`10 FFH/MMH Specific Suggestions and/or Best Practices for Better FE

Hi WP, I am wondering if there is no LGA for the FFH? My somewhat limited experience to date with the FFH in Low Gear did not seem to lend itself to the higher charging rates as reported in other hybrid vehicles in Low? But, since I've only ever driven an FFH and no other hybrids, hard to say for sure?

I believe the FFH uses the ICE engine while in Low (perhaps without burning gas?) for increased engine braking. A few trips of driving downhill for several floors in a parking garage (different days at work) seemed to indicate that there was a better HV battery charging experience using the normal “D” drive mode (with the foot off of the accelerator providing the normal drag regen) and using normal regenerative braking around the corners, instead of the forced engine braking in “L”? While it did govern the downhill speed to a better degree in Low by itself, my thoughts are there was less charging/regen when in Low. Since I was just getting warmed up and out of the garage, I wanted to have the additional SoC for the stop and go before the highway, so I only tried Low a couple of days hoping to find some additional charging that didn't seem to be there? We don’t have very many downhill stretches of road in our part of the country to test against otherwise. Anybody have any info here? Average speed and slope of the decline may have some effect on this too. I wasn't going very fast in the garage!

GaryG - Thanks for the info on the Active & Passive Neutral modes! Makes sense!

 

I might have to try that dropping into R when I'm at low speed for regen....especially when I get caught in stop and go traffic(every freaking day) might add another couple tenths of mpg.

And it might get some of those FSP to back off a little

Of course I'm going to try it on an empty street first to make sure the car and cvt dont flip out when i do it. Although if it works and i do it during rush hour the rear park assist and cross traffic alert are going to flip out and beep like madness

 

Wayne, GaryG over at BlueOvalForums recommends not letting the electric assist kick in when you accelerate the ICE and also recommends "blipping" the ICE on before it comes on automatically, to reduce or eliminate the electric assist at ICE startup. I'm having no success with this - the electric assist always seems to come into play when accelerating the ICE or at ICE turn on. Do you have any tips or suggestions?

 

I've had the best success by shifting to neutral and back to "D" during deceleration before the blip. You need a SGII SoC X-Gauge to verify how much if any SoC is reduced at a restart. Once the start-up is complete then you can slowly accelerate at 83 - 90% engine load for your pulse back to your desired steady state speed. I set the cc on flat roads at the steady state speed for recharging the battery to or above 42% for maintaining the steady state speed in EV still in cc. I then glide in EV and neutral once the SoC drains down to ~40.8% till I get close to a restart at around 40.3% SoC then shift back to "D" for the quick accelerator blip to restart the engine. This is my P&G technique below 40mph in my FEH but the FFH has a higher EV speed up to 47mph.

Any time I need a restart for acceleration I shift to neutral first and back to "D" for the blip restart to save as much battery Soc as possible. Also, accelerating at 83 - 90% engine load you will not get motor assist till you reach above 99% load. There are exceptions to this like when the battery SoC is above the MG1 charging limits and during the warm-up strategy.

GaryG

 

Perhaps a silly question, but looking at the PDF for the vehicle specific codes, will the same Xgauge codes listed for the FEH work on our FFH?

Are there any FFH specific Xgauge codes that aren't listed in the PDF?

Also, any recommendations on which gauges are the most useful for day-to-day driving?

Is the "blip" technique achievable without the shifting?

Thanks in advance!

 

My '09 FEH has many of the changes the '10 FFH has and everything seems to work with the X-gauges still. After all, they both have the same engine and the eCVT only has a few upgrades. I go by CarlD's list of X-Gauge programs because there are a few mistakes in the SGII site PDF.

I monitor 2 SGII's in my FEH:

1. Instant MPG - To determine what driving methods work and how conditions are affecting my mileage.

2. Engine Load (LOD) = To regulate acceleration of the Pulse and climbing hills and bridges.

3. Open/Close Loop (LP) To monitor Fuel-Cut with Instant MPG (9,999mpg).

4. State Of Charge (SoC) To maintain HV battery management.

5. Tank MPG Average - To monitor overall MPG for control. I change this gauge to Current and Today's MPG every so often to monitor sudden changes in Tank MPG.

The blip can be done without changing gears from "D", but it's not as effective (some SoC loss) and you don't take advantage of a neutral glide. The neutral glide will give you a big increase in your overall MPG average. I prefer not to drop below 25mph during a P&G segment before a restart.

