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grouch said:
shift by 4000 rpm
nothing more than 50% open throttle
coast whenever possible..down a hill, approaching a light or stop etc
do a good tuneup

This will typicallly net you a 10-25% increase in mpg, if you can mamage to drive like that for a whole tank.
Yeah...I was told that if I coast to a stop instead of down shifting, that would save on gas mileage. I normally shift around 3500rpms. I also heard that if you shift to the highest gear possible, that would help...any experiences with this or anything else not listed?
 

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One thing i would recomend is an octane booster. There about 3-5$ and will not only give you better fuel economy, they will goive you a bit more power. I have gotten increases of 20% before.
For example, the boster i am using (Turbo 108 octane) costs 3.99$. A bit more than a gallon of gas. It treats 44 gallons of gas. thats about 9 cents more per gallon. my car usuialy gets about 30MPG without it, 36MPG with it. thats about a 20% increase. Lets say gas is 2.60$ , 9 cents more is 3.4% more. so you are 16.6% more economical.
Some more things that would help:
1. run a fuel line cleaner through your gas.
2. Change your spark plugs, and wires.
3. Drive like a grandma(this may be hard, but it helps a TON)
4. When you change your oil, use a good synthetic and run an oil flush. This helps a lot.(esp. for older sngines.)
5. Continue driving a CRX. It is probably one of the most fuel efficent non hybrid cars out there. Plus its more fun.
 

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hrmm...one thing is keep the speed down, especially on the highway/freeway. a coasting speed of 80mph is probably somewhere around 20% less fuel efficient than a coasting speed of 60. it may be tempting to blaze to work on an open road, but the combination of fuel inefficiency and the possibility of getting yanked by the coppers usually negate any time savings.

make sure to keep the tires properly inflated and, if you've got a spare set, maybe it might be time to put the steelies back on (well, i suppose this is debatable, as the increased diameter could be more efficient at fwy cruising speeds? either way, a tire with a narrower contact patch will give less resistance and be more fuel efficient).

stuff like mentioned above about maintaining the car properly

take off that nasty spoiler that you've got on the hatch (i, however, do not follow my own advice and have kept my wing on -_-;)

when going at freeway speeds, windows up to increase aerodynamics. at cruising speeds, using the a/c (if you've got it) is slightly more efficient than driving with the windows down. in city driving, however, a/c is a fuel economy murderer.

drive smoothly--no abrubt downshifts. accelerate smoothly and try to keep the revs low.

shift into high gear as soon as possible? if it doesn't make the engine bog, then being in high gear is great. if the motor is struggling, you're probably doing more harm than good. when my cousin had the VAFC or whatever those apex units for vtecs were, we looked at the little graphs and found that being in 3rd gear at Xmph used less fuel than being in 4th gear at Xmph where X was kinda slowish. yeah not very exact, i know, but the concept makes sense...if the motor is struggling, it's not operating at peak efficiency, which is more than likely a bad thing for fuel economy.

remember, either way, we're in better shape than those peeps driving their, how does kwicko put it? oh, that's right. we're in better shape with our rexes than people who are stuck driving their sport futility vehicles. i love it when gas prices go up (i'm a huge proponent for "we-don't-take-over-other-countries-for-lower-fuel-costs" pricing as they've got in europe) and i see the guy in the h2 spending triple digits on gas. it makes a little tear of joy well up in my eyes.

peace
 

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the 60mph vs 80mph thing was not true for me. when i had my b16 i got a constant 27.5mpg at 80mph-90mph the whole way to N11. I got a 27.5 constant mpg on city driving as well. The only way I decrease my mpg on my b16 was at a drag strip :lol:

A little extra air in your tires can decrease your rolling restance also.

basically you need to experiment and see what works for your car.
 

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60mph is not the magical number. ... look at your speedo 55 mph is a different color. Because after 55mph your gas mileage rolls off quick. There is a honda document that shows this fact in some old literature.

Shifting into the highest gear possible is not the best thing in some situations. If you are trying to save gas, sometimes shifting into 5th and giving it more pedal input is more innefficient than staying in 4th at slightly higher rpms with a higher vacuum reading (more negative, more vacuum).

There is also a theory that you only need to accelerate 20% of the time for any given distance. My dad always used to prove this to me.

Putting a turbo on can actually increase gas mileage.
 

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I don't suppose anyone has a graph of BSFC versus RPM for a given engine? That would show at what speed the engine is most efficient. Though I guess it would have to be a 3D graph of some sort - BSFC, RPM and manifold pressure. I guess just the point of peak efficiency would do.
 

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You really hit the nail head on..... but I don't think anyone here has a chart with such data. This is the whole point behind using a CVT drivetrain.
 

