Ways to "tune" your car to improve gas mileage?? (dsm and non-dsm)

[HotSauce GS N/T]

I sold my 91 turbo because I got a new job that requires lots of driving and lets face it, 15-20 mpg is not the best. I was saving up for a 3000gt vr4 and now I have some money left over from my dsm and I want to get a great mpg car. I dont know if you guys have seen the older civics (88-94) that get over 55mpg!!! I would definitly get one of these but, they are terribly over priced (150k for $5,000). So I was thinking either a hyundai accent or civic. They both get close to 40 mpg.

What I was thinking about doing is getting once of these guys and acually "tuning" it to get better then stock mpg. Throttle body spacers, tornados, cold air intake, straight through exhuast, maybe even porting the inake mani and head? Is this possible? Or will these things take away mpg. Im not trying to make a car with under 100 hp to feel fast I just want to get every mpg possible.

 

[mysticfire6602]

why not do what i did and buy a metro. i bought my 95 metro with 131,000 miles on it for $800. its a 5 speed 3 cylinder, and gets 50mpg highway driving, and thats going 80mph too. city gets like 45mpg. and the insurance is cheap

 

[HotSauce GS N/T]

why not do what i did and buy a metro. i bought my 95 metro with 131,000 miles on it for $800. its a 5 speed 3 cylinder, and gets 50mpg highway driving, and thats going 80mph too. city gets like 45mpg. and the insurance is cheap

i have alot of steep inclines around my area, i dont kno if 3 cylinders will do it

 

[DSMBen]

3 cylender? Rofl, i have a lawnmower that can amost match that, he he.

If you want great MPG, get one of those new hybrids.

 

[94Jettameowpsst]

Buy a turbo diesel vw, 50+mpg and they're torquey bastards

 

[dedlewamp]

Don't fall for any of those gimmick fuel saving devices. The magnetic things, tornado things, miracle potions don't do anything. If there were devices out there that really improved the gas milage on cars, manufacturers would be putting them on all their new cars, to avoid paying some of the gas guzzling fees.

The best thing would to keep up with the regular maitenence, inflate the tires to the proper pressure, use the cruise control, and drive the speed limit. OR, buy a hybrid or a smaller car as suggested.

 

[Raph]

why not do what i did and buy a metro. i bought my 95 metro with 131,000 miles on it for $800. its a 5 speed 3 cylinder, and gets 50mpg highway driving, and thats going 80mph too. city gets like 45mpg. and the insurance is cheap

the metro/swift/firefly siblings are hard to beat,

ive owned a 1.3 gsi (pulled! ..85 hp wioth 1400 lbs..do the math)
and a 3 cylinder (some lady ran into it)
and i just bought 2! 3 cylinder models for 1100 together!

the dsm stays in the garage, the swift is my DD .

cant beat the mileage 45mpg city, even better on the highway
edit: they are sites that sell cams for the 3 cylinders, and everthing from cams to exhausts,and throttle body setups for the 4 cylinders..

or get a AUDI/VW TDI(but then you wouldnt be on here asking how to save for cheap) , but if your on a budget.. settle for the 3 cylinder or get a 4 cylinder GSi or GTi model
think about it, these cars half excatley half the fuel capacity,and give much more range..

one of the best fuel saving Daily drivers out there

 

[lngbrdr]

Nissan 200sx get 37-40mpg highway and seem pretty cool and they aren't a honda. I noticed on my last car when I put an intake, exhaust, and cat delete my fuel mileage got a little better so you could try that.

 

[SkyLineGtR-R34]

What I was thinking about doing is getting once of these guys and acually "tuning" it to get better then stock mpg. Throttle body spacers, tornados, cold air intake, straight through exhuast, maybe even porting the inake mani and head? Is this possible? Or will these things take away mpg. Im not trying to make a car with under 100 hp to feel fast I just want to get every mpg possible.

Not so sure if porting your intake manifold and head will get you better mpg. In your case I would just go with a civic or 240sx as someone already mentioned.

 

[mysticfire6602]

3 cylender? Rofl, i have a lawnmower that can amost match that, he he.

If you want great MPG, get one of those new hybrids.

why hate on it? it can still go 90mph and gets more gas mileage then any hybrid out right now. as for the inclines, just downshift and they take them fine, unlike what some people seem to think about these cars. especially since they weigh less than a ton.

 

[Thomas91169]

get a crx or something, and swap a nice little b16 or something into it. it wont be super fast, but itll be quick enough on the freeway to run through traffic if need be(and its small size makes that easy), and itll still get great mpg's.

 

[danyz250f]

a 1st gen crx. The 1.3l was the first car in the world to break the 50 mpg barrier. Insurance is super cheap and you can pick them up for like 500 bucks. My friend bought one for 150 dollars. He sold it to the ford dealer for a 95 gst and they gave him $500 for it. So he got his gst for 4300 with 80'000 miles

 

[HotSauce GS N/T]

all these sound like good ideas, but to answer my question...once i get one of these cars can I do anything that will make better mpg? Im talking like if they are supposed to get like 37 mpg stock could i modify it to get like 40-45? I know for a fact most cars have crazy emission bullshit and once you take care of that it frees up alot of hp and better mpg?
So far the most I can think of is like k&n filter on a cold air intake, make the exhuast free flowing (95 or later) and of course full tune up........

