list of gas saving tips from best to worst

[theholycow]

Welcome. There's some good basic info there.

Here, we like to go deeper into those ideas. I can offer some additional insight into some of them.

* Don't "step on it" Drive with a even throttle(?) Especialy when going up-hull, and use the next one when going downhill.

That is a valid strategy. However, the opposite strategy can also work very well. I have had great success with opening the throttle a lot. I step on the throttle pedal hard whenever I can. I know that it has produced very good results for me, but to explain it I only have theories. Two of those theories are:
- Reduced pumping loss. For a certain amount of work the engine has to do, it has to move a certain amount of air. Whether it moves that air easily past an open throttle or with more difficulty past a closed throttle can make a difference in efficiency.
- Using the engine in its most efficient range. It can be measured and displayed with a BSFC chart (search for information on that). Most engines produce work most efficiently when heavily loaded. This may be because friction and reciprocating loss at a certain RPM is approximately the same whether it's producing a little work or a lot.

It doesn't work for everybody, but it works great for me.

*(my favorite) Let the engine do your breaking. Using your pedal is allways unnecessary. Letting your engine do the breaking can COMPLEATLY choke the fuelsupply(at about 1600-1200(lower for diesel cars)). When decreasing under 1200(lower for diesel cars) just gear down.

This is called DFCO (Deceleration Fuel Cut Off). As long as you need to reduce your speed, it's very effective. It helps to know the exact conditions in which your engine will DFCO, though; the programming can be very picky about when it will DFCO and when it won't. It is not as common as most people think.

Don't know the name again but "engine heater" gave 17 500 000 resaults on google so well use that:

We call it a "block heater".

* The AC uses up to 0.0264172 gallon(damn americans and your metrics system! haha) per 6.21371 miles. Well it's not that much but if you don't need it, don't use it. (this was converted from 1 deciliter per 10 km)

That can vary based on your driving. If you are driving in stop-and-go traffic, such as in a traffic jam or in a city, that's very true; you should open your windows instead. If you are driving steady at high speed (80kph and more), it may be more efficient to close the windows and use AC instead, because of the aerodynamic drag caused by the open windows.

[DowTheFish]

Thank you for your warming welcome!
I do what I can to help the enviroment(beacause I want to. I'ts all the movies. An inconvenient truth, the age of stupid, avatar and so on). Also, I'm a poor student. Not much time for working these days.. And when my GF moved(to study) 7h(so much for enk?ping being swedens nearest town)(by car) south to b?stad from Enk?ping (where I live) I'm the one who has to travel because of her tight schedule. And as I said I'm a poor student, with SJ(sj.se/sj/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=10&l=en) having monopoly the train tickets cost a small fortune.
One trip down there going by train cost more than going down and back home with car, twise.
And flying one way cost half of the train ticket. But thats just the ticket, then theres the bus till and from the airport. Also flying is heavily damaging the enviroment.

(If you think this is ****ed up, reaserch our preacious systembolaget(systembolaget.se/Applikationer/Knappar/InEnglish/) and there monopoly!)

These four factors brought me here!
And this video:
youtube.com/watch?v=eFFiDVQBfwI&NR=1

Hmm coasting. Thats when you drive in neutral, right? No gear, without transmitting power? Coasting/idling? However, a new word is learned. Thank you!

Also, DFCO as I'we learned is wery effective when breaking, instead of the pedal. Also I use this technique when going down hill, if the angle is steep enough. Then you can really feel the pain from your wallet growing under your but(haha werent sure if but is spelled with one or tho "t", so I googled "nice but", it gave me an answer alright)!

And coasting/idling is using more gasoline than you might think, but as you said, using this on longer stretches uses less gasoline than not doing any of these techniques.

and thank you theholycow for adding more information
Block heater, thats two new words.
About the block heater, once when I started my car(a SAAB 93 1.8T) in the winter it used up about a quarter of the tank(????fuel storage) before it was usable. We can have wery cold winters!

