Demand for 200mpg motorcycle?

Question

Would you pay an extra $3000 for a conversion kit on your motorcycle?

It's a device that is in between the tank and the carb. Can be removed easily when cooled off. Same horsepower & torque. Same rpm range of power. No major conversion. I'm thinking of $2000 since most motorcycle engines don't last long enough to pay for this.

Plus, the mythbusters episode of acetone additive, and vaporizer carb is not near this tech.

Won't work on a fuel injected car engine without removing fuel rail, injectors and installing a new intake manifold and carb...hard to do. Will work with gasoline generators, unit injected diesel engines/generators, carbureted outboard/inboard gasoline boat engines (outboard is difficult due to space constrictions)

Which would be worth it to you?

Answer 1

I understand you can tweak any engine to give you better mpg but the tradeoff is horsepower. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe Mythbusters needs to run a test on the conversion but if it was possible to convert to higher mpg without reducing horsepower, why don't the makers do it to begin with? I think the guy that ran the numbers and shows the payoff is 43,000 miles sums it up. One other thing to think about is that after the conversion, you may have a hard time selling the bike. If I was a prospective buyer, I may bypass your bike for an unmodified model.

Answer 2

You left out one very important piece of information....what size engine is this 200 mpg supposed to come from? If you're talking about a little scooter, going from 110 mpg to 200 mpg is significant, but if you're talking about taking a 1000cc 40 mpg bike to 200 mpg, not that's something! $3k is quite a bit to spend on a Vespa scooter, but on a $18-20k touring bike, more realistic. I want to know how you're reducing heat losses...as I'm sure you know, from each gallon of fuel, the average heat losses consist of 5% through the oil, 30 something % through the exhaust and another 30 something% through the cooling system leaving approximately 33% of the fuel energy delivered in the form of horsepower. To get this kind of super fuel economy, you must be reducing those parasitic heat losses and converting them into hp. Obviously you aren't using ceramic engine components, the most promising yet undeveloped method of doing that.

Answer 3

Nada, pal, but lemme tell you why. I'm going to LPG which
can be made from petrol or natural gas. Canada & USA
export natural gas and import petrol. I've even got Canada
pipeline gas running through my town and while CNG isn't
my choice of powertrain fuel Honda Civic GX Model runs
on the stuff; Honda also provides a pump for fueling off the
home heating line during your sleep hours. LPG has been
used for decades and is what US Government petrol fleets are being exchanged for. Didn't you get the memo?

Answer 4

As others have pointed out, the maths don't suggest that this would be a wise investment.

You would have to do A LOT of riding to make such an investment even slightly attractive.

For my type of riding, maybe a cost range of $250 to $500 would make the conversion attractive. This is assuming of course that my current performance would be maintained.

Answer 5

Maybe -it depends :

What does it weigh ?
Do I still get the same horsepower ?
Can I take it off to fit to my next bike ?

- But probably not - it would take a long time to recover the cost - the improved range would be nice, but also not enough to warrant that level of investment.

Answer 6

can u tell us anything about the conversion?
I personally wouldn't because my bike is mostly for driving short distances. And the gas mileage doesn't matter a whole lot. for my car? Definitely!

Answer 7

1090 gallons of gas worth of fuel.... to get a conversion kit to make it more fuel effeiciant.. perhaps i would if i drove A LOT

Answer 8

$3,000 = 1090 gallons x 40MPG = 43,636 miles

No I would not buy this. Too long of a return on investment.

Answer 9

How about a bicycle