Team Twin-Snail
Before the Stage
“How much do we have in the reserve?” Luke asked, tapping the fuel gauge on the dash.
“Not a lot. We’ll be hard-pressed to make the distance with our fuel stores this low.” Linda said, banging on the gas cans in the trunk to find they were rather low on fuel in the reserves as well.
“I don’t like this. We’ve got 3 stages to go, and we might be out because our fuel supplies can’t make it.” Scott said. “Is there anything you can do, Luke?”
“We can shed as much weight as we can from the car. But that comes at a risk of not having that stuff when we need it. If we had a lift, a transmission jack, and enough time, I could re-ball the valve body, change the shift points so we’re more economical, but we don’t have any of those things. We can reduce the load on the engine, but that means any major down-hill sections will need more brakes.”
“How much load can you reduce on the engine?” Amy asked.
“I don’t need power steering, and we’re in a convertible, so we don’t need air conditioning. And the bearings in both of those are awful right now. We could remove the belts, but… I don’t think it’d make a big difference in the grand scheme of things.” Luke said.
“Well, how much can the little things add up?” Linda asked.
“We get 8.8 MPG unloaded in our starting condition. If we lose the air conditioning belt, the power steering belt, oil the flying-crap out of the fan bearings, and gut the radio, we’ll make no change.” Luke replied.
“So what can we do?” Scott asked.
“It’s not legal. If we got pulled over, we’d be in big trouble, as in ‘massive fines’ kind of trouble.” Luke replied.
“No, seriously, at this point, what can we do?” Amy inquired.
“My calculations predict that we could improve fuel efficiency from 8.8 MPG to 9.6 MPG by removing the catalytic converters.” Luke said. “But we lose all emissions legality if we do it.”
“What about the rest of the exhaust?” Scott questioned.
“We might have to ditch it. And our car’s much, much louder than the Erin Berlose that Team Southend-or-Bust has been driving. It drove them crazy when their muffler went.” Luke replied. “But… It might have to be done.”
Day 2, Leg 10
Luke pulled the big beast up to the starting line, this time trying to keep the revs low so that they didn’t burn more fuel than they had to. As the flag dropped, he slowly let out of the brake and gave the car the barest tickle of gas, making it rumble as it began rolling. With no radio on, no lights, nothing that could put a significant drain on the engine, they were driving this stage as economically as possible.
They made their way down the hill, coasting as much as possible to avoid burning fuel as much as they could, each team member looking at the gauges as Luke drove down Jade Lake Road.
It became obvious that Luke’s pace was picked for more than just saving fuel, as he was trying to avoid putting any excessive heat through the engine. The turbos were barely whispering, the intercooler air-side temperature gauge stayed reasonably close to the ambient temperature, and Luke seemed more concerned about the engine temperature than anything else.
“What are you doing, Luke?” Amy asked.
“Trying not to build any extra heat into the engine. The longer it runs without clutching in the cooling fan, the better off it’ll be.”
“Wouldn’t driving faster help that problem too?” Scott commented from the back seat.
“It’d burn more gas. And right now, we can’t afford to blow through fuel like we have been. We need every drop we can get.”
They crawled their way over the finish line at the Historic Jade Trading Post, then set about their duties.
Day 2, Leg 10 Aftermath
Linda finished dumping in the last remaining 5 gallon can of gasoline, dropping the empty container back into the trunk once she was done. “Well, there’s either 44 or 48 miles, depending on whether Luke can dismount the converters. Plus whatever little was left in the gas tank.” she said.
Scott checked the fluids while Luke was under the car, both trying to decide if he could remove the converters and also if he could manage to put the muffler back on, straight off the turbo down-pipe.
“It might be possible, but… I don’t know if I can manage to get those bolts out. We have to make 3 more legs in this car to finish, but we weren’t briefed on how much distance we’d be traveling, or I’d have made sure we had a sufficiently large reserve, more than we brought already.” Luke said.
Car Condition:
Similar to last leg. Potentially missing the Catalytic Converters to improve fuel efficiency.
Team Condition:
MRL +13 overall. Nervous about the fuel supply issue.
TEAM MORALE AT MAXIMUM.
