"Stealth" at speeds above 42mph

Well that's rather primitive.

How about if it sends the data as a spreadsheet through a bluetooth connection to your cell-phone or PDA?

 

ok make mine USB as I wouldn't want someone beside me at an intersection with his PDA having a look at my data or sending me a virus. I can imagine a virus that makes the car miss at say 41 44 miles per hour, the dealer would probably never figure something like that out.

 

If you're talking about using the BT connection in package 9 systems, it's not possible.

It's pretty firmly tied into the telephone portion of the nav package, and as far as getting it to do much other than the butchering of vCards it likes to do, I don't think it'd be very easy to do. You'd have to modify the firmware of the car, and that's not something I'd think many people would do lightly.

As an alternative, why not just go out and pick up a discontinued palm with the universal connector and use that as your display? It's easy enough to hack the universal connector into a serial connection....

 

an internal combustion engine only requires about 2 1/2 hp to start it so very little energy from the CVT is needed to spin the ICE and no the valves are never held open as Rick pointed out. The VVTi retards the intake cam to lower pumping pressure.

 

well there is a principle of momentum and its the same principle that says to maintain a speed of 65 mph, an average car expends about 23 HP to do so. Because of the lower than average wind drag coefficient, that figure would be lower for the Prius. so you see, from a running start, not much is needed to maintain speed. that is the beauty of the atkinson cycle engine.

 

Fair enough. As I said I am no expert but I got this impression from this

from Johns site http://john1701a.com/prius/prius-misconceptions.htm about 1/2 way down the page. (Bold is mine)

 

I didn't think all the Valves were all held open all the way through each cycle. I thought the Timings were adjusted so that the Intake and Exhaust Valve openings Overlapped - IE, there is always at least one valve open.

This means SOME pumping loss, but far less than if both valves were closed at the same time at a point in the cycle.

 

Neutral to Drive

Just wondering about coasting. Can you shift from Neutral to Drive while coasting at 55mph?

 

Re: Neutral to Drive

You can do this at any speed, back and forth, and nothing noticeable happens, other than the car gaining or losing speed.

You can also shift from D to R or even hit P at any speed and you won't damage the car; as a protective measure it will shift, you guessed it, into neutral.