Putting Together a Web Page with Gas Saving Ideas

[68 Suburban]

I get quite a few questions about how I get the mileage I do with my Burb. I know there are other people on here that get good mileage too.

I was thinking about putting a web page together with the things I have tried, and if they have worked or not. I would be interested to hear from other people that could share their attempts at gas saving. If you have anything to share, you can e mail it to me, or PM me with the info.

Would there be any interest in this, or would it be a waste of time? I think it would be great if we could all save a certain percentage of fuel each day, whether fuel is 99 cents, or $2.50 a gallon.

Thanks

[fine69]

Bring it on Chris.

[MeanGreenMachine]

I'd read it...

[dmurphy68]

there was some guy on here about a year ago with a driving theroy. i forget what it was called had a real weird name. he had everyone stumped for weeks. When he told us what it was it sounded pretty cool. he went from like 15 mpg to 25 mpg or something like that. maybee some one knows what i am talking about.

[68 Suburban]

Originally Posted by dmurphy68

there was some guy on here about a year ago with a driving theroy. i forget what it was called had a real weird name. he had everyone stumped for weeks. When he told us what it was it sounded pretty cool. he went from like 15 mpg to 25 mpg or something like that. maybee some one knows what i am talking about.

Would it be called "porposing"?

[busterwivell]

I'd love to see what works and what doesn't. I'm still considering a rear end swap from the 8 lug 14 bolt rear I have now with 411's and going to something a lot lower. Right now, with my 700R4, I'm at 3400 RPM at 75 miles an hour. I'd like to get that down to about 2500.

[dmurphy68]

Originally Posted by 68 Suburban

Would it be called "porposing"?

why yes it was was that you?

[ryanroo]

id love to see some ideas on increasing mileage
ryan

[Jeepster376]

This is an excelent idea. I'd love to see it. I've been working on incrementally improving my mileage, but I haven't reached my goal yet. It would be great to be able to see what has worked ot not worked for others.

[68 Suburban]

Originally Posted by dmurphy68

why yes it was was that you?

ah, ah, ah

[68 Suburban]

Originally Posted by Jeepster376

This is an excelent idea. I'd love to see it. I've been working on incrementally improving my mileage, but I haven't reached my goal yet. It would be great to be able to see what has worked ot not worked for others.

When I first got my burb 5 years ago I was getting 10 mpg. Through different changes, I have gotten it up to 19 mpg. It is a constant trial an error process.

[toddtheodd]

what is porposing?

[dmurphy68]

here we go again lol

[walker]

Yeah, what is porposing??? I would love to figure out how to get better than the 12mpg I get now.

[Blue Beard]

I'd like to see that website as well....

be interesting to see what everyone's ideas are...

[Jeepster376]

Originally Posted by walker

Yeah, what is porposing??? I would love to figure out how to get better than the 12mpg I get now.

Since I'm not in on the joke either, I did a search and found this page that explains the porpoising driving technique. In short it's accelerating up to faster than normal speed, shutting off the engine and coasting down, start the engine and repeat, untill you reach your destination. I won't be trying this any time soon.

[toddtheodd]

I've done that once... when I was almost out of gas... got it up to speed and coasted all the way to the gas station. It was only like 2 miles though, and in my hometown which was really small. It helps if the vehicle doesn't have power steering or power brakes since the engine doesn't need to be running for those to work.
todd

[Stocker]

The following is from an email I received over a year ago, when fuel prices were rising. It's lengthy and includes comments & opinions by the author, but also has some fuel-saving advice.... so here it is, FWIW....


This is intended primarily for US readers, but if it does anyone else some
good, by all means forward it to anyone who drives a car, truck,
motorcycle, etc.

Within the last month, prices for gasoline have risen at ridiculous
rates. (See CNN's story at
http://money.cnn.com/2003/02/12/pf/a...s_prices.reut/ ). My favorite
local 76 station went from $1.39 a gallon several weeks ago to $1.65 per
gallon for regular unleaded (87 pump octane) as of this morning. The
Chevron station next door to it is usually three to four cents higher per
gallon, but today their sign reads $1.85 per gallon for the same grade of
fuel (87 octane).

In the past we've all received chain letters giving us advice on how to
bring gasoline prices back down by duping the oil industry into thinking we
are buying less gas. That didn't work; it can't work. They are smart
enough to look at average sales over a period of time. Even if we all try
to boycott one brand for a day, a week, whatever, they'll get around
that. They can lower the price by two cents per gallon and their customers
will come flocking back in droves.

