new 94' VX owner, several "advanced" questions!!! lol...

[mnstrvx]

Hi everyone, here is what I've done so far, and some of the questions that i have...

I have briefly spent some time thumbing through this site and I am quite excited to see the enthusiasm of saving fuel!

Okay, so i just purchase this VX about three weeks ago from an older guy in Tucson, AZ and right after purchase, i ran over to the local walmart to dump seafoam into the gas tank and engine oil. It took me about 200 miles to get back home. Teal Green, with grey interior, everything is stock except the stereo. 204,000 miles when purchased. the car was remarkably clean, and well maintained! The engine bay is BONE DRY not a drop of oil or grease from anywhere! Once home I did the following:

Plugs (NGK)
wires (OEM)
cap (OEM)
rotor (OEM)
fuel filter (OEM)
pcv valve (haven't done the nifty PCV valve mod yet, is it worth it?)
drive belts
topped off brake fluid
topped off and bled clutch hyd. system
checked timing belt (looked great)
checked transmission fluid (looked great)
checked air filter (clean)
checking coolant (awesome)
changed oil out with conventional 5w-30
changed out oil filter
disconnected the EGR valve (was EXTREMELY rough when cold, and was starting hard, so i disconnected the EGR as well as the vaccum line to it-problem solved, of course it's a temporary fix) read the thread abouting cleaning EGR, wasn't to excited about the effort involved.


After reading some posted in the search section and some current active threads:

removed and cleaned my temp. sensor (behind the intake manifold on the driver side, white plastic sensor).
removed and cleaned idle are control valve
removed and Wd-40'd some of the connectors
removed and cleaned the MAF or MAS sensor, black sensor right above TB.

Okay, so now for some questions...

I don't know how some of you folks are getting incredibly high MPG figures? I went through a tank of gas already, but for a good duration of time the car was idling as i was "diagnosing" things under the hood (also changed fuel filter and spilled some fuel). not to mention the fact that the tire pressure was incredibly low. I still got about 420 miles to the tank (I was kind of disappointed). this was all primarily city driving. I was doing a lot of above 2,000-2,500rpm shifting (until i read some more threads regarding shift points).

so, any advice would be greatly appreciated? I would love to see ABOVE 50mpg (500+ per tank full).

some things that i am considering, add more seafoam to the tank and engine oil before changing out this oil... once it's time to change the oil I want to do the following; 0w-20 royal purple in the engine, royal purple synchromax in the transmission (unless of course something else is recommended-like engine oil in the tranny- and what's the capacity), new tires (mine are relatively old, and need to be changed. what's an ideal tire pressure for these cars).

was considering 155/80-13's or 175/70-13's... both of which are reasonably priced locally.

thanks for any advice, direction, support!