 

[lngbrdr]

remove your cat

 

[tommiman]

the metro/swift/firefly siblings are hard to beat,

ive owned a 1.3 gsi (pulled! ..85 hp wioth 1400 lbs..do the math)
and a 3 cylinder (some lady ran into it)
and i just bought 2! 3 cylinder models for 1100 together!

the dsm stays in the garage, the swift is my DD .

cant beat the mileage 45mpg city, even better on the highway
edit: they are sites that sell cams for the 3 cylinders, and everthing from cams to exhausts,and throttle body setups for the 4 cylinders..

or get a AUDI/VW TDI(but then you wouldnt be on here asking how to save for cheap) , but if your on a budget.. settle for the 3 cylinder or get a 4 cylinder GSi or GTi model
think about it, these cars half excatley half the fuel capacity,and give much more range..

one of the best fuel saving Daily drivers out there

I second that. I got a '91 Chevy Sprint 3 cylinder as my DD. I beat the living sh%$ out of it and it still holds up. Still get 50MPG.

 

[ltvarney]

I knew a Subaru guy who would run custom maps on his ECU for fuel economy during the week. Might be something to play around with if you go for a car that has aftermarket support for reprogramming the ECU. I'd think about an Impreza RS, 240SX, Honda, or VW, then get an ECU/tuning package and lean things up a bit. You could also change the gears to run at XX MPH at XXX lower RPM. Besides that, open up the airflow/exhaust and tuneup, or at least keep the air filter clean.

I'd buy 3 of your favorite econobox for $500-$1000 each and use 2 for parts cars. You could probably find someone to reprogram the ECU on most things out there for fuel economy, just do some research before you buy. And because it's a beater POS, no longer would you have to worry about where you park or what you do to it. Get creative. Bust out the race-tape ductape, rattle cans, bungee cords, and zip ties.

 

[Raph]

why hate on it? it can still go 90mph and gets more gas mileage then any hybrid out right now. as for the inclines, just downshift and they take them fine, unlike what some people seem to think about these cars. especially since they weigh less than a ton.

ecxacly.. my 1.3 GSi had 80 hp @ 749 Kg weight..
the 1.0 wieghs in at 711kg..

 

[sbiggi]

If you burn your own eprom chips you can set it to cruise at 16:1 a/f at light throttle and no boost. Should get you another 1-3 mpg.
I have a chip set like that, but havent been using it recently.

 

[1glaserturbo]

Buy a turbo diesel vw, 50+mpg and they're torquey bastards

That should be the end of the thread, right there.

Oh, and they are more fuel efficient and less harmful to the environment! /treehugger



Chris

 

[ReYnd]

I almost hate even thinking about buying another car, but there are a lot of good ideas in this thread. DDing a 95 Bonneville isn't the best when you don't trust it enough for long trips and don't want to give rides to the resident bums. Have to always tell them I'm running on fumes (almost true half the time), because there's no way I'm out of space unless it's full of Talon parts.

VW turbo diesel gets my vote. Sue me, I like torque.

 

[gusu]

I had a 91 Honda Civic DX that was EXTREMELY light weight. It did not have power anything.

It got 44 MPG with my car fully loaded moving from Florida back to Illinois. I set the trip meter every time and checked to see how much it took to fill up every time. I didn't really have to fill up very much and it was pretty cool.

I also did another test of taking it to the red line every shift with a full tank of gas. It got around 36 MPG doing that. It was mind blowing how little driving in the city compared to the high way changed mileage. I got around 39 city in that car and I NEVER did anything to save money on gas.

Lets also take into account I did all of this testing while my clutch was even starting to slip. After I replaced the clutch it was getting 45 highway and still about 39 or so city.

The week day my clutch was replaced I could barely get my car up the hill to the shop that only went up 300 feet over a mile.... I was still getting around 30 MPG city.

*edit* Sorry forgot to mention I bought the car for 250 bucks and only had to put in the clutch 9 months after buying it and I had to replace a wheel bearing. I also did not change my water pump when I should have (it needed it for 45,000 miles) so that went out. In all I only spent around a grand on maintaining it because I didn't have the space at my apartment to do the work myself.

 

[1Gab Laser]

I get 22.8 MPG on my DD 1999 GTP now, around town (mostly rural primary routes). Usually ranges from 22.5 to 23.0. Took it to Connecticut (4 hour drive) and got 26.3 MPG doing 85-90 the whole way, not bad for a supercharged 3.8 liter V6 if you ask me, but I've heard of people with tunes on them getting 32 highway.

Something I found helped me: Smaller tire diameter.

I had 225/60/R16s on it, I was getting around 20.8 MPG. Wore through those tires in no time because the alignment was so off, and I picked up a set of 18" rims with some decent 205/40/R18s on them for $500. Even though the rim diameter is 2" bigger, the smaller tires actually make it about 1½" smaller overall.

That improved my mileage by about 2 MPG. And since I needed new tires anyway, didn't really cost me anything. There is quite a bit of wheel gap though... I think next time I need tires I'll go with /50s.

 

[cookmeup272]

As we went to the Shootout in Broken TSI's 90 TSI AWD....we were getting like 40mpg.

 

[FLASH1970]

Wow, ReYnd revived a 4 year old thread. Anyway, I use my 99 GSX for a DD and I drive 80 miles a day. I get 25-27mpg and it's stock other than a K&N cone filter, plugs and wires. The car has over 211K on it and it's a 5 speed.

 

[ReYnd]

This was definitely in the recent discussions list or something, despite being in the Hangout. Oh well, my bad.