There are two more things I'd like to share:
my father told me something thats pretty logical, but I never thought about it. A bigger engine will give more mpg than a smaller engine when 'ur driving on a larger road with higher speed limit, like a highway(ahah), while a small engine is better for the city with many stops n' goes and a lower speed limit.
That a smaller engine is better for the city I learned taking my drivers license. But that a bigger engine is better for the higher speeds and longer trips I just never thought of. Now, my father is working at his desk, doing his thing with papers and money. His this typical stock marketing guy. So he's not the person I usualy go for this kind of advice, if you know what I mean. But it sure sounds logical. The bigger engine is using lower RPM at 70mp/h than a smaller engine. But then again the bigger engine uses more gasoline in general. I don't know if it adds up, but he thinks so.

And the second thing. A GPS, global positioning system. I would be lost without mine. Litterally. But why this is so grate to earn a few miles per gallon is that if you use it, you wont get lost. If its the first time you visit someone(or if as in my case, many are moving due to studying) you wond be driving around for 5-10 minutes just looking at house numbers and street names. This also might save you from bumping into something while not watching the road. If your friends also owns some sort of GPS you can just pass the coordinates to each other. If he or she doesent, I'm sure there are websites with adresses and coordinates. And yes there is. I used google maps to find out the coordinates till the area where I live.
59.625962,17.11906 Just turn in there and its a red and white house on sm?rsoppsgatan. Youre welcome, I'll give you all a cookie. hahahahaha.

[DowTheFish]

The english translation for my street is butterstreet. Now aint that something.

I'm the king of butterstreet. This is maa street gangstah.

You be comin' here n' I'll get al' buttery' on ya' ***!

(joke)

[theholycow]

Tank is the correct word for fuel storage in the car. Butt has two T's when you're talking about the part of your body. One T is for the word that separates things that disagree.

For steady highway cruising, a bigger engine can work as well as a smaller engine, but I doubt it will be better. To be as good, it needs to have the correct gears to keep its RPM low and make use of its torque instead of high RPM.

For city driving, a smaller engine may help by weighing less and by not having as much power, forcing you to go slower.

Of course, it's only a general rule. Some big engines are very efficient and some small engines are very wasteful.

I agree about GPS.

[NotYourDay]

Originally Posted by DowTheFish

The english translation for my street is butterstreet. Now aint that something.

I'm the king of butterstreet. This is maa street gangstah.

You be comin' here n' I'll get al' buttery' on ya' ***!

(joke)

LOL

[NotYourDay]

Originally Posted by theholycow

For steady highway cruising, a bigger engine can work as well as a smaller engine, but I doubt it will be better. To be as good, it needs to have the correct gears to keep its RPM low and make use of its torque instead of high RPM.

For city driving, a smaller engine may help by weighing less and by not having as much power, forcing you to go slower.

Of course, it's only a general rule. Some big engines are very efficient and some small engines are very wasteful.

just wanted to give you an example for a V8 that gets BIG MPG's!
Actually I have many, but I will give you two.

The Cadillac STS's and many other models have the 32V Northstar V8
This engine is rated to get 25 MPG's Highway, although I know a person who got closer to 32 MPG's with theirs. They are one of the highest MPG V8 (to my knowledge)
http://www.edmunds.com/used/2001/cad...573/specs.html
That is a link to edmonds.com to show you what a 2001 cadillac STS gets both fuel efficiency and preformance wise.

I cant seem to get any hard info on this, but I know my dad's GMC Envoy had a V8 in it that when cruise control was initiated, it would go from 8 to 4 cylanders and he would get in the upper 30's with it, mostly because he drove almost all highway.
The thing is with this engine, it could go from 4 to 8 in a second and you would have all 305 (something like that) HP to make you fly!

Just thought id add my 2 cents

[Solarhersteller]

Thank you for the sharing of your ideas and thoughts to all of us.

[MF360]

My DD is a 2000 Dodge Dakota and I wanted to share some things I've used succesfully and some things I found interesting. Most apply specifically to trucks, but many may be used on a car as well.

Here goes:

1) SCT tune- I had my computer dyno tuned to adjust the air-fuel ratio and it seemed to make it more efficient. this was my single best mod simply because I went from 17mpg to 18.5-19mpg.

2) Mallory Hyfire ignition- Some reported little to no gain,but iworked well for me.

