Archive for Archive for May 22nd, 2008
The most fuel efficient vehicles for sale in The United States
According to the United States Department of Energy, these are the most fuel efficient vehicles in their respective classes.
Most fuel-efficient vehicle overall - Honda Insight hybrid
(60 mpg city / 66 mpg highway)
Once again the Honda Insight hybrid has taken top honors as being North America’s most fuel-efficient vehicle. With a 1.0 gas engine mated to an electric motor, the Insight produces 71 horsepower. The Insight was designed to make the most of that power using low resistance tires and by having a co-efficient of drag of .25 (the lower the number the better a vehicle is able to cut through the wind. A typical family sedan has a co-efficient of drag of about .31). The Insight’s shortcomings include a cramped interior, seating for two, and oddball styling.
Most fuel-efficient mid-size car - Toyota Prius hybrid
(60 mpg city / 51 mpg highway)
Unlike the Honda Insight, the Prius is capable of carrying 5 people plus their gear. The Prius generates a total of 110hp from its gasoline engine and its electric motor. Now in its second generation, the Prius makes few compromises to passenger comfort. The sleek shape yields a low co-efficient of drag (.26) but Toyota has managed to do this with a larger, more driver friendly vehicle than the Honda Insight.
Most fuel-efficient compact car - Honda Civic hybrid
(49 mpg city, 51 mpg highway)
Touted as being North America’s cheapest hybrid, the Honda Civic Hybrid takes the great design of the regular Civic and makes it even more efficient. With a total output of 110hp, the Civic hybrid is very competitive for its class. The hybrid version of the Civic costs about $5000 more than basic sedan but it includes many more standard features, and some features (like automatic climate control) that are not available on the regular Civic for any price.
Most fuel-efficient subcompact car - Volkswagen New Beetle diesel
(37 mpg city / 44 mpg highway)
The New Beetle diesel stays on the list even in the face of an onslaught of hybrid offerings. Making 100hp, the New Beetle diesel may not sound all that powerful but the 177 lb-ft of torque will shame every other vehicle on the list. Of course diesels still pollute more than hybrids but they offer few compromises and their long-term reliability and durability is rock solid, something that cannot yet be said for hybrid vehicles.
Most fuel-efficient small station wagon - Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix
(30 mpg city / 36 mpg highway)
The Pontiac Vibe and Toyota Matrix are the result of a joint venture of Toyota and General Motors. Both vehicles come equipped with Toyota engines but much of the design and engineering came from General Motors. The Matrix and Vibe are versatile vehicles suited to adventurous, active lifestyles. With a fuel-efficient 1.8L 4-cylinder producing 126hp, the Matrix and Vibe are not going to win many street races but they make up for it in smoothness, efficiency, and refinement.
Most fuel-efficient large car - Hyundai Sonata
(24 mpg city / 34 mpg highway)
The Sonata is the surprise of the list beating out tough competition to be rated as the most fuel-efficient large car. The 2.4L 4-cylinder engine is smooth and relatively powerful. Unfortunately, the suspension is soft, geared more towards comfort than handling. A BMW this is not. Build quality is great, clearly showing that Hyundai is no longer a second rate manufacturer. This car is all about comfort and efficiency, a formula that worked wonders for the Toyota Camry.
About the Author
Peter Johnson is the chief writer for all-about-car-selection.com
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Motorcycle Customization - Shared Passion and Individual Style
One of the key parts of motorcycling is making your ride unique to your taste. Motorcycling is all about the shared passion and individual style. Motorcycle customization has become big business driven by this need to take a showroom stock motorcycle and “Pimp” it out if you will. The demand for aftermarket parts has created a huge startup with ma and pa stores. Small time fabricators are designing custom pieces for their favorite motorcycles and offering them to the masses.
