TeamSwift

Haven't posted here with my 'vert yet so here it goes:

City ~36mpg
Highway 41-44

The city mileage is pretty regular over 10+ tanks or so, but I've only been able to record mileage on 2 highway tanks (1 at 41 the other at 44).

It is a '92 'vert with a 5 speed and the only time I put the top up is when it is raining. I drive the car pretty hard stoplight to stoplight in the city about 50% of the time when I'm driving in the city. On the highway I maintain 55-60mph for most of a 40 mile trip with occassional spurts to 65 max if circumstances dictate.

Bob

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"We don't make mistakes here, we just have happy accidents... If you want sad things, watch the news. Everything is possible here. This is your little universe."
-Bob

94 metro xfi, bone stock, hauling 2 spares, 2 jacks, tools, steel roof rack, and about 530 lbs of Sunday papers (on a full tank of gas) driving up and down Alaskan hills and mountains all night, constant stop and go (to deliver said papers) with f*cked up timing~~~29.1 mpg.

I think I'll hit 33-35 after timing is set. My best ever is 48.9 mpg

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1993 GEO METRO 1.0 lsi (xfi swap)
1995 Eddie Bauer Exploder
1983 CHEVY C-10--the gas guzzler
1997 VW GTI VR6 Turbo--dead as a door nail
1994 GEO METRO 1.0 xfi (retired and parted out)
1989 Suzuki Swift GTi (sold)

ok...got it up to 31.5 and still havent touched the timing.

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1993 GEO METRO 1.0 lsi (xfi swap)
1995 Eddie Bauer Exploder
1983 CHEVY C-10--the gas guzzler
1997 VW GTI VR6 Turbo--dead as a door nail
1994 GEO METRO 1.0 xfi (retired and parted out)
1989 Suzuki Swift GTi (sold)

My 93 Swift GT, bone stock with my depleted uranium toenails

36.4 mpg on my first full tank. Taking it pretty easy, mostly, around town but with with a good bit of interstate driving at anywhere from 70 to 85 plus mph, depending on traffic flow. If you drive less than 70 here in Atlanta you are just a moving roadblock and likely to get rear ended.

I chased a pack of crotch rockets today for a couple of miles at just over 90 with plenty left..

I think my tires might be a little taller than stock because at 75 indicated I'm not getting passed much and in my wife's J30t at 75 indicated we have people blowing past us like we are standing still.

85 Firebird 400 small block chevy 12:1 compression was about 10-13 mpg around town and about 15-16 highway(sucks lifters died from mobile 1 oil at about 1,500 miles on the fresh motor)
89 Swift 30-32 around town and best of 40 on high way (dont know what happend was getting religiously 35 around town)

1994 Geo Metro/1L/5 spd

450km 100% city/rush hour.

Note: The procedure I use is filling the tank up (until the nozzel clicks off for the first time - i never keep sqeezing more gas in) Then when the tank is nearly empty i then fill up again (to the first click of the nozzel) and note how many liters of gas it took to do this and compare that to the odemeter.

So I beleive it took maybe 32.xxx liters of gas to go 450km

450/32 liters = 14.0625km/L

14.0625L * 4.546(imperial gallon) = 63.928 km/Imperial Gallon

63.928IG / 1.609(miles) = 39.731 MPG


450km = 32liters = 39.731 MPG


I don't know how people get 50MPG. Maybe highway makes a big diference?

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1994 Geo Metro 5 spd: All stockish. Re-built head, and lots and lots of donar parts B to the ER'

1995 Camaro Z28 6 spd: Magnaflow 3" Cat-back, K&N, skip shift elim. and thats it...for now.

Oh and as for my Camaro in my sig pic. That one gets about 17MPG with my usual temptations (darn well nearly impossible to resist). One time I got just under 20MPG. That was with 75% conservative driving and 25% led foot.

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1994 Geo Metro 5 spd: All stockish. Re-built head, and lots and lots of donar parts B to the ER'

1995 Camaro Z28 6 spd: Magnaflow 3" Cat-back, K&N, skip shift elim. and thats it...for now.

Greetings:

My 1985 Chevy Sprint, 5 speed MT got 45 MPG after driving 130 miles. This was a combined city and freeway driving. I drove 70 miles in Everett WA and 60 miles on I 5 over a 10 day period. I have 205/60R 13 tires. They have about 500 miles on them and they are a summer tire. I feel this is Great MPG.........
As per my other posts, this car has a rebuilt engine, all the tuneup stuff, shocks, etc.......