3) Tonneau cover (soft with snaps) -consistent 1 mpg

4) Port/polish heads- I have not tried this yet, but I know someone who did and it worked well. It makes sense.

5) Hi flow air filter- I have used K&N filters for years successfully, but recently I've heard excelelnt things about a new filter manufacturer (R2C). They are not oiled like K&N and appear to filter better than K&N.

6) High Quality PLug Wires- I STRONGLY believe in MSD plug wires...especially the Super Conductor 8.5MM ones. I compared them recently against some cheapy ones. The cheapies cost me a couple mpg's.

7) Lowering- My truck is lowered 2 inches in the front and 3 inches in the rear. No significant improvement, but it looks cool. I do beleive there is a slight improvement to be had by lowering though. Less air flow under the car is a good thing.

8) Fuel Rail Cooling- On a returnless fuel system where the fuel enters one side of the fuel rail and has a crossover which allows the fuel to feed the opposite fuel rail, the engine is starved of fuel the further away from the inlet fuel source and the multiple tight bends gettign there creates heat. Newer cars use multiple bank 02 sensors to adjust for this, but it's not optimal. Older vehicles with only two o 2 sensors can benefit from this. Old drag racers used to use "cool cans" which basically is a can that contains ice and the fuel lines go through the can to cool the fuel. I'm currently working on installing a cool can in the bed of my truck, an inline low flow fuel pump and a separate bottle filled with water/anti-freeze. I will be running copper tubing from the gas tank to the fuel rail and back to the cool can. This will reduce the fuel temp and give me a little more hp and possibly better mpg....we'll see.

9) Gear Vendors- They have been out there for quite some time, but overlooked by many. They can convert a 4 spped tranny to 8 speed and allow the engine to run more slowly at highway speeds. I have not tried this yet, but I'm considering it.

10) 100% gas- I measured 0.6 mpg improvement by switching from 90/10 gas to 100% gas.

Hope this helps!

[Nerys]

two best tips for increasing fuel economy?

#1 SLOW DOWN
#2 Don't Buy Ethanol fuel if you can help it.

[Nerys]

Originally Posted by quadancer@bellsouth.net

As an ex trucker getting ready to go back out on the road, I can say I'm again concerned.
If you think truckers don't mind you riding their butts, you should listen to the C.B. more. Often referred to as 'a$$lickers', you put a trucker in a position of having to 'babysit' you, when after he's been slugging it out with traffic for 10-18 hours, (yes, they do) he now has lost his braking zone, and with cars beside him he has lost his maneuvering ability, and he has to keep a constant watch on where you are (if he can even see you) while constantly measuring his speed, distance, road conditions, traction, driver anticipations, and factoring all that into his current vehicle weight, while worrying about his load in back and ten gauges he has to watch.
BACK THE HELL OFF!

Hi. I am one of those A$$lickers

I also have a CB and I get permission if I want to be closer than 50ft.

anything 50ft and farther and you can ignore me without issue.

you see short of you hitting a concrete wall or mountain that suddenly appears in the middle of the freeway YOU CAN NOT OUTBRAKE ME. Period.

you could hit the brakes full on clobber 10 cars jackknife your trailer and my brakes won't even get hot slowing me down faster than you.

simple physics.

its also simple law. whats behind you is NOT your problem. its their problem.

My little geo metro is not even going to dent you :-)

at 50ft I have almost 3 car lengths from me to you. I only need 1.5 car lengths for reaction time.

at 50ft I can score in excess of 60mpg at 70-75mph :-)

If the trucker does not like it or behaves funny (usually an indication he does not want you their) I depart and find a new pusher. no big deal.

I have never had one get upset at me. Then again I don't tend to get closer than 50ft.

the aero benefit difference between 50ft and 20 feet is so insanely tiny its just not worth it. Plus the throttle management you will undergo to maintain that distance will eat any benefit you gain by being 30ft closer.

so stay 50ft away. even up to 100ft you gain significant advantages but 50ft is the sweet spot. when the air alternates buffeting you from left and right back and forth you in the suck zone and right where you want to be.

I see truckers do it all the time. I just "join" the sandwich. I have never had a trucker get mad at me yet.