///// Cannon Ball run in a jetta tdi ?? ////

Andyinchville1 said:

They used to have photo cameras in our area but they got rid of them because too many people were pissed with them and tickets ....

My girlfriend was among the last few to get a photo ticket before they removed it.... I think that made her doubly pissed !

I suppose if you go through the trouble of cannonballing maybe remote controlled flip down plates (I saw a you tube on one cool idea ...push button before toll booth / photo toll).... or putting the plate inside a deep frame (visible from straight behind but somewhat obscured form any other angle other than straight on viewing)

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They did away with the ones in NC because they were unconstitutional. The proceeds from the camera fines were supposed to go to the local schools. Since traffic violations are considered a criminal activity, those dollars can't help buy a book for the first grade class.

Driving cross country with 1400 lbs of fuel stuffed into the passenger compartment @ 120+ mph can only end one way. Good luck Kowalski!

turbobrick240 said:

Driving cross country with 1400 lbs of fuel stuffed into the passenger compartment @ 120+ mph can only end one way. Good luck Kowalski!

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[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]


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Interesting Thread...

A couple of comments for what they may be worth.

Fourth gear in my Vanagon with the ALH is very similar to 4th gear in my 2003 Jetta. At about 3050 RPMs the Van is running about 70 MPH (Tach, Speedometer, ScanGuage and GPS verified). I'm not sure what 3050 RPMs would equate to in the Jetta, prolly close to 85 mph. Anyway, I've driven the Vanagon pulling a popup camper with four people and stuff on board all day cruising at 70-75 with no issues...... averages about 26 MPG (does 32-34 without the camper).

In 1996, we drove from Chamberlain, South Dakota to my home exit off I-75 in Kentucky in 21 hours........ 1245 miles. I was driving an 83 Vanagon with the air-cool 2.0 engine and four adults and stuff on board. I'd stop only long enough to fuel up and hit the restroom.......... averaged just under 59 mph. That was the longest miles in one haul I ever done. I do remember driving to Oklahoma City in 1980 with my 1980 VW Diesel Rabbit...... seems that was 915 miles, but it took a very long time as there were a lot of pee stops (something like 17 hours or more).

abishoff said:

I would be ok with adding the AirLift 1000? Bags into the springs to support the extra weight of fuel. I would guess holding speed near 110 and with a tunes designed to maximize fuel efficiency I’d get 22mpg maybe 25.

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Somebody didn't read my previous post.

I would love to see you this fold out on YouTube

jmodge said:

I would love to see you this fold out on YouTube

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Actually I had some thoughts on doing that after a friend pointed out it may be interesting to actually do a build up
With an actual run in mind ....

Of course it would be a more sane run than an actual winning time run....

I had done a few YouTube videos in the past but it's been a while since I've done it I guess I'll have to try to relearn how to upload things...

I'll post a few random thoughts in the next post...

I had actually a rather long reply but I had to switch over to take a phone call and then everything disappeared because I failed to send it .... ugh....

Anyways given that I have a little free time tonight since I'm not driving I'll post a little more of my thoughts in this thread ....

turbobrick240 said:

Driving cross country with 1400 lbs of fuel stuffed into the passenger compartment @ 120+ mph can only end one way. Good luck Kowalski!

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After reviewing / re reading some of the posts here it seems as though the fuel mileage I've been figuring for top speed is quite a lot better than I would have originally thought ..

Given that , and the fact that trying to put all the fuel needed to do the run with one tank would grossly exceed the gvwr of the vehicle ( especially after adding in the weight of three occupants unless we could find three anorexic dwarfs or midgets to Pilot the vehicle ) , I more or less have resigned myself to thinking the car needs to hold 80 gallons a fuel and would have to be refueled one time.

To that end I mocked up a 60 gallon fuel tank...22 inch diameter x 33 inches long ....

You know I never really thought of a Jetta station wagon as being a really small car but when you try to put a 60 gallon fuel tank inside space gets eaten up really quickly.

My original thought was to somehow shoehorn the tank in and have the third person ( the spotter) ride on top of the fuel tank like riding a horse but unfortunately there's not enough Headroom for that...

