Double your Gas Mileage???

What do you think of this?

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/524517/double_your_gas_mileage_2x/

The only way that's gona happen is if your car haven't have oil and plug changed since it rolled off assembly plant and you forgot your haul of lead bricks in your trunk. They all have some merit more or less but you are looking at 10% increase tops. A note about change to lower weight oil thou, it may not provide enough lubrication cause increased wear and premature faliure.

The tips shown were good.

Adding Acetone to your gas=B.S. Acetone does nothing to aid with gas mileage, and it's corrosive to rubber. There's lots of rubber hoses in most fuel systems.

-dan

KipKay is a bullshit artist. http://www.dansdata.com/danletters198.htm

The easiest way to double your milage is to

1) combine trips, so you go the the hardware store then the bank then home instead of two trips.

2) Car pool.

If you drive so little that neither of these work, then chances are that gas mileage is not a #1 priority in your life.

Daniel

I have a real time display for mileage and it's useful if you use it. The tires and air filter are legit. Turning off the AC would help a little. I believe he exagerated about the value of removing the spare. If Acyetone improves mileage then I would have to wonder why gas station owners don't just mix some in their tank to draw customers? I feel his totals are suspicious.

Keep your tires inflated to the maximum pressure they'll support, it'll make a harsher ride, but you'll have less rolling resistance

keep your RPM low, the faster the engine is turning the more gas is burned

remove bike racks/cargo racks, and anything attached to the outside of the car that would disrupt airflow and compromise aerodynamics

carry as little weight in the car as possible

learn your commute, shift into neutral and coast whenever possible

accelerate slowly from a standstill, try not to tach over 3000 RPM

doing all of these has allowed me to get 30-35 MPG CITY in my '07 Saturn Ion

Buy *my* cow magnets and attach them to your gas line.

Car Talk on NPR just offered a new mobile diagnostic service. It involves a 300 baud modem on your dash and three miles of phone cable...

MacTech said:

Keep your tires inflated to the maximum pressure they'll support, it'll make a harsher ride, but you'll have less rolling resistance

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I duno about that, the replacement for uneven wore tires probably offset any gas you save, and then some.

MacTech said:

Keep your tires inflated to the maximum pressure they'll support, it'll make a harsher ride, but you'll have less rolling resistance

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Bad idea. Along with less rolling resistance you also get less grip.

keep your RPM low, the faster the engine is turning the more gas is burned

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Not always a good idea. Keeping your RPM too low will cause the car to be unresponsive should an emergency situation arise. To gain speed you need to either floor it and wait until the engine gets to speed, or change gear, both of which take precious time you might not have when that 18-wheeler has just run a red light and is about to smash into you with all its gazillion-ton weight.

I'm just saying.

You should try keeping your RPM low, but don't let them get so low that the engine will shudder and generally be slow and unhappy if you floor it.

(this assumes the car is a stick shift; don't know if this applies to auto transmissions too)

remove bike racks/cargo racks, and anything attached to the outside of the car that would disrupt airflow and compromise aerodynamics

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Some people take this to extremes and add all sorts of fiberglass surfaces to their cars in order to make them more aerodynamic. This does wonders for fuel economy, but tends to make the vehicles long and hard to park.

shift into neutral and coast whenever possible

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With electronic injection this is not necessarily true. Smart ECUs cut off fuel flow to the engine completely when the car is in gear and moving but you're not pushing on the gas pedal. There is some engine braking, of course, so this is a good technique when going downhill or when you know you eventually have to stop (maybe you can see a red light in the distance - or rather, a green light that you know will be red by the time you get there).
Not all cars do this; some always keep some fuel flowing, others only cut out above a certain speed.

In my Mazda 3 turbodiesel you can actually feel a very slight lurch forward when you're slowing down in first gear and the ECU eventually decides the engine is going too slow and resumes feeding it diesel (at about 3 to 4 km/h IIRC). Before this happens, the instant fuel consumption meter reads zero.

With the cars that do cut fuel flow whenever not absolutely necessary it's perfectly possible to make it down from the top of a hill with the engine ingesting nothing but air.

This is all completely moot if you have a carburated car, of course, as a carb will always let a minimum amount of fuel through the engine.
Also moot in the case of two stroke engines (mostly motorbikes, scooters and mopeds), which have total loss lubrication and so require some fuel/oil mixture going through them at all times.

