How To Get Better Gas Mileage - Tell your specifics on getting the highest mpg

[meyek91974]

I have seen several threads that may have a little age or they talk about the idea of better gas mileage but post here the hands-down this is what you'very done for the MOST MPGs

[meyek91974]

I have 155/80R12 and run 40psi. (max+5psi).
I drive speed limit or 5 under and 50mph on the highway.
Used to drive an 18wheeler & I now I accelerate at their speed- slowly.
Don't have a bunch of stuff in the car.

Thinking of getting E-3 sparkplug and K&N.

Has anyone made any rear wheel skirts?

[bhazard]

Pretty much what you said. Minus the fancy spark plugs and k&n. The latter of which I guarantee won't help.

[harpon]

Never leave the back seat in here-

I've used 145 wide tires which roll great but wear quicker- so I'm settled on 155/80 now

Turning off the ac on uphills and accelerating from stops helps mileage if you're not too hot!

I don't like to have a full tank around town- saves weight.

There's always finding a draft. But not too close!

[TominMO]

155/80-13s will give you a slightly higher gear ratio. Make sure your rear bearings are spinning smoothly, and the brakes aren't dragging. Beyond that, it's pretty much air resistance and RPM, both improved by driving slower, and moderate acceleration.

The rear seat weighs maybe 30 lbs, about 1/60th or 1.6% of the total car weight of 1800 lbs, so I doubt that matters that you could tell. I removed mine for better cornering, per Charlie, and moved the spare tire to the right rear footwell, behind the front pass. seat, for the same reason. That's about 55 lbs removed from the rear third of the car.

[mikemounlio]

for MPG make sure the car is running as good as it can. Use your head. Your driving style is the biggest part in getting good MPG. That said you can do a few things that may or may not help you out.

1. buy the cam that was just for sale for MPG!
2. rear wheel covers
3. make some hubcabs that are 100% flat on the outside.
4. make a wind break for the rear- air does not like sharpe changes in flow. You kinda want the rear to come more so to a point then it does (some haul trucks have large flat panels behind them that angle inwards).
5. reduce weight.
6. no side mirrors.
7. shave door shandles and smooth body.
8. tape all the joints of the car.
9. lower the car maybe helps.
10 tire psi up.


all this to maybe get you up to 50 but i would really think it wont just because the b3 still has to drink to stay alive. If you want MPG greater then the festiva get a small cc motorcycle. Otherwise just drive the festiva and enjoy your still amazing MPG.

[harpon]

Yes I used to keep my right side view turned straight back cause the views so good without it through the glass.

And I could tell when I took the back seat out, and I can also tell another difference when I take out the passenger seat too, but I don't do that much anymore. I might if I was taking a long trip.

Turn the A/C off sometime in the middle of accelerating or starting up a hill- you'll feel and hear the difference there too- we have a tiny engine. I'm not sure if I've ever carried more than another passenger in the 19 years I've been driving Festivas and Aspire. The old 88 A'c wasn't working when I got it so I tore it all off back in '97. With the internet now, I'd have probably gotten that fixed.

[TominMO]

When my Festy was completely stock, except for having 155/80-13 tires, I got these results on my MPG tests:
52.5 MPG @ 60 mph
58.0 MPG @ 55 mph
62.5 MPG @ 45 mph
All in 5th gear, clear weather with little or no wind, on a large ~85 mile circular route at constant speed. Note how mileage is shown here to be a direct function of air resistance and RPM. You can see that 55 mph is a practical sweet spot. In the 70s when there was an Arab oil embargo going on, 55 mph was the recommended speed for getting the best mileage on the hwy, and in some places that was the speed limit for a while.

No special hubcaps, wheel arch covers, all those other tricks. The most important factor is your right foot, period. I tried all sorts of aero mods and saw little to no improvements. Not to say that they won't help at all, but they are definitely minimal compared to a constant right foot.

[ryanprins13]

