the FWY driving 70mph and when WT hit 215*F shutters fully open. At 214*F shutters fully closed which I did a few times. Getting off the FWY shutters didn't close until 210*F about 50mph. In all case the shutters were fully open or fully closed. I wonder if the CMAX and FFH don't have the same program? That would seem odd, but I suppose anything is possible. :)

I am going by the parameters reported by the car. There are two PIDs that the car monitors: Shutter Position Commanded & Shutter Position Inferred. They are almost always equal. When you first start the car they go from 0.0 to 99.6 and then back to 0.0. When the A/C is first turned on they go to 99.6. Over time they begin to close, the least open I observed while running A/C was about 24%. When the coolant temp hit 215 F they would open to about 13%, at 225 F the shutters were between 50 & 60% open. I wonder if perhaps what you're observing with your camera and what the car reports are hard to interpret. We really need to monitor the visible change in the shutters with your camera combined with the data from the car regarding what the shutters are doing.

 

On my FFH, "Where Am I?" gives latitude & longitude but no elevation. Maybe because I don't have Nav.

We do not have navigation. On our car the elevation is just to the right of the latitude & longitude on the MFT screen. Our car is a 2013 and yours is a 2015, perhaps this is the difference? Can others chime in please?

 

Sixth topic part two: ICE behavior, elevation & fuel octane

 

Going south to California we really start climbing in elevation after passing through Kansas, Oklahoma & Texas. I believe that in Oklahoma the gas was still 87 octane. However, in Albuquerque the gas was 86 octane. We drove on the 86 octane gas south from Albuquerque up through the mountains and then down to Phoenix. Then we filled up with 87 again in Phoenix. However, none of those tanks were full tanks. Coming north we filled up with 87 octane in Phoenix and were running that up the mountains to Albuquerque.

 

I noticed that the ICE behavior changed running 87 octane at higher elevations instead of 86. With 86 octane the spark advance would drop down to only about 5-8 degrees under a heavy load. Running 87 octane it stayed at 30 degrees under heavy load and 40 degrees under light load. Thus I decided to fill up with 88 octane today in Albuquerque instead of 86 octane. It was only $0.10 per gallon more so it cost about $1 extra to try this experiment.

 

So far this morning I'm seeing similar behavior. The spark advance is about 20-25 degrees at 35+ kW and 30-35 at 25 kW and 40 at 16-20 kW.

 

I've tried to research the interaction between octane and spark advance but I'm not fully understanding it. Why would the higher octane at high elevations lead to more spark advance? Is that a good thing or bad thing?

In Kansas we filled up with 87 octane again. The tank was almost empty after driving from Albuquerque to Kansas, we were low enough that the low fuel light was on. I could immediately see a change in spark advance behavior running 87 octane versus 88 octane. The spark advance at lower loads (less than 30 kW) was not really any different, but at higher loads (greater than 30 kW) the spark advance was again down to 5-15 degrees only.

[ptek]

 

We do not have navigation. On our car the elevation is just to the right of the latitude & longitude on the MFT screen. Our car is a 2013 and yours is a 2015, perhaps this is the difference? Can others chime in please?

 

My 2014 has navigation and doesn't display elevation. The "Where Am I" feature is located on the information tab.

[mwr]

My 2014 has navigation and doesn't display elevation. The "Where Am I" feature is located on the information tab.

Same with my 2015 without Nav. "Where Am I" is on the Information tab, and no elevation (as I said before).

[hybridbear]

Same with my 2015 without Nav. "Where Am I" is on the Information tab, and no elevation (as I said before).

What information tab? In a 2013 with navigation you have buttons across the bottom for Home, leaf button, gears for settings and the i for information. In our 2013 without nav we just have Home, leaf button and gears for settings. We go into the settings and then to help (the last menu item under settings) to access the Where Am I? function.