For weight distribution purposes I believe the tank needs to fit directly behind the passenger and driver seat side to side and centered .... I thought about putting the fuel tank behind the passenger rear seat but that's an awful lot of weight far to the rear of the vehicle...

Anyways for less than 29 hours I figure the spotter can grin and bear it .... probably ride mostly with elbows on tank and head propped on top of hands crouched over the fuel tank .... I'm beginning to think a dwarf or midget would be an essential person in light of space and weight
Constraints ...

The veggie oil people actually have a 10 gallon tank that fits inside where the spare tire goes.

Factory tank holds roughly 14 gallons so altogether the fuel capacity for a vehicle would be 84 gallons Tip-Top full or a relatively conservative 80 gallons.

With that one refueling stop would be necessary to do the entire run or some method would have to be devised to fuel on the go airplane Style....

So now we're down to about 70 gallons of fuel inside the car (only about 490 lbs of fuel)....pretty safe now huh?
;-)

In a previous post in this thread I mentioned maybe doing a sane run not necessarily a winning time run .... cannonballing

I'm wondering if a challenging run ( more challenging perhaps??) would be a run involving speed AND fuel economy ....

In power washing , the cleaning ability of a power washer is often determined by the number of cleaning units..... i.e.

Gallons per hour x pressure = effective cleaning units...

I'm wondering if there could be some sort of race (?) challenge carwise along those similar lines...

Maybe something like :

fuel economy ( in mpg) X average speed = race number

Therefore a winning car doesn't have to do extremely crazy speeds in order to win because it's also factoring in
Fuel economy into the equation....

The car with the highest overall race number ( or we can call it something else my brain just couldn't think of anything interesting to call it this late at night) wins...

Maybe we can kind of call it and Eco challenge run because it's not all about brute speed .. fuel economy would matter too.

With that in mind , I'm going to try to figure out or read how many gallons of fuel the winning car used because I think I read somewhere they averaged 103 miles per hour .... with that and knowing how many miles they ran , we can figure out we can figure out what their race number would be....

Ok looked up some info...

Winning distance travelled
2825 miles, they had 60 gallon fuel cap and made 4 stops ( I'll assume they filled it up full each time and ran until nearly empty because I don't I know exactly how many gallons they used ( I could not find that info yet)

So 2825 / 240 is 11.77 mpg

11.77 mpg x 103 mph avg = 1212.386 race number

Would that be "easy" to beat with much better fuel mileage and lower avg speed?.... lower average speed would make it somewhat safer theoretically....

Actually without too much thought it would be relatively easy to beat...

40 mpg x 60 mph = 2400

Hmmmmmm

That sounds kinda boring. I think it would be better to do a timed race where all vehicles are allocated x amount of fuel. There could be compensation factor to account for the greater energy density of diesel(by volume). Maybe allot enough fuel to require an avg. of 35 mpg or something like that. There could be different brackets too- 25 mpg, 35 mpg, 45 mpg....

Can you do some sort of T-shape for the rear and not have a spare tire and then somehow fold or remove the one side of the rear seat. You should have room for one rear passenger. And as I mentioned regarding the weight in the back, put in some airbags in the rear springs to hold the weight. Shoot I’d be interested in trying this in my Passat [emoji848]


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I put 900 pounds of tools in my 2003 Jetta wagon and drive many miles, putting that much fuel in it would not bother me. I do have airlift bags in the rear springs.

Pull the rear seats, make a custom tank. Spotter can lay on the tank, give him/her a couple blocks of cheese to help hold things together

I did the math with a Tesla one time: Is a cross country journey faster to drive slow & recharge less often (every 300 miles)...... or drive fast & recharge every 150 miles?

I found it was faster to drive fast, even though it meant more stops at superchargers. IMHO the same would be true with Gasoline versus diesel, where the faster-moving gas car would have the advantage, even with more frequent stops

.

Without any real details this means absolutely nothing.

Of course it's faster to drive fast. Internal combustion vehicles can refuel in a fraction of the time it takes to recharge an EV.

turbobrick240 said:

it's faster to drive fast.