Gas milage tips for a festiva:
-properly tuned engine. Make sure everything is running perfect, rear wheel bearing and fronts are good, brakes arent dragging (are you actually sure yours arent dragging?), alignment is spot on... And so on. Thats the biggest. Ever changed your transmission fluid? Ever checked it even? When was the last time you greased your rear wheel bearings? Has any shop ever set or even looked at your rear wheel alignment? Does your thermostat work? Spark plugs properly gapped? Timing set?*
- buy a vaccum gauge and mount it where you can easily glance at it while keepin your eyes on the road. Probably the best thing you can do really. Ill explain how to use it at the end.*
-in the winter block the rad. It uses more fuel to heat the engine up and these engines loose heat really fast. Block the whole front of the car to lessen airflow over the motor. Keep it an inch or so in fromt of the radiator though, not right up against it, so that when the fan turnes on air can still move.*
-if you care more about numbers than dollars plug the block heater in when it gets below -5c. I use a timer so its only on 2-3hrs before i leave, not the whole night. If you live where it actually gets cold buy a oil pan heater. I plug mine in to the timer in addition to the block heater when it gets below -20c. They cost $15-50, take 100 watts only and heat to 220f. My oil is nice and toasty and flows good in -40 at startup. Car doesnt even idle high in -40. Another thing that costs more than it returns but might give you 1% better numbers is synthetic engine, trans oil and all greases.*
- weight in your car. A little does actually make a big difference. A full tank of gas is only 62 pounds but running the tank almost empty will give me 1- 1.5mpg better than filling up when half full. Thats 2-3% Get rid of the rear seat and other junk you dont need.*


How to use a vaccum guage for better fuel milage:*
-look at it quickly every few seconds. I mounted mine above the fuel guage on the dash so i dont have to take my eyes off the road.*
-while cruising keeping the reading steady is most important. It takes a lot of practise to keep the reading steady. Speed up a bit down hills and loose a bit up hills. Learn to judge a hill so if you are cruising at 10in hg at 100km/hr you can let up to 15in hg just before heading down a dip, reach 110 at the bottom, get to say 3in hg right at the bottom of the hill and be doing 90km/hr at the top. Optimum is to not start heading down te hill still at 10in hg, reach 110 half way down and then have to back off to 20in hg to avoid speeding. Going up a hill you dont want to not press the gas hard enough and slow down too much too early. You want to plan a set throttle position the whole way up. Again, best fuel economy on flat, uphill or downhill is achieved by keeping the vaccume steady. However You dont want to make people behind you mad by going slow up a hill so dont if theres someone there and they cant pass if they wanted to.*
- for speeding up from a stop you can actually speed up what i think is fairly quickly without using much more fuel at lower speeds. Most people trying to gain fuel economy speed up too slow at low speeds and too fast at high speeds. Its not about your rate of acceleration but your rate of fuel consumption or vaccume essensially. You get better miles per gallon cruising at 100km/hr in 5th than you do accelerating while travveling slower no matter how slow you speed up. So the quicker you get to cruising speed the better to a point. Obviously speeding up too fast will dump a lot of fuel but speeding up too slow wastes gas too. This is more applicable if you are going to accelerate to highway speed than in town. When i speed up from a stop onto a highway i accelerate at 5in hg in every gear. This is pretty quick in first and second gear, alright in 3rd and a tad slow in 4th and 5th but its what is more fuel efficient. Some people say 8in hg is better but i think that takes too long in my opinion. I think its quite rude to pull in front of someone on a highway and make them slow down, so dont do that please.*
- get a vaccume guage that has a large sweep. Its hard to read the vaccume side on a 2in diameter boost gauge when its only 3/4in of sweep and the rest is boost.*
-just remember the most fuel efficient is the smoothest and steadiest.*
-reduce loads on engine. Radio off, headlights off, a/c off, have a good battery that doesnt drain itself and cause the alt to work harder...
-most people only care about numbers, not using less gas, but to the one person that does: drive less. Combine trips. Bike, walk, bum rides, take a bus.*


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[bhearts]

Warm air intake. Maximize torque at cruise rpm by all ways possible

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[mikemounlio]

You could go all mythbusters and make the outside of the car look like a golf ball to break up the wind and let it flow over the car better. Im not sure how well it actually worked all i remember is that they did it.

[TominMO]

You could go all mythbusters and make the outside of the car look like a golf ball to break up the wind and let it flow over the car better. Im not sure how well it actually worked all i remember is that they did it.

As I recall, they did that with clay, and made the car far heavier! I think they wind-tunnel tested it, but I forget now. Anyway, they greatly increased the weight of the car to get better resistance numbers, so fail.

[mikemounlio]

They did a practice test and gained mpg. Clearly they didn't push the motor to much.

Now I our b3 it would push the motor out of its limits and end up making it have worse miles (I would think). If you did it with a light weight material it might work

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[sketchman]

Yeah, MPG is mostly aero in practice, unless you're doing a LOT of stop and go city driving, and then you're just pretty much screwed without a moped or a 2CV or something.

Weight is not so much an issue. Obviously that is not without limits.

I've mentioned it before, but I got 37-38mpg out of a 2400lb car that was a sedan and with an auto trans that was 3 speed before. And that was a 2.0 with 130hp. The difference? Aero was FAR better than a Festiva, and the EFI system was MAP instead of VAF with a real TPS that read % instead of close/open/WOT.

[bhazard]

http://www.aerocivic.com/