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Dale

1985 Chevy Sprint Mk1 G10 5 Speed Sky Blue

Well I've dropped my average speed from 75MPH to 65MPH, cut the car off at long lights and tried a little pulse and glide in the city. Its bumped my mileage to 41.5 MPG. Now winter is here and have to idle it to get the temp up to clear my windshield so its gonna drop but hopefully not much.

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00 Chevy Metro 1.0 5spd

lets see if i get better mileage now. I changed my (very dirty) air filter, my PCV valve (which was red and black and did not click when i shook it), and also installed a piece of cardboard in front of the rad (for the cold winter). i was gonna put in an O2 sensor (one wire) but the one currently in there is a 4 wire which is 4x more expensive to replace

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1994 Geo Metro 5 spd: All stockish. Re-built head, and lots and lots of donar parts B to the ER'

1995 Camaro Z28 6 spd: Magnaflow 3" Cat-back, K&N, skip shift elim. and thats it...for now.

I have read a lot about this mileage stuff, and even read a bit about the pulse and glide driving....

Admittedly, I probably did not read enough....but I dont have all day here....

So , my question is, dont you lose your brakes power assist when doing the pulse glide thing? Not too mention power steering (on cars that have it)

Isnt this kind of unsafe?

Especially with all the traffic seen on morning commutes to work?

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"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague longing for something salty" - Peter Egan
89 Swift GTI raced in ITB with the SCCA.

i find that if i drive as if i have an egg under my foot on the accelerator pedal i get great mileage. everything else done with smooth, practiced, and controlled movements, leaving the car in gear with the clutch engaged while slowing to shut down the injectors, and pre-planned braking will quickly become driving habits.

i drive a set route on my daily commute and, within limits, i practice the same techniques day in and day out. when you drive for economy it can be every bit as challenging as racing.

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1991 Blue Geo Metro Convertible highly modified 1.0L Turbo3 5 spd. - 1991 Red Geo Metro Convertible customized with a Twincam 5 spd.

My Turbo3 Project
My Cardomain Page -Ol' Blue
My YouTube Channel
My Photo Gallery
SAAB Sonett II

hmmm,

leaving the car IN gear when coasting to a stop. I never would have thunk.
This shuts down the injectors?
So, do you come off the gas, coast for a little bit to shut down the injectors, then pop it out of gear to coast?

Or, do you leave it in gear all the way down to a stop?

Does it work like this for other makes of cars?

Like with my miata?

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"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague longing for something salty" - Peter Egan
89 Swift GTI raced in ITB with the SCCA.

i leave it in 5th all the way down until i brake. when i apply the brakes i shift to neutral and take my foot off the clutch. i try to time my deceleration to match traffic lights or traffic flow at stop signs to reduce idling time. i'm accustomed to the the traffic light timing on my commute and if i'll be idling more than about 60 seconds, i switch the engine off with the key.

my understanding of the controls on the metro lead me to think that when the map sensor sees a vacuum and the tps sees the throttle closed, injector pulses cease. if you clutch or shift to neutral, removing the load from the engine, the controls see map pressures indicating idle and the tps position is at idle so the ecu pulses the injectors for idle conditions. the vehicle speed sensor has some effect, too.

i think that you are correct in that the pulse and glide technique is dangerous when there is traffic. i, personally, don't want to offend other drivers just for the sake of maximizing economy. i catch enough heat for not screaming off the line at every light. even with controlled, light acceleration i still try to mesh with traffic. it's like a dance anyway, with every soccer mom in an suv and every cowboy in a pickup truck giving me the swap and swoop when i try to maintain an assured clear distance in rush hour traffic. little cars get challenged by larger vehicles all the time.

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1991 Blue Geo Metro Convertible highly modified 1.0L Turbo3 5 spd. - 1991 Red Geo Metro Convertible customized with a Twincam 5 spd.