GaryG

 

I went out and did 5 runs today on an 8 minute, rolling-to-hilly course. I set the FFH gauge to "Engage" so I could see power output from the electric motor and the ICE. On 2 of the runs, whenever I engaged ICE I tried to keep the ICE power around the second line on the power gauge (0 being no power). On the other 3 runs whenever ICE engaged I tried to keep the ICE power around 4. The power level goes up to 6. I would only accelerate up to a maximum speed of 45, then lay off and go to EV mode until my speed got to 30-35 or I hit a hill.

Every time the ICE engaged the electric motor would contribute. I can't seem to stop this, and the "blip" thing doesn't work for me although I admit I haven't tried going into neutral first. It can be difficult to keep the ICE at a given power level when the electric engine is kicking in and out.

Here are the MPG results of the 5 loops:

ICE power at "2":
45.5 mpg
49.4 mpg

ICE power at "4":
50.7 mpg
46 mpg
48.5 mpg

There doesn't seem to be much difference in MPG, if anything using the higher power level is slightly better. That's good to know because it means I can accelerate significantly quicker ("normal" acceleration) without penalty.

Thoughts/comments?

 

Today I beat my previous best mpg going to work - 60.4 mpg vs 57.4 - I modified my normal technique by applying more power than I had been before when using the ICE. This seems to bear out my results in the last post.

Is this what others have found too? Moderate throttle to ICE is better than low throttle to ICE?

Note, the route to work has a lot of downhill in it. Normally I get about 36mpg on the way home - will be interesting to see what I get today.

 

From reading your blog you're doing great Bill! The average lifetime MPG is what you need to record here because that is the bottom line for the driver and the vehicle. There is no long term mileage data established for the FFH and I hope you can make Ford proud with your results.

I'm finishing the last tank in my '09 FEH for the year of ownership with about 12,300 miles on my lifetime OD and I think I'll break a 49mpg average in an SUV with all the learning and break-in of a new vehicle.

GaryG

 

Thanks Gary, I must admit I'm really impressed with your numbers. My car average around here, where its moderately hilly, is 43.5 mpg. On my 17 mile test loop I got 54.3 the first two times and 55.2 tonight although my SOC was shot.

I don't know how I would average that in normal day-to-day driving, though I hope to keep learning.

 

Well a little update on my car...I refueled over the weekend. Managed 816.7 miles on 16.024 gallons. I could have went farther....however my MTE went all wonky on me and strangely dropped about 50 miles off the top one day for no reason. So scared me into refueling earlier. But still, nearly broke 51mpg(50.96mpg) for that tank. Lifetime average is 47.5mpg now.

Basically I can without trying too hard get 50+ mpg every day now. On lucky days I'll crack low 60s. And only a few times now I've broken 70mpg on a trip.

Was really proud of the car and myself this weekend, I managed over 40+ minutes of 60+ mpgs at highway speed. And at the end of that trip which was about 80%highway 20% city managed 57.3mpg over 137miles.

And as far as SOC is concerned on my 8 mile trip to work, if I feather things out, I can keep the car in EV for at least 70% of the trip if traffic isn't too harsh. I did some measuring even, the warmup period just kills me since its a short drive. I say this because if I drive my car to work and the car is already warmed up I can usually eek out anywhere from 59-68mpg. From a cold start my very BEST was 58.3mpg, usually more like 51-54mpg.

Either way if I can average low 50s lifetime in this car I will be extremely satisfied.

 

51 mpg for a tank! Wow! My average is 43.6 - how are you getting such great mileage? How hilly is it where you are driving? I drive in moderately hilly conditions. On the highway I can get 47-50 - what is your secret?

 

I'd love to have some hills to work with here in my area because there is nothing like the MPG boost to gain speed, pick up some regen and free ride down in EV or fuel-cut.

Those of us here that get the high averages must get extreme MPG above our averages for it all to work out. I'm talking 65 - 70mpg segments in my FEH to bring back MPG averages lost due to stops. We know Wayne got a 88mpg segment in the FFH so you need to know how to get into that extreme MPG to make up for those no so extreme segments. Cold starts are a killer but it's those repeated stops for shopping every few miles that kills my average. For this reason I must plan by driving to go the longest distance first to average out that cold start and any stops on the return trip. An example I had yesterday was a 15 mile trip with three more 20 - 60 minute stops. I had a 54mpg average on the 230 mile tank at the cold morning start-up but had my average drop to almost 52mpg when I got home. I'll have to get a lot of extreme MPG driving to get my average back to 54mpg so chances are I will not have a 54mpg tank this time.