 

Try this: press & hold the FF & eject buttons until your MFT system enters diagnostic mode. Then you can go into APIM diagnostics (or something like that) and then to GPS information. That screen should also show the elevation, GPS coordinates, # of satellites connected to the car and more.

Edited January 21, 2015 by hybridbear

[acdii]

Non Nav MFT has the upper right quadrant as information instead of navigation, maybe they are referring to that screen.

[corncobs]

Non Nav MFT has the upper right quadrant as information instead of navigation, maybe they are referring to that screen.

Yes that's correct the upper right states Information where you will find "Where am I"

[hybridbear]

I just realized that I never posted our MPG results for the trip.

 

 

We had 1208.5 EV miles. It truncates the thousands place.

 

Right about 47 MPG when you factor out the free electricity along the trip. Check out the Fuelly link in my signature for the full details of each tank. Almost every tank involved putting in more fuel than the car showed (as is expected) but overall I think we did better than 45 MPG based on at-the-pump gallons.

Edited February 9, 2015 by hybridbear

[hybridbear]

Another thing I observed during our road trip was a duplication of the behavior described here. Do others also experience this after hours of freeway driving?

[mwr]

Another thing I observed during our road trip was a duplication of the behavior described here. Do others also experience this after hours of freeway driving?

I did several hours of freeway driving last month and didn't notice that behavior.

[ptjones]

I just got back from a trip and also didn't notice that behavior. I do monitor my IT(Intake Temp) , because I have Grill Covers on. Normally I see 10-15*F over OT at FWY speeds and getting off the FWY to start with15-25*F IT(ICE Compartment) City with temps usually going down slowly with lack of ICE usage. It will go higher it you are stopped. IMO I don't this is a temp problem. If your Torque Scanner had all the info the Computers are putting out and you could compare it to when the car is acting normal you might be able get an Idea of what is going on. At least it's a starting point. :)

 

Paul

[hybridbear]

This past weekend we went to visit family in Winnipeg. Wind makes a huge difference. Going north we had the wind behind us and even though we were driving in rain the whole day with temps in the low 50s we managed over 48 MPGe driving 465 miles with only one charge. Coming home, same distance & only one charge, we only got 39 MPGe driving into the wind with less rain & temps in the 60s to low 70s. The change in wind meant about a 20% reduction in fuel economy! That's a big impact.

 

A big difference could be seen in our fuel use. From Mpls to Fargo going north we used 4.93 gallons, coming home from Fargo to Mpls we used 6.40. From Fargo to Winnipeg we used 4.59 gallons, from Winnipeg to Fargo coming home we used 5.18 gallons. The total fuel use northbound was 9.52 gallons, southbound we needed 11.58 gallons. We used more than 2 extra gallons of gas coming home because of the wind.

 

I could noticeably see the difference in the kW at the wheels according to Torque Pro. The load was significantly heavier coming home driving into the wind. It could also be seen in the ICE RPM. Most of the time when on flat ground with the wind behind us the RPM was around 1900-2000. Driving into the wind the RPM was usually around 2250-2350.

 

Some other observations:

The rain noticeably cooled the tires and lowered their pressure. Coming home we drove in & out of rain. When driving in the rain on wet/cool pavement the tire pressure was about 42 PSI. When driving on dry pavement the tire pressure was around 45 PSI in all tires. Cold pressure at 50 degrees is about 42 PSI in our tires.

 

Transmission fluid temperature peaked at around 170 F. Most of the time it was right around 150 F. Driving in the rain we had to run the defrost & thus the A/C compressor was on which causes the grille shutters to open at least partway and the ICE fan turns on. The only time the transmission fluid temp reached 170 F was when there was no rain so we had the climate control off and the sunroof cracked for ventilation.

 

The ICE coolant temp never exceeded 195 F. With defrost running causing the aforementioned cooling effects the coolant only got up to about 182-184 F. Even with the heavier load while coming home the coolant temp didn't really go above 185 F because of defrost keeping the shutters open.