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akirarex said:
60mph is not the magical number. ... look at your speedo 55 mph is a different color. Because after 55mph your gas mileage rolls off quick. There is a honda document that shows this fact in some old literature.
or, because when our cars were produced, the double-nickel was the most common upper speed limit ;) and yeah, the "magic number" will of course vary with displacement/power and weight of the car, along with myriad other variables. honda had a special mark for 55 on most all of their vehidles, including my mom's old prelude which i'm sure had a different "magic number" than our cars. however i don't think there's much doubt that driving 80 isn't gonna get you better mpg than driving 60

which brings me to the point of getting the same mpg at 80-90 as you get in city, that proves the point, since we should all be getting much better mpg on the highways as we do in the city :D

peace
 

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IMHO, I just don't worry about it. Some call me selfish, inconsiderate, whatever other word you wish to add. Why are we worried about gas prices going up? Haven't they always? I'm only 27 and I remember paying less than a dollar for gas....premium no less. Some may still remember when milk was also a nickel too.

My point, I guess, is that gas has always gone up, and it's always going to go up. There is nothing you, or I can do about it. So you can either waste your time and energy trying to conserve a gallon of gas a week, or you can buy a moped.

Since our society is so "free roaming" based, gas will always go up. It is our weakness. Humans exploit other peoples weaknesses. They, whoever they might be, knows that our country cannot survive without the ease of travel. We have grown to accustomed to it. Unless you plan to start riding a horse to work, I wouldn't worry about not downshifting, or shifting right at 3500 or whatever. These are not things to worry about while in the middle of traffic. Instead, we, as a society, should worry more about the damned driving and not running into each other all the time. To me, someone who makes his living on the road with people worrying about things other than driving, this makes more sense.

Thanks for hearing me out. Good feedback, or bad, it is nice to vent once in a while. Sorry to do it at your expense.
 

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Kwicko's steps for improving gas mileage:

Step 1: Yank out the Crower Stage 1 cam and adjustable cam gear.

Step - Oh, wait - you're talking about YOUR car, not mine. I get it now... :)

Anyway, I *will* be yanking that cam out of my car. My last tank of gas, which was purely city driving and commuting, I got - get ready for this - LESS THAN EIGHTEEN MILES PER GALLON! And yes, this was on a CRX. Shameful. I hang my head.

I *like* the cam. I like the power. I can't stay out of the throttle with that cam, and I can't seem to keep the revs below around 5500, because it's just so damn much fun at the high end. But I'm done with it. I don't think I'll be getting rid of it - just putting it in a CRX that I *don't* need to drive every day.

I used to have to wail the pee out of the car to get it below 30mpg in the city, and 45mpg highway was a given. I miss those days... And the days when it would run on 87 octane without bitching and pinging about it.

I don't tend to get too upset about gas prices. Sure, most people will bitch about the price of gas, but they bitch about the weather, too. The way I see it, if that fabled "runs on water" engine that we've all heard about (and the oil companies have conspired to keep off the market) were actually on sale, we'd be in a much worse world of suckdom. Sure, it allegedly runs on water, but only on really CLEAN water. As in, bottled water. As in, costs $1.29 for 20 ounces water. Or about $8 a gallon. :shock: Suddenly, when compared to the price of bottled water, gas prices seem downright CHEAP!

Just something to put it in perspective.

Mike
 

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Im with Neil on this one also..

Gas will continue to rise regardless.. so we can all piss and moan about it, and try every single thing we read or hear about to try to get an extra mile or two out of a gallon, or we can just suck it up, and drop a few dollars more per fill-up.

Im not saying it doesnt suck.. I think it really sucks to fill my hatch up and it runs me damn near 30 bucks! I remember the first rex I got to drive.. and I filled it up for less then 12 bucks! Gas has doubled in price from about 15 years ago.. but the price of pretty much everything else has also risen..

Not much you can really do about it.. so I just deal.

later

Sneak
 

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Kwicko said:
Anyway, I *will* be yanking that cam out of my car. My last tank of gas, which was purely city driving and commuting, I got - get ready for this - LESS THAN EIGHTEEN MILES PER GALLON! And yes, this was on a CRX. Shameful. I hang my head.

Mike
And that is mainly due to the mild stage 1 cam? I'm getting ready to purchase their stage 3 cam with springs and retainers. Hopefully the mpg sn't much lower than that.
 

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sneaky_pete said:
Gas has doubled in price from about 15 years ago.. but the price of pretty much everything else has also risen..
Maybe your area is different, but gas has doubled since about 7-8 years ago here. I'm supprised nobody brings up the oil industry's record profits.
As for rising product prices... do you think that's due to inflation, or rising cost of transport?
 

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bobski said:
sneaky_pete said:
Gas has doubled in price from about 15 years ago.. but the price of pretty much everything else has also risen..
Maybe your area is different, but gas has doubled since about 7-8 years ago here. I'm supprised nobody brings up the oil industry's record profits.
As for rising product prices... do you think that's due to inflation, or rising cost of transport?
I specifically remember paying $0.98 in the fall of 2001, right before September 11. Less than five years later I am paying $2.59 a gallon.
 

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That 55 MPH red mark on the speedometer is not for fuel mileage. It is a governement mandated thing for when the top speed limit in the US was 55 MPH. Yes, I am old enough to remember the 1970s gas lines.
 
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