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The 11th commandment if there ever was one!

Well I still think the the Gasoline car would have the advantage, even with more frequent fuel stops. The gas car drives faster

Trivia: A Tesla recharges in just 20 minutes, if you use their interstate superchargers

BeetlePD said:

Well I still think the the Gasoline car would have the advantage, even with more frequent fuel stops. The gas car drives faster

Trivia: A Tesla recharges in just 20 minutes, if you use their interstate superchargers

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True gas is faster most likely than a lowly TDI but If I recall correctly they still spent 22 minutes just to fuel ....

I saw a you tube the other day about pit crews and a trophy truck pit stop where they could fuel 90 gallons in 15 seconds .... wow!
If fueling on the side of the rod is slow at say even 30 seconds (well heck say they are practically sleeping and take a full minute), that would still be 21 minutes saved towards a record run....

I just got my rear sway bar in today in a nice big cardboard box .... now I can finish mocking up a 60 gallon cylindrical fuel tank!

HI,

Yes, custom tanks would be nice but more expensive ... hoping for off the shelf stuff...

I do have a 50 gallon L shaped fuel tank in the bed of the pick up (almost chair like! and I have 2 of them) but I think it is still too tall / long to put in and use as a seat where the stock seats were .... I'll have to measure next time I'm over where the truck is parked ....

As an interesting side note a friend of mine told me that I have nearly all the electronics needed to do such a run !

The following I already have but not installed in the car ...

1) Galaxy Dx99V CB with Astec power mike and Wilson 5000 antenna .

2) 100 watt linear

3) Radar Detector BUT should upgrade to non detectable (RDD invisible) like the new escort Redline (plus it has the benefit of an app with other escort users).

4) Mobile scanner - Unlocked all frequency export model .... use to be able to hear all the 800 Mhz cell phone band but its been awhile and I'm sure they scramble now...

5) Soon to order Thermal camera ... I have hit enough deer already. This one locates pedestrians and animals and circles them with a box (circles with a box Hmmm). and even gives a warning beep to boot so you don't have to watch the screen constantly.

3) GPS - have 2 with updated maps

4) Cell phone ... who does not have one?

5) Laptop - Not sure for what as far as cannonballing but have one none the less ....

6) Edit : Forgot I have a mobile tracking device also (used to put it in my work truck to keep track of where helpers go with the truck ...logs all routes, stops, speeds, times etc... big brother IS watching ! ;-)

Next post may be neat stuff to have on a max effort run ....

Laser scrambler?


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BeetlePD said:

Well I still think the the Gasoline car would have the advantage, even with more frequent fuel stops. The gas car drives faster

Trivia: A Tesla recharges in just 20 minutes, if you use their interstate superchargers

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Assuming you picked a diesel car that had similar power and performance specs (they had a Mercedes at 700 hp) I doubt what you say is true. Sure if you compare it to a 100 hp Jetta, you may be right. But that is an unfair comparison. That is like saying a F-18 will always be faster than a Cessna 150. It is a true statement but means nothing. Unfair comparison.

Driving gig I had got cancelled the so here is some stuff that may be good to have on a max effort run .... most / all of which I don't have ...

1) Radar jammer
2) Laser Jammer
3) Emergency vehicle signal changer
4) Cell phone jammer

To be truly stealthy at night ....

1) Car painted vanta black (may draw too much attention in the day tho).
2) If thermal camera is not enough maybe high power infra red lighting with night vision (not thermal camera).
3) Muffler system that is quiet yet free flowing .... can't be invisible at night f they hear ya coming from miles away ... or maybe they still will Hmmmm...

Vanta black is not that much more black than black velvet. Also if you knew anything about vantage black you cant just paint it on. Its extremely brutal and will wipe right off with light pressure let alone 100mph wind lol. Also most of that stuff was not used and would put so much added weight to the car you can kiss your time good by.
Also you dont have a car big enough to operate a radar jammer. Also they are highly detectable. Lazer hammers only work to buy you a fraction of a second. If a cop gets 2 false readings then your getting pulled over reguardless.
Not to mention that the entire cost of a run would be negated by half of this cost of some of this equipment. Vanta black is something like $500 per square inch and a radar jammer would be something that if you could buy or build it, enjoy a visit by the FBI

I decided I am going to try it, but I want to take at least 3 months and travel as many dirt roads as possible.