My Turbo3 Project
My Cardomain Page -Ol' Blue
My YouTube Channel
My Photo Gallery
SAAB Sonett II

T3 you raise good points about needing to tailor your style to the traffic conditions.

In order of efficiency, the "best" way to decelerate is:

1) with the car in neutral and the engine OFF, coasting to a stop.

2) Engine braking with fuel cutoff would be somewhere below that.

3) Using the brake pedal is further below that.

But whether or not you can get away with doing 1 or 2 (without disrupting the normal flow) depends on what's going on around (behind) you.

That said - I will often coast up to a red light if there's someone behind who has no other option but to stop at the light anyway. (EG I won't coast down to a red light if I could potentially holding them up from accessing a turning lane or some other turn (driveway, side street) before the intersection.)

I wouldn't say P&G is automatically "dangerous" in traffic. It depends on the conditions, and the speed differential between the end of the pulse & the end of the glide. I tend not to do it with other cars behind me because the efficiency results are best when the differential is large.

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www.MetroMPG.com ... www.ForkenSwift.com
... www.EcoModder.com

Pulse and glide may be efficient, but....
It's ILLEGAL in most (if not all) of the U.S.


You HAVE to be in GEAR (ANY gear) and the motor HAS to be running when driving on a public road.


Jimmy

how does the car slow down with no assist on the brakes? Poorly or not much difference?

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"Racing makes heroin addiction look like a vague longing for something salty" - Peter Egan
89 Swift GTI raced in ITB with the SCCA.

So at lights I cut the engine leaving it in gear and it slows pretty good. Little rough on the clutch but really slows down when I downshift with the engine off. Only have about 3 miles in town to do P&G but its kinda fun to try it out. Doesn't do so well at highway speeds but doable on light traffic late at night(haven't done it enought to see if efficency goes up though) [/quote]

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00 Chevy Metro 1.0 5spd

when i let my 98 3 banger coast, in 5th gear with my foot off the gas, it doesn't really lose speed all that fast although the engine is applying some braking via compression in the cylinders. the injector duty cycle is zero %.

when i want to brake, i apply the brakes and shift to neutral while i come to a stop. the shift to neutral saves a little wear on the throw out bearing and pressure plate fingers.

my personal driving technique comes, largely, from having driven vintage saab cars with "free wheeling" built into their transmissions. their operation included inherent coasting while you were off throttle, a vestige of the 2 stroke powered cars that had oil mixed with the gas. if you were off the throttle and used the engine for compression braking, the engine effectively had no lubrication and would sieze up. they used the same highly efficient front drive transaxle in the later model 4 stroke powered cars so the "free wheeling" mode remained and was just super for winter driving.

the point to my explaining the saab stuff is to illustrate the point that i have no compunction about coasting, out of gear, legal or illegal. the saab had an over running clutch that allow the input shaft of the tranny to disconnect from the engine (after the normal clutch) if the input shaft ran faster than the engine's crankshaft. if you let the engine drop to idle, the tranny just rolled along at road speed. the system allowed smooth re-engagement when you pressed the throttle and matched crank rpms with the input shaft speed.

while i agree that switching off the key would bring fueling to a complete halt, it's pretty cumbersome and you run the risk of inadvertently engaging the steering column lock. since the ecu sets the injector pulsewidth to zero when i coast in gear, i just save the wear on the starter or drive train by letting the electronics handle things.

in the long run, i'm not driving for maximum economy. i have to drive in the real world of rush hour traffic on 4 lane highways. i absolutely can't piss off the redneck in the diesel pickup truck behind me.

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1991 Blue Geo Metro Convertible highly modified 1.0L Turbo3 5 spd. - 1991 Red Geo Metro Convertible customized with a Twincam 5 spd.

My Turbo3 Project
My Cardomain Page -Ol' Blue
My YouTube Channel
My Photo Gallery
SAAB Sonett II

VW is getting into the freewheeling game with their DSG transmissions (automated, dual clutch). They actually used it in the Polo/Lupo (I forget which one - always mix them up) diesel high mileage model, and some owners complained because they were used to engine braking when releasing the accelerator. Old habits die hard, I guess.

