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Old 12-11-2009, 08:40 AM   #9 (permalink)
WoodyWoodchuck
EcoModding Wanabe
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Wake Forest, NC
Posts: 10

Red Rocket - '08 Toyota Yaris
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I live in a small hilly area of NC so have this on my daily commute. Lots of traffic here so I need to be somewhere around the psl while driving. For steep up hills I find the speed required at the bottom so I can bleed speed until I reach the top. One hill, on a 55 psl 2-lane road, I need to be at 62 mph at the bottom and I will be at 52 mph at the top. If no one is behind me I can FAS at the top, at 52 mph, and glide along slowly losing speed until I need to restart and accelerate. If being followed I can maintain that 52 mph getting around 80 impg until I reach the down hill. I use the impg (instantaneous miles per gallon) gauge on the SGII to adjust throttle. 25 impg while around 55 mph is a pretty standard power climb number for me. Long highway up hills it is just grinding it out taking whatever mileage I get. I try for 30+ impg on these. This enables me to maintain 55 mph usually.

Short steep hills basically same technique, I just need to adjust the initial speed. In the rollercoaster areas (lots of smaller ups and downs) where the hills are fairly close together I use a pulse and DWL. Pulsing on the downhill and DWL on the uphill. I found that trying to accelerate going uphill is a losing battle; I use more gas than I can gain by gliding down the other side. I don’t gain as much by accelerating going down but I also lose much less while going up. In traffic this also lets me maintain a more constant speed and seems to help prevent major tailgating. If no one is behind me I can throw a few FAS’ in and coast up and down a few before losing too much speed and having to restart.
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Arragonis (12-13-2009)