This is not rocket science to me because I've had 4 years with a Ford hybrid. My goal is to cut short anyone's learning time that I had to discover over the years. Others here are doing the same thing so experiment with their techniques until you get them to work and then blend them with your conditions. My '09 FEH is changing as it breaks-in and I'm changing to climbing bridges in EV more often with DWL. As you put the miles on your FFH you will see the same things I saw on my '05 FEH and now on my '09 FEH.

Learn how and where to get those extreme MPG out of your FFH and work them into your daily drive and your average will increase also.

GaryG

 

Well today driving back on a 85 mile trip I managed a decent 54.0mpg trip(too cold and windy today). My secret is like Gary talked about, doing the little things for extreme mpgs. Keeping my tires at 52psi, going downhill tap the brakes(which shuts the gas engine off) then slip into neutral and let off a glide. without even needing a pulse because with your tires inflated up the car rolls even better.

Judicious use of CC is what really gets me bang up mileage for highway speed trips. Last week I did a 145mile roundtrip highway speed roadtrip and pulled off 59.8mpg(so close to 60 I was kinda mad)

And you have to let your car start to break in. I'm guessing you aren't much past 1000 miles. I'm almost to 5000 miles.

I can average usually 50-60mpg on my drive to work(actually yesterday coming home from work I pulled off 65.8mpg) and thats including the fact that I only drive 8 miles to work one way. And my current tank I'm on track for another 800+ mile 50+ mpg.

EDIT: And as a thought, I'm no where near as good as Wayne is but I can imagine if he ever gave me a clinic I could probably start getting 60+mpg all the time.

 

This is very strange that anyone would want to pick-up regen in "R" below 6mph but it could be a big benefit to pick-up regen in "R" in higher speeds where charging the battery is needed. Is regen possible also above 6mph in "R" and would this be the same as "L" in prior models like my '05 FEH? My '09 goes to high RPM fuel-cut anytime I shift to "L" at all times which is a big change from the '08 FEH and earlier models.

GaryG

 

Gary, I don't have any info on the subject but I would suspect that the FFH (and your FEH) is like other vehicles in that it will simply ignore a shift to R over 6mph and simple continue on as though the shifter was in N.

 

I can confirm that. Flipped my FFH into R going about 35mph to test it in EV mode...and nothing, no regen just coasting like in N. And tried it at about 52mph, again same thing act liked it was in N.

Tried to regen in R and it kinda worked, insofar that it regened and then when I came to a full stop felt like the car wanted to throw me through the windshield/locked my seatbelt.

 

I've been in "R" by accident in my '05 FEH many times over the years and a few times in my '09 FEH but never below 6 mph. Like Sean said the computer ignores the command and nothing happens. I think Wayne said shift back to "N" before you stop so I would not come close to a full stop. Presently, I get most of my regen in "D" and using the brake pedal in my '09 FEH and the workshop manual says you get 100% of regen before the pads are used now. I might try "R" below 6mph when I get below 6mph on a decline and don't need to come to a complete stop.

I have a severe case of foot neuropathy which leaves me with very little feeling in the bottom of my feet. If Debbie Katz remembers, I had to drive with my shoe and sock off with her during the '07 MPG Challenge. For this reason "N" coasting is better for me than the slight gas pedal WS technique. I always thought WS was a way around the negative split mode in the eCVT where MG1 is controlling the idle with the generator brake. The negative split mode is where the battery is at its upper limits at highway speeds and is the least preferred mode for FE according to the workshop manuals. For everyone, here is what the '09 PCM/ED manual states:

"Negative Split Mode

In this mode the internal combustion engine is running but the generator motor is reducing the engine speed. This mode is never preferred but occurs when all of the following vehicle conditions are met:

* The engine is running.

* The vehicle speed is high.

* The high voltage traction battery is charged.

* Reducing engine throttle is not desired."

"Driving Modes

There are 5 fundamental operating modes in the hybrid electric system:

* electric mode

* positive split mode

* negative split mode

* neutral mode

* engine cranking mode"

There is also a "Creep Mode".

The wording in the '05 - '09 workshop manuals did not change for neutral mode, reverse gear or "L" gear but I know the strategy in "L" gear is completely different in the '09 FEH. You folks with the '10 FFH need to monitor our '09 FEH threads because we just learned that a tap of the brake in "D" will cause fuel-cut with a battery SoC below 46%. We all need to read and then test techniques in both the '09 FEH and '10 FFH to see if they work the same and post the results. I still have not ruled out getting my wife a FFH so I'm also monitoring it here and other forums in the meantime.

GaryG

 

You're right, I'm only at 1450 miles or so.

That's a great tip about tapping the brake to shut the engine off - I tried it today going about 50 mph and the engine power level went to zero. I guess its still spinning at that speed though.