The neat thing about the VW tranny is that they could theoretically give you the option to enable/disable the feature since it's all software. Rev-matched gear re-engagements & downshifts also.



I mounted a momentary kill switch on the gearshift for that reason.



Lucky you! I'm pretty much the opposite: I don't commute, and I live in a small city with light traffic. Most of my driving is off-peak times, and I also choose specific routes that let me do whatever I please behind the wheel without affecting/offending anybody.

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www.MetroMPG.com ... www.ForkenSwift.com
... www.EcoModder.com

Usually what I do is from third gear (giong 50Kmh) I downshift to second to use the engine as a helper to brake. Is this good or should I be going into neutral and just using the brakes ? Or just keep in third and then apply brakes and then apply clucth when rpm too low and coast.

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1995 Firefly 1.3 SOHC 8VALVE MANUAL
2000 Firefly 1.3 SOHC 16VALVE AUTO. Goals: full restoration, achieve stock MPG and HP or higher, finished look should be 'stealthy' and unassuming. Engine will need to be rebuilt later on to restore compression levels.

the old saabs had a lock out lever way up under the dash. you basically had to stop the car and get out of the seat to engage or disengage the lock out.

it doesn't surprise me that VW would be bringing it back. porsche and dkw had versions of the sachs-o-matic clutchless automatic manual transmission which had similar features in the late 50s, early 60s.

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1991 Blue Geo Metro Convertible highly modified 1.0L Turbo3 5 spd. - 1991 Red Geo Metro Convertible customized with a Twincam 5 spd.

My Turbo3 Project
My Cardomain Page -Ol' Blue
My YouTube Channel
My Photo Gallery
SAAB Sonett II

The driving technique of leaving it in gear until you depress the brake would make an ole tank driver proud.
Certain tanks have no baffles. The trucks pulling these loads are much lighter than the tank, and anything less than a gradual stop will slosh the fluid, and when it hits the front of the tank...presto! your are into the intersection...along with a loud "boom". Your first experience will make you a believer.

Loads of molasses, linseed oil, battery acid, antifreeze, and halves of certain polymers should be included as examples.

The techniques T3 mentions include a margin of safety for the vehicles around you, and the maximum fuel efficiency (yes, even in a Kenworth, Peterbilt, Mack, or other diesel truck)

Big trucks are also concerned with fuel efficiency. That's why tank trucks, except gasoline tankers (they have baffles) run mostly in the wee hours of the early morning when there is no traffic - partly a safety reason, and partly an economic reason. Some guys even go so far as to grind off any bolt that is protruding from its fastening nut to lighten the weight of the tractor. Some only run a small amount of diesel fuel in their large saddle tanks that most car operators think are full.

So, our little 'green' machines have counterparts on the highway. Ironically, they are the huge tank trucks which always are fully loaded (weight-wise), and never tailgate...they can't stop as fast as we can. They never get even, and always move over to let you on the freeway in the States. You are probably thinking of the trucks that tow containers (or boxes) but that is not what I'm talking about. But I am getting off the topic of the thread.

My 87 Sprints are getting 50 mpg if carburetor (NA) and 44mpg if a Turbo.
These G10's get well over 50 mpg's out here in the desert, especially with a 3.5 ish final drive. The Turbo? It's too fun to drive slowly!!!

Maybe someone should start a thread on how much we spend annually.
This past year we spent $3171 on regular gasoline at the pumps.These G10's get well over 50 mpg's out here in the desert, especially with a 3.5 ish final drive.

Regards

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DIY Broken Bolt Removal: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=41042
DIY Clutch Adjustment: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=48281
DIY Wheel Bearings: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29003
DIY Shocks: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=45483
DIY Wheel Align: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=42479
Once you get the cars dialed-in (compression, leaks, bearings, alignment, brakes) swap in new rubber and glass, you've got something which should last for years!

94 swift gt turbo on 3-3.5 lbs boost
average 27-30 city mpg havent been on highway with it yet.

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98 Chevy metro, 1L 5 speed.

480 miles at "E", 53 mpg; 80% hwy, 20% city.

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1998 Chevrolet Metro
::TBI bridge removed::cold air intake removed::rear seat/spare/jack/paneling removed::