Gas Mileage and Shifting

[Goldie]

Originally Posted by black cat

I use to do 80 or 85 on the highway when i was using my girlfriends dads police gas card

nice to hear police budgets were funding your speeding

[kwg2371]

Hmm mabe it's a good thing my IMRC dosen't work

[CougarGuy1802]

i use my safc and i tuned my Air/fuel ratio. the coug is pig rich from the factory and in doing this my low rpm high gear feels fantastic. im in 5th by 25. although i drive like i want to alot and get 21 mpg all city. but i get 25-30 when i want to lol.

also note with the learning capabilities of obd-2 and its fuel trims i recommend resetting the pcm every month because it starts compensating for "wear in the MAF circuit" as it would call it. it will begin to adjust voltage to make a 0.0 trim. WOT is graph mode though thats where pcm is in closed loop and it feels GREAT! although xcal im sure is so much better. but for 50 bucks it is what it is.

[work_in_progress]

2.5-3k also seems to be where I shift the most. Otherwise you'd be mashing the gas next gear over. Which leads me to ask something I've wondered:
Say you're going up an incline, it isn't going to stall out the car if you don't downshift, but the gas pedal is about half way to three-quarters in. Would you get more milage out of downshifting (higher RPM's however won't have to mash the gas in) or keep it in the same gear (lower RPM's but keeping the pedal in far).
I've played with it a little bit, not shifting seems to be a little more efficient. Anyone else?

[Goldie]

Originally Posted by work_in_progress

2.5-3k also seems to be where I shift the most. Otherwise you'd be mashing the gas next gear over. Which leads me to ask something I've wondered:
Say you're going up an incline, it isn't going to stall out the car if you don't downshift, but the gas pedal is about half way to three-quarters in. Would you get more milage out of downshifting (higher RPM's however won't have to mash the gas in) or keep it in the same gear (lower RPM's but keeping the pedal in far).
I've played with it a little bit, not shifting seems to be a little more efficient. Anyone else?

I 'believe' it's more economical to downshift and go with the higher rpm/less gas. think of it as you would if on a 10-speed. which takes more effort? peddling quickly & easy or slow and hard?

[CheeseEater88]

Originally Posted by Goldie

I 'believe' it's more economical to downshift and go with the higher rpm/less gas. think of it as you would if on a 10-speed. which takes more effort? peddling quickly & easy or slow and hard?

Totally contrary to my experience....


if you start losing speed due to a hill, down shift.... other than that go as high of a gear as you can while cruising.... just stay above 1K RPMs and you'll do fine... 1K-1.5K is all you really need to keep momentum... go below 1000 and you'll have problems.... but if you want to walk the fine line for the extra mile or two go right ahead

extra rotations means more spark and more fuel.... I can't give any hard numbers... but from personal experience.... I gained roughly 5MPG.... went from 3K-2.5K shifts... to where I shift as early as I can without stalling

any time I go over 30mph and my speed isn't changing too rapidly... I am atleast in 4th but probably 5th...

I can manage 4th gear through my neighborhood without going over 25mph... and I can stay in that while taking a corner... and if for some reason I want more pep... I'll burn more gas in third


tips that I have implemented that work... lower shift RPMs... less romping around.... less speeding... less AC... more windows up at higher speed... more speed at bottoms of hills.... start in 2nd gear... skip 3rd or fourth(ex. 1st 3rd 5th... 1st or 2nd 4th 5th)... remove excess weight

mind you it takes some practice and some getting used to riding economically... just the irony of pushing the pedal in further... and actually saving gas is kind of funny.

I have achieved 30+ for months straight... then again I have an I4... and I am still romping around and getting that...




I have no clue how it works out but it does.... you can be much heavier on gas in a higher gear than you would in a lower gear and still save fuel

[work_in_progress]

Originally Posted by CheeseEater88

I can manage 4th gear through my neighborhood without going over 25mph... and I can stay in that while taking a corner... and if for some reason I want more pep... I'll burn more gas in third

Impressive, 90% of the time I'm down in to 2nd around corners. If I'm feeling gas friendly I'm in 3rd. Most definately in 4th going 25, when I hit 35 it's usually time for 5th. I knew someone who would drive around town in second. She was always complaining her husband got better gas milage than her.

It'd be nice to see a "test" or something done to see the difference in gas used between higherRPMs/feathering the pedal and lowerRPM's/mashing the pedal. Might have to try that this week, just filled up tonight. I'd have to stop killing my car of course, 4 times in the past 2 days. New record

[EricF]

I find 30mpg very attainable on highways,
just had a 400 mile jaunt yesterday, fully loaded car
trunk back seat etc..
averaged just over 31mpg, now thats full highway with
one lunch stop, and about 35 minutes of stop and go around DC.
avg speed about 65-70

I remember coming back from Fest one year, most of us
easily broke 30mpg most hitting 33-34, and one up to 36mpg(I think he was drafting)

Around town I normally average 26-27, easy on the gas pedal will gain you much.
a Search for Hypermiling :: No more need to compare gas prices some of these guys are nuts, but with some
of the tips you can gain mileage not otherwise found.

[work_in_progress]

Interesting stuff. Whenever I come up to red lights and stuff I kick it out of gear and coast up to it. MIght try the whole turn the car off at read light thing. Prolly get a few odd glances. /shrug

Oh, and we talking about v6's here? I'd love to get 26, 27mpg around town! From my last post I've been taking it easy on the gas. About 60% was highway driving and I obtained 26.7MPG. Not shabby for a V6. Be nice to hit that 31 mark on the highway! I've gotten anywhere from 23-26MPG on a 3ish hour trip. Believe wind was a MAJOR factor in the low side (thank you ND wind -_-). But it's amazing to see the difference in mileage from going 80, 85 down to the speed limit of 75! That pesky speed limit is good for something. :D

[AliasJerk]

the overall idea is the lowest power to air resistance speed is 65 MPH. which I believe on the cougar/contour, in top gear, is like 2800 RPMs.

Which basically means you should shift under 3 grand, not put your foot into it, and another thing I remember hearing about on top gear, is when you let your foot off the gas and coast while in gear the engine is actually running off of the stored kinetic energy that it has built up from accelerating, so virtually takes no gas to decelerate in gear when coming to a stop, however, downshifting every time you come up to a stop light isnt necessarily good for the clutch and syncros to do all of the time, just takes more wear to those parts.