 

Another possible reason for lower fuel economy coming home was that we were running 87 octane gas instead of 89. The tank that we burned going north was 89 octane. As mentioned in post 23 the spark advance & VCT advance behavior changed when running 87 octane gas for the trip home. The drive from Mpls to Fargo was all 89 octane. In Fargo we topped off with 87 and I could immediately notice a change in the spark advance & VCT advance. The tank was near empty by the time we returned to Fargo on the trip home. I added just enough 87 octane to make it back home. Once the tank was running all 87 the spark advance was even less than on the mixed tank. Tomorrow I'll fill the car and we'll be putting in 89 octane again.

 

Here are our trip results:

 

While driving at freeway speeds we were usually under 10% EV miles according to the MyFord Mobile trip log. Some stretches were as low as 3% EV miles, most of the long highway stretches showed around 5-7% EV miles. Overall we had about 18% EV miles including all our driving around the city and 46.6 MPG when you don't factor in the free electricity while staying in Winnipeg.

Edited May 19, 2015 by hybridbear

[Texasota]

Interesting read. I have also found the wind direction/speed to be the single biggest factor in MPG variability. I have no scientific evidence to prove this but it seems like a 10 MPH headwind has a bigger impact on MPG than driving 10 MPH faster. Like I said, no way to prove that (only a gut feel) but, if true, it seems odd that it works out that way.

[GrySql]

Last year we drove north to Oregon, straight into the teeth of a 20-40mph blustery wind, my FFH got 27mpg (!) on that first 400 mile section of the of the trip, almost no EV.

My brother and his wife traveled in their 2013 VW Golf TDI and he also complained of his terrible mileage, 28mpg's.

 

Coming home 3 days later the storm had passed and we did not get the compliment of having a tailwind on the way home, but still eked out a 37mpg average for the entire trip. My brother's smaller VW Golf TDI did a little better, but frankly that is comparing apples to oranges in cars. The FFH is, by far, the nicer car to travel in and his diesel fuel cost more.

[hybridbear]

Yesterday we did a 150 mile one-way drive which allowed me to gather some more data. Ambient temps were in the 60s and we didn't use A/C, just vent with the sunroof also vented for more airflow. We got about 54 MPGe on the trip.

 

The TFT temp peaked at 179 F after about 1.5 hours and then began dropping. It stabilized at about 170-172 F after about 2 hours and stayed there for the final hour of the drive.

 

The traction motor coil temp was the hottest part of the electric motor/eCVT components. Its temp peaked at about 210 F. The traction motor coil seems to get the hottest when we drive in EV mode on the highway to use up our EV range. The coil temp got up to about 185-190 F before we drove the final 15+ miles in all EV mode to use up the HVB charge.

 

The coolant temp was mostly around 190-195 F. On occasions the coolant temp would go up above 195 F to 197-199. When the coolant temp went above 195 F the grille shutters would begin to open. At 195 F they usually showed 0% open, at 197-199 F they would show 8-25% open.

[hybridbear]

The warmer the outside temp the warmer the car will let the HVB get. I remember seeing this behavior somewhat in the FFH and it's more apparent in the Energi which heats up the HVB a lot when running in EV mode. On days that were in the upper 70s the car would let the HVB get up to 96.8 before turning on the fans to cool it.

[Texasota]

On days that were in the upper 70s the car would let the HVB get up to 96.8 before turning on the fans to cool it.

Can these fans be heard when they turn on? I don't think I have ever detected/noticed mine turning on and I usually notice a different noise right away.

[ptjones]

A couple of days ago I noticed the fan running when I got home and before I turned the car off. Temps were in the middle 80's, summer has arrived in Atlanta area, good for MPG's and not so good for people. ;)

 

Paul

[hybridbear]

Can these fans be heard when they turn on? I don't think I have ever detected/noticed mine turning on and I usually notice a different noise right away.

We don't usually find the fan noise noticeable inside the car. If you stop and open the trunk you can clearly hear the fans even at their lowest speed (1000 RPM).