improving mileage

mileage on a vehicle

significantly improve all most impossible, but. If it has over size tires, and you do mostly in town driving, get them off and the stocks back on. Keep your foot out of it. Other than that there's not much you can do. Things that will help somewhat on any vehicle: clean air and fuel filters. properly inflated tires, as well as aligned and balanced. don't carry a bunch of stuff in the truck. A bed cover. Find the grade of gas that gives you the best gas mileage vs. cost. My 91 runs like garbage on anything under 91 octane but the econo box I bought for work gets better gas mileage and runs better on the middle grade than on regular, to the point that the cost of fuel used is the same between the two grades. High test gave it more zip, but no noticeable increase in fuel mileage.

Whitelightning

mileage on a vehicle

Drive at a slower highway speed. Cutting 15mph (20kph?) can save about

Octane is the measure of the gasoline's ability to prevent detonation (pinging). It _does not increase power_. Yes, it's possible that computer driven timing could be advanced if the engine did not ping but this would not account for much power. Feeling more "zip" would be due to more power. More power from the same amount of gas would be better mpg. My truck runs much better just after I've washed it.

Wrong. A _classic_ example... Early-mid 80s GM "C", "G" and "K" trucks; TSB* issued for the ESC system picking up various mechanical noise from the engine (fuel pump, drive belts, lifters, etc), these things would retard so bad and lose so much power they couldn't pull cotton out of a Kotex. ESC is still used and it hasn't changed much other than being more selective of the frequencies that the knock sensor picks up. (* TSB involved by-passing the ESC circuitry at the ignition module and re-setting the base ignition timing to TDC from 6* BTDC)

Advancing the ignition timing (to a point) equals more power. Try it yourself, take a vehicle with distributor adjustable ignition timing and retard the timing ten degrees, see what happens!

One way of doing that is to advance the ignition timing to just short of pinging.

I'm glad.

The Sept 05 issue of Popular Mechanics has a list of many bogus MPG gadgets. None of 'em work, some are dangerous.

My method for saving on gas, is to burn less, by walking whenever I can rather than driving, combining trips, shopping online whenever possible.

The best way to lower the price at the pump is to get everyone to cut back their usage.

Lena

Hello Michael,

I was following a couple of threads where after adding a little acetone to gasoline (thoroughly mixed) in carburetor-equipped vehicles, they see anywhere from 10% to upwards of 25% improvement in fuel consumption. Apparently does not work on fuel-injected vehicles (thus nixing diesel engines, too, of which we have three vehicles). They had a chemical engineer post a response that what they were experiencing was not possible -- was promptly laughed off the forum (theory versus reality).

The only gas engines I have are the leaf blower (great for starting charcoal BBQs), power washer, lawn mower and snow blower, so am unable to "scientifically" verify/substantiate claims.

Interesting...

Regards, Franko

paying a whopping $1.129 Canadian for a

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significantly improve mileage on a vehicle

Greetings,

There is no magic pill, gadget, gizmo, air filter, fuel additive, etc. that will give you any significant gains in MPG. I realize that the number of gas saving schemes and gizmos has increased ten-fold since fuel prices started their upward spiral, but if any of these products really worked then the major automakers would have siezed on the idea long ago and we'd already have it in our vehicles today.

Nothing saves more money on fuel than simple common sense. Drive less; drive slower; get a complete tune-up (new plugs, wires, all filters and fluids, etc.); properly inflate your tires and align the wheels; don't use oversized tires; avoid jack-rabbit starts and hard acceleration; use your cruise control more and your brakes less; carpool with friends or co-workers; combine your trips; empty out the trunk or bed of all your old stuff to get rid of excess weight in your vehicle; etc. ad nauseum.

My '88 Chevy with the 350 and 3.08 rear gears got 19-21 mpg for the entire life of that truck before I traded it in (9 years) and other than keeping it tuned up I never installed anything special on it to improve the mileage.

Cheer - Jonathan

Them 3.08 gears had alot to do with it. Bet you didn't tow much with those gears though.

snipped-for-privacy@copelandhome.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

Howdy All Just for the record. EPA Highway MPG is measured at 48 MPH over a 100 Miles. Not getting the sticker mpg, amazing. Increasing your speed to 70 will double the horse power needed to over come the frontal area wind resistance. Adding 20 more mph will double the hp needed again. At any speed over 15mph, slowing down will give you the greatest decrease in horsepower needed to maintain a given speed. I went from about 10mpg to about 15mpg, by slowing down to the speed limit. Slowing down has added about 20min. a day spent in my van. This has saved me about $10.00 a day. 20min/$10.00 where else can i get $30/hour. I average 38,000 Miles a year. Also using the octane that gives you the most MPG will usually cost the least over the long run. The cleaner combustion will save on head decarboning. And keep the compression ratio down to OEM specs.

BTW gas here is running 2.879 per gal. today for 89 octane.

Try 331.9 per gal here in calif. :( that's the 89 octane