This is not to say that the major motorcycle corporations have not taken notice. Honda offers their very popular VTX motorcycle models in 13 different customization styles. You can mix and match to your heart is content. Victory motorcycle has also jumped into the customization game by offering customer a Custom Order Program. Victory basically lets the customer build the bike online the way the customer wants it by picking from the various custom options. Victory started this program back in 2004 and have been running it ever since. Most notibly with the Victory Hammer and now the extreme custom Victory Jackpot model. With the Ness team providing styling input for the Victory line, the customer ends up being the real winner here.
Victory is a breath of fresh air on the popular V-Twin cruiser market. They offer sharp stylish looking machines that actually are well built and perform really well. Harley-Davidson needs to take note. While Harley-Davidson business model has switched to making dealerships have multi-acre showrooms selling nothing but clothing, Victory came in under the radar and listened to their customers and provided them what they want — a stylish reliable high performance machine. Harley Davidson owners are quickly trading in their motorcycles for Victory Hammers, Vegas, Jackpots, and Kingpins. You will find it very difficult to find many Victory motorcycles on the showroom. No it is not that they are now just selling clothing like Harley dealers, but that they cannot keep the Victory motorcycles in stock.
The beauty of Victory is that they offer a diverse styling package for their bikes so that they do not just produce a cookie-cutter clone bike like Harley Davidson did with their 100th Anniversary edition bikes. How boring. Everyone bought one thinking it would be unique only to find out that Harley had way overproduced these bikes and forced them down the throats of the dealerships. Now everyone and their mother own one. No unique styling. No with the popularity of the Victory motorcycle growing more each year we are starting to see more shops start to produce quality aftermarket parts and accessories for your beloved Victory. The best way that I have found to keep informed of the latest products and upgrades is to monitor the various Victory motorcycle enthusiasts sites like the Victory Kingpin Cruisers site at http://www.kingpincruisers.net — This site is Victory Kingpin-centric but it also discusses all late-model Victory motorcycles and touches on customization tips, products, and maintenance tips and articles. The manufacturers also monitor these sites to get an idea of what their customers are saying. It is a great way to keep informed and benefits everyone.
So now you have your new Victory Kingpin sitting in your garage, you receive heaps of compliments and love to ride the machine. But after awhile you start thinking about upgrades and customizations. Maybe these came to you in your sleep or by looking at someone else’s motorcycle or by reading the aforementioned Kingpin Cruisers website. So what types of upgrades are out there you ask. At first it is best to do the cosmetic upgrades. Bolt on chrome pieces, custom mirrors, swap out the stock turn signals for chrome LED turn signals, upgrade to some PIAA driving lights for better night visibility. You could also get some stock pieces chromed. This takes lots of time and money and in my experience it is far more cost effective to just buy the piece new already chromed from the manufacturer. Again, the best places to find what is out there is to browse your favorite Victory enthusiasts site. The main reason to focus on the cosmetic bolt-on pieces at first is that you do not want to be making performance modifications while your new shiny Victory Kingpin is still under warranty. Any such modification may void your warranty. Now having said that, the first major scheduled service for Victory motorcycles is at 20,000 miles while Harley Davidson motorcycles is at 2,000. Yes I said two thousand. Ouch, give me a Victory any day.
So you now have your motorcycle all covered in expensive chrome pieces. You have had your bike and the warranty is about to expire. So now you should start looking into some performance modifications. Performance modifications are great if you enjoy wrenching on your motorcycle and doing all of the work yourself. If you buy these upgrades and have the dealership service department do all of the work, you will find that you will quickly go broke. Think of it this way, if you do your own wrenching, the money you save in labor can be used to buy more goodies for your beloved Victory. Now you may ask, what if I do not know how to install a certain component. Well, to keep the theme going, I suggest you consult your Victory enthusiasts web site. The Kingpin Cruisers (www.KingpinCruisers.net) offers free membership and has a volunteer certified Victory Technician there to answer questions and write technical articles on your Victory motorcycle. Plus there are heaps of others on this site that most likely have done the modification you are about to attempt.
