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Originally Posted by SyntheticShield  Flame me if you must but Im going to disagree with you here. Modifications for fuel economy is not barking up the wrong tree. There are things you can do for fuel economy. Power and fuel economy are not mutually exclusive nor inversely proportional.
Cars come from the factory hardly tuned well. When I bought my GP it just did get 28 mpg all highway and it was in excellent shape. Before the transmission had went out I would touching on 34 but consistently ran 32 - 33 all highway. But they are hardly set up for fuel economy from the factory, indeed, more so for emissions than anything.
My Isuzu Rodeo when I bought it barely and I mean barely got 17mpg. It is now consistently running 22 - 23 mpg combined driving. I havent yet taken it on a long run to see what it could do on an all highway drive, but my guess is that it will be at least a couple mpg's higher on an all highway run.
My plan is to fully demonstrate that there is much more mileage to be had out of the GP once I get it all back together. We dont really come even close to utilizing all of the energy of the fuel that is put into the motor. True, we will never use 100% of it due to frictional losses, but until we start using a lot more of it there will always be room for more power AND fuel economy. The two would go hand in hand because if you extract more energy from the same amout of fuel, both fuel economy and power go up.
It is true driving style has a large effect on fuel economy but it is hardly the whole picture. |
I can get much of the improvements in MPG by changing driving style. What I'm saying, AGAIN, is if you want a car that gets good gas mileage, don't buy a car that STARTs in the 20s for MPG. People who buy Hybrids don't do the math to realized that buying a used car for $4000-$5000 is MUCH more fuel efficient than dropping $25000-$30000 on a Hybrid that gvies them a 10-15 MPG improvement. Don't make mods to you car and expect dramatic MPG improvements. I made my mods strictly for performance; any MPG increase is just a bonus. Spending $2000-$3000 up front for jsut 2-3 MPG improvement is silly. If you buy a used GP because you want a fuel efficient car, you bought the wrong car.