But fear not, gentle reader, for I have a plan. It consists of one step
and one step only: BUY LESS GASOLINE. You're not fooling anyone by buying
less gas at any particular time; what I meant was to buy less gas overall -
which you can do if you USE less gas - which happens when you NEED less
gas. We need to reduce our NEED for gasoline in order to reduce demand for
it. THAT will reduce prices at the pump.

So how does one go about reducing their need for gasoline? There are two
basic ways:

1) DRIVE LESS.
This is much, much easier than you think. Walk to work, ride a bicycle or
take a bus rather than driving. You don't have to hunt for a parking
space. You don't have to drive too slow or too fast if you don't want
to. You can go half a block to the next shop much faster if you're on foot
than if you have to maneuver two tons of steel in and out of parking slots,
onto and then back off of a crowded street. I know it's harder work than
sitting in a cushy leather chair, listening to Burt Bacharach and steering
with one finger while sucking the cream filling out of an eclair, but you
could probably stand to lose a few pounds anyway, right? Get out and walk
or ride the bike if you can. Save a few miles here and there and you'll
feel better and spend a little less money. Both are good things.

If you really have to drive, see if anyone you work with lives near
you. If they don't smell like patchouli and have particularly radical
political views, offer to share a ride to work with them when possible.

Even if you really do have to take a car, you can cut several miles out of
a typical day by planning your route and your errands carefully. If you
have to go across town to the hardware store, for example, try to think of
and do anything else you might need to do while you're on that side of town
so you don't have to come back later in the day. Save just five miles per
day, five days a week, and that's over a hundred miles a month you're
suddenly NOT driving. If you get 20 miles per gallon, that's five gallons
a month you are no longer buying. If 100 million people somehow all did
this at the same time, that would be HALF A BILLION LESS GALLONS of
gasoline being pumped per month. That's probably not as big a number as it
sounds, but it can't hurt, right?

2) GET MORE MILES PER GALLON.
"But my car gets 19 miles per gallon...I can't change that." Wrong. You
certainly can change that number, and if you want to reduce the price of
gasoline, you will. Here's how:

First off, if you have a choice between driving, say, a Honda Civic and a
Ford Expedition, drive the Civic. You probably don't need to be driving
around in an armored personnel carrier anyway. If you are not hauling at
least three other people and/or huge crates or furniture, why the big truck?

Whatever you drive, make sure your tires are properly inflated AT LEAST to
the factory's recomended pressure. If you want to really help out your
mileage, you can inflate them a couple of pounds higher than that. (I run
mine at 44psi, the maximum allowable as per the tire sidewall.) The ride
may be a hair noisier or harsher, but can you put it with it to bring gas
prices back in line?

Next you should be sure that your car is properly tuned. Does it need new
spark plugs? Is the air filter clogged? Are you using the correct 5W-30
motor oil, or did you pour in some thick 20W-50 last time? Checking and
correcting things like this will make a huge impact on your car's fuel economy.

Finally, the trickiest part of all: alter your driving habits. If you have
a stick-shift car, shift as early as you can to keep engine RPM low. (This
is key.) If you have an automatic transmission with different shift modes,
choose the most conservative one (Econ, Norm, etc) rather than the one
marked Power.

Avoid racing towards a red light, or even a light that may go red
soon. Every time you have to slow or stop, you lose all the energy you
just built up last time you accelerated. If you acclerate a little slower
and wait for the guy ahead of you to turn the light green before you get to
the intersection, you will use a lot less fuel. Choosing not to tailgate
or do anything else that prevents you from seeing far ahead and
anticipating conditions will also help you avoid slowing down unecessarily.

****OTHER TACTICS****
I'm also writing letters to the two companies I hold gas cards from (76 and
Chevron), and letting them know that I will not be purchasing their product
until their prices become reasonable again. Until that happens, I will be
buying the least expensive gas I can find. My car doesn't need rocket fuel
and it's not getting any for a long time. I'm taking over a hundred
gallons per month away from those two, and if we all did the same, we might
be able to let them know that we are not going to let them rob us like
they're trying to.

**** REAL-WORLD NUMBERS****
I normally get about 24 miles per gallon in urban use. When I drive
carefully and keep the tires aired up, I get as much as 29. That's more
than a 20% improvement. Even if you can only go from, say, 20 to 22,
that's still 10% more distance per any amount of gasoline you buy. Now
imagine that we all drive 10% less, too. Suddenly we are using only 80% of
the fuel we were! Think anyone would notice? I think so!