Let us discuss a little more about performance modifications. When your Victory motorcycle is assembled and shipped to the dealership, it is tuned to run on the lean side. What does this mean? Well to satisfy EPA standard, manufacturers lean out their motorcycles so they run hotter and by controlling the air/fuel mixture. In this case a lean condition has more air in the mixture than fuel. This will cause your bike to backfire and rob you of a few horsepower. Related to this lean running condition is the design of the stock air box. On the Victory it is shaped like a coffin and does not allow for direct airflow into the throttle bodies for maximum performance. Instead the air has to go through a couple ninety-degree turns, through some velocity tubes and take another ninety-degree turn downward into the throttle bodies. Not too efficient. So you ask, what can I do to optimize this airflow? The following is a list of options:
1 - Upgrade your Victory to a Stage-I kit. This provides you with performance slip on exhaust, a K&N air filter with a vented air box cover. Victory also re-maps your ECU EFI computer to handle the new performance modifications.
2 - Once you have the Stage-I, you can drill 1″ diameter holes in the front of the stock air box in the direct line of the airflow. This provides a nice ram-air effect forcing more air into the throttle bodies. Before I forget, be sure to clean the soot off your throttle bodies at every oil change. The little maintenance you do here will make your Victory motorcycle run like new.
3 - Upgrade your stock air box to an aftermarket custom air box. One of the best upgrades that you could do is to install the Eaglecat Custom Victory Air box. This custom air box for Victory motorcycles both looks great and provides a lot more air flow into your engine. This is very high on the upgrade list for Victory motorcycles.
4 - Instead of being at the mercy of the Victory dealership, you can install a custom fuel-control module. The best one on the market is the Lloydz Victory Control Module (VFC). This little control module comes with plugs that connect right into your Victory’s ECU computer. Then you have some dials on the unit to better control the air/flow mixture. This modification works best if you have at least the Stage-I upgrade kit installed. Also suggest you install the Eaglecat Victory air box for maximum gains.
Once you have spent your money and installed these parts, I strongly suggest you have your motorcycle fine-tuned on a dyno. Most service shops have a dyno machine and charge from $40 on up for tuning. You may possibly see an additional 11 horsepower gain with these modifications. Not too bad for a Victory cruiser.
The performance modifications mentioned above are a very cost-effective solution for increasing the performance and horsepower of your motorcycle. There are more expensive routes that are available. These include: Upgrading to a Stage II performance kit and upgrading your exhaust system.
The final performance modification I suggest for the Victory motorcycles, especially the 2004 models with the 5-speed transmission, is the Overdrive drive sprocket pulley by TurboTec. For the 2004 5-speed transmission Victory motorcycles, this will make it so you will not have to down shift as much at highway cruising speeds. Giving you lower RPMS at speed and thus a smoother ride. The pulley is slightly larger than the stock pulley, which is why the shifting pattern changes for the better at speed. For standing start bursts, this overdrive pulley will shed some of that initially blast, but the benefit is smoother highway shifting. This is an inexpensive performance modification that you can install yourself. And if you have doubts about the installation, be sure to read and post questions on your Victory Kingpin enthusiast’s site (www.kingpincruisers.net).
In summary, I hope this article has given you some sense of the various cosmetic and performance upgrades available to the consumer. I am very pleased with the products that Victory is producing and think they are going to continue to become more popular each year. So stay tuned for more articles on upgrades to make your Victory motorcycle unique.
Contributing author to Cycle Solutions http://www.cyclesolutions.net
Technical research for this article was performed on the Victory Kingpin Cruisers site. http://www.kingpincruisers.net
About the Author
Contributing author to Cycle Solutions http://www.CycleSolutions.net http://www.KingpinCruisers.net
A motorcycle or motorbike is a single-track , two-wheeled motor vehicle powered by an engine. Styles of motorcycles vary depending on the task for which they are designed, such as
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