Lightflyer1 said:

Assuming you picked a diesel car that had similar power and performance specs (they had a Mercedes at 700 hp) I doubt what you say is true. Sure if you compare it to a 100 hp Jetta, you may be right. But that is an unfair comparison. That is like saying a F-18 will always be faster than a Cessna 150. It is a true statement but means nothing. Unfair comparison.

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Ha... good comparison...

I was going to do the following in real life and not just for cannonballing...

Good aero can make up for a large difference in HP...

1) I have already done grill blocks out of clear polycarbinate (seems to help with aero big time since my MPGs have been increased measureably .... theory : pointy front end cuts the wind better (think plymouth superbird although not that extreme obviously).

2) I have yet to do mainly because I don't have a lift but was going to eventually .... smooth belly pan .... eco modder has a few examples of this on a Jetta ... my inspiration!

3) Kamm Back .... I am now debating on whether I should use the cardboard from my new RSB to mock up a fuel tank or the Kamm back .... I'm guessing Kamm since the fuel tank idea is more theoretical than an actual will do project (I use the car daily and having a 60 gallon tank inside takes up valuable cargo area more than you would imagine .... Of course if we really do run it it would only be a temporary install none the less .... I'm guessing 500 lbs should sit fairly still without a whole lot of tie downs ....

Just Kidding of course! ;-)

Kamm would be made form clear polycarb so as to be somewhat stealthy and not impair rear vision ...


3) Side skirts may or may not be needed with a belly pan smoothing the undercarriage.

4) I am planning on removing the roof racks when the upholstery shop does the sagging headliner (I'll wait until it warms up a bit because I will sound deaden the roof while its apart too).

5) I am installing better / more inside mirrors and effectively eliminate the outside mirrors (will keep nominal 2" small convex outside mirrors on custom mounts to pass state inspections (in VA outside mirrors have to let you see 300 feet behind the vehicle .... I figure if I can see the sky that's plenty far away!).

6) Have to investigate wheel spats more ....

7) Maybe fill in / cover rear wheel opening

8) May get large enough magnetic sigh material to cover door handles (not quite shaved but I guess better than none).

9) Still have not done the pizza pan wheel covers ..... yet
Anyways, better aero would help get higher top end speed and when driving normally should help MPG's big time ....

10) rear diffuser

Any other aero ideas I have not though of ?

From the recaps of the "Winners" lately on the Coast to coast runs.
It is not just about your vehicle, it is about the support staff, spotter vehicles to so stints along in front of you to sweep the roads.
Having Radar, IR, heads up displays, RADAR Jammer, Laser Jarmmer a good spotter and GPS. Timing your trip is critical too, because you don't want to get stuck in traffic in a big city at an in opportune time.

In a diesel time of year helps too, because cooler temperatures (between 40 and 60*F makes better MPG and less A/C usage)-- October? also account for weather no point in driving through a tornado in Kansas or snow in the mountains to slow you down.

I would consider a couple of fueling dumps with the high-flow nozzles of car racing, 20 gallon in 4-5 seconds. so a 2 minute stop to change depends and refuel.

It only took Clessie Cummings $11 worth of fuel and 125 hours in 1931, without interstates.
https://www.constructionequipment.com/great-truck-run-1931

Hang glider roof rack. Worked well on Peter Brocks transporter.

woofie2 said:

It only took Clessie Cummings $11 worth of fuel and 125 hours in 1931, without interstates.
https://www.constructionequipment.com/great-truck-run-1931

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Great article. Diesel price was about 5.5 cents per gallon! Man, that would be great.

What about tires? Your normal all season radials would probably not tolerate that kind of heat for that length of time. Not saying that they wouldn't make the miles, just not ~24 hours at ~100 mph without rest and recovery might prove too abusive.