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Old 08-24-2010, 07:54 PM   #51 (permalink)
saand
Wiki Writer
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 236

bugler - '91 Mazda 626
90 day: 35.89 mpg (US)
Thanks: 15
Thanked 25 Times in 22 Posts
Its good to see your progress over several threads and on the wiki, your certainly modding faster than I can and getting some good ABA data out of your mods.

In replying to your request for more mod ideas if your still looking for ideas.

Can you provide more info about your regular trips and how well your car does at the moment in different modes. I figure there are several different modes for fuel usage and all have different influences from different mods
- acceleration (weight has big impact, aero mods don’t)
- cruising (aero mods have big impact, weight almost no impact)
- idling (engine size, parasitic parts (drive belts head lights ..) have big impact, weight and aero no impact)
- Cold start (engine size, cold idle control big impact, weight, aero zero impact)

If you give a bit of an idea of how much fuel your car uses under these conditions it might help pic some good mods for you.
- Cruising is just MPG at a speed
- acceleration can be fuel used over accelerating from 0 to xxx mph (averaged over a few) Note: you can also test different accelerating rates, I found if I accelerating slow car uses same fuel as accelerating fast
- idling, how much fuel does your car use when idling after its warmed up
- cold start, when your car hasn't been used over night how much fuel does it use when warming up. Test by turning it on sitting idling in your drive way until it reaches temperature then compare to warm idling fuel used over same time.

If you give this info the group may be able to suggest the best mod for you also I bet you will have some great ideas yourself after you do those tests.

Those tests might take a bit of time so if you just want suggestions I think you might want to concentrate on your engine now that you have done most of the easy aero mods.
Things I am thinking are
- reduce idle
- cold idle reduction (gave me large improvements but may have been specific to my car)
- sensor fooling, run the car leaner give better efficiency (if you have a high range 02 sensor)
- If you have an automatic, try making it a manumatic which gives you control of gear selection and torque converter lockup
- remove parasitic engine loads. Reduce electrical loads, reduce drive belts such as power steering (that is an relatively easy mod if you don’t stuff it up like I did) AC belt removal.

That is all I can quickly think of without knowing more about your specific car


Last edited by saand; 08-24-2010 at 08:00 PM..
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