I replaced my Air intake/filter with a KN system in my 96 Jeep grand Cherokee 318c.i. my mpg improved by 2 mpg!! It will pay off soon
with these gas prices!
my 0.2

The way you drive, tire pressure and added junk in the trunk sure helps.
Also, synthetic oil (valvoline, not pennzoil), K&N air filter and Bosch platinum +4 or iridium plugs help to.

Synthetic oil reduces friction. less friction, less fuel.
K&N air filter. Airflow restrictions cause more fuel to be dumped into the engine. A new paper air filter is better than a clogged one and a K&N is less restrictive than a paper one.
Bosch Platinum +4 plugs. People who build race engines used to put washer on the spark plugs to get the electrode to line up in the right spot so the fuel can ignite better. With the +4 plugs, there are 4 electrodes so no matter where it sits in the head, at least one electrode is in the optimum spot. This helps burn all the fuel. Conventional plugs do no burn all the fuel thus wasting it.

This has been said before but inflating your tires to max side wall pressure will not cause them to wear unevenly, unless you're running non-radials and if you are I feel sorry for you. I ran a set of Michelin Energy's to 70,000 miles (rated for 50,000) at max side wall pressure and still had 3 left on them when I stopped using them with the tread perfectly flat all the way across.

As for handling, try it yours self. Put your tires at 30 psi, go to an empty parking lot and try some quick turns. Not put them at max side wall (not above) and do the same thing. You will find out why most law enforcement and emergency vehicles run at max inflation, better handling, and better response. They don't inflate them there for mileage reasons. It will give you a bumpier ride, just back off on the pressure until you're happy with it.

A friend of mine works with and designs ABS and traction control systems and said they test stock tires from 5 psi to 100 psi and everywhere in between. He said going to 20 psi is worse for handling then going to 100 psi, and that traction control systems can handle higher pressures but lower pressures really throw them off and are dangerous.

But by all means, it's your vehicle, if you want to run them at the rated pressure on the car, go for it, just please don't let them run low.

Brock said:

This has been said before but inflating your tires to max side wall pressure will not cause them to wear unevenly, unless you're running non-radials and if you are I feel sorry for you.

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Well it really depends on the combination of tire/car, so your mileage will vary.

My main strategies are accelerating gradually, and combining trips so the engine's warm for as much of my driving as practical.

I'd also benefit from removing the two bench seats in my Caravan to reduce its weight, except that I don't have a good place to store them at the moment. If I drove at highway speeds much, I'd also look into removing the factory roof-rack crossbars for lower air drag.

In the bigger picture, I generally drive my car only once or twice a week anyway, using my bicycles the rest of the time, which is fairly practical since I have no kids/spouse/social life Sometimes I go for several months without buying gasoline

Is adding acetone to gas safe?

greenlight said:

Is adding acetone to gas safe?

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I sure wouldn't. Acetone is the only chemical I've used (so far) that can eat through Edmont Solvex nitrile gloves

greenlight said:

Is adding acetone to gas safe?

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Chemically yes, in the sense that you don't blow up your gas tank from a gas-acetone reaction or anything like that. And the engine does run with acetone in the fuel.

But it will eat through hoses and gaskets, eventually causing significant damage, and it won't really give much of a mpg benefit.

greenlight said:

Is adding acetone to gas safe?

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Yes, it's safe. It bumps the octane of gasoline a few points at a 1:16 mix ratio.

Blah, blah, blah, yap, yap, yap.
Every time the price of gas goes up some grand poobah wizard know-all-see-all with a PHD in Underwater Basketweaving reveals the government Ultra Super Double Top Secret Fuel Economy facts that have been hidden from us by the evil oil cartels. These new facts are just cut and paste of the same ones from last year, and the year before that, and the year before that one too. If you follow the new and improved instructions you will save so much gas that you will have to stop every 40 or 50 miles to drain your gas tank from all of the extra fuel you saved up in there in there.
Honestly folks, I drive a 2005 Chevy Avalanche rated at 15mpg City and 18mpg Highway. I usually get 16-19mpg in town and 20-21mpg on the road. I dont drive like I was in NASCAR and I keep up on the maint. on it. I knew it was a gas hog when I got it and I knew the price of gas was not going to get cheaper. Thems the facts and I accept it.
Not trying to flame anybody or start a war here.
You can have your soda pop can bodied soap box derby car with 10" bicycle wheels and solar powered headlights that weighs less than my Shih-Tzu.