We all know that most people aren't going to bother doing anything but
complaining about high gas prices. But imagine if we could get even one
half of the driving public to cut their consumption by 20%. That would
reduce overall fuel sales by roughly ten percent. Even half that number,
5%, would make the oil companies sit up and pay attention!

Please do forward this to everyone you think would like lower gas
prices. Again, this is not magic, just basic economics. Less demand =
lower prices!

[68 Suburban]

Originally Posted by toddtheodd

I've done that once... when I was almost out of gas... got it up to speed and coasted all the way to the gas station. It was only like 2 miles though, and in my hometown which was really small. It helps if the vehicle doesn't have power steering or power brakes since the engine doesn't need to be running for those to work.
todd

You can porpose with the engine running, but I feel porposing is a little extreme. You can take some of the ideas of porposing and make them work.

Be aware of your up coming lights and try to time them. You can get use to doing this, especially if you drive the same route regularly. A lot of lights on a stretched are time by the speed limit. That means if the speed limit is 40 the complete stretch, and you drive 40, you can make every light. What is the sense of going 50, just to have to brake and stop. Then have to start up again. Also, if you see a light turning yellow up the road, why keep excellerating? Let off the gas and glide for a while and try to time the next green light, instead of having to come to a complete stop. The more you keep your car in motion, instead of stop and going, themore gas you will save. It might seem like this is a lot to try to keep aware of, but once you start doing it, you will soon find that you will be doing it with out thinking.

[Cat Fuzz]

Originally Posted by dmurphy68

there was some guy on here about a year ago with a driving theroy. i forget what it was called had a real weird name. he had everyone stumped for weeks. When he told us what it was it sounded pretty cool. he went from like 15 mpg to 25 mpg or something like that. maybee some one knows what i am talking about.

I believe its referred to, in technical terms, "keep your foot out of the carb".

[Hutch]

Chris,
That is an excellent idea.
One of my cars has an electric fuel pump with points inside of it and at one time the thing was on the fritz and the points would stick until you toggled the ignition key which would some time lead to a back-fire through the exhaust, while other times it would simply loose a little power then pick up again.
During this time my gas mileage increased tremendously.
I have often thought that if there was a way to smart cycle these things sort of like a compressor or something especially when you are on the open road (not requiring a lot of power), you could actually starve the engine a little then recover and repeat the cycle over and over.

I know that companies that use a lot of compressors have to regulate them as to when they cycle on and off to keep the surge on the power low. The reason is that the electric company monitors the lines for surge and if they exceed a certain surge there bill will go up accordingly.

Apply this theory to a gas pump so that it waits until a certain point and then recovers.

[68 Suburban]

You can go one more step to what I said above, and that is to shift into neutral while you "coast" to/through traffic lights. I don't think I would go to the extent of what the porposing page call for, and turn of the ignition. I think there safety issues with power brakes and steering.

The idea of porposing as it is spelled out is pretty intense, but you can take some of the ideas and save some gas.

[botboy]

I've heard theories that one can tune an engine to "lean-cruise" at whatever your cruising speed is (anywhere from 50-80 depending on the person) to run about 30% lean (as in, using 70% of the duty cycle of the injectors, thus only 70% of the amount of gas) without any negative effects, assuming that your cooling system works sufficiently. However this is difficult without something like megasquirt (bgsoflex.com/megasquirt.htm) or any number of expensive aftermarket injector control systems.

An old tactic that works is to install a carb spacer, and between the bottom of the carb spacer and the intake, put a fine screen in. This makes sure that the atomized gasoline is going into the engine *atomized* and not in droplets. REMEMBER: Liquid gas won't burn!

Some other ideas:
Underdrive pullies
Lower rear gears
Leave the A/C off
Upgrade the auto to an AOD, upgrade the SM465/420 for a NV4500 or 3500

[72C203503ONTHETREE]

I live on top of a mountian, actually just a big hill here in Alabama. Its about a few miles of steep grade and I always put the car/truck in nuetral or shut it off going down. Problem is you use quite a bit going up the hill again coming back home. I got a 74 Datsun 710 wagon to drive for gas savings, the truck is for hauling crap and for fun. The El Camino is for nothing but fun. You buy a truck you won't expect good gas mileage. I hope my set up will be more efficient after I redo the engine. I removed my cam yesterday and found that one lobe was completely flat and two more were on the way out to. I am putting a Summit cam #1105, Performer RPM intake, 600 cfm Carter carb, HEI, and Accel wires.

[Martin64]

Ride a motorcycle..... I get 45mpg