Quote:
Originally Posted by Zerohour
I'm wondering how the internals look, and if it would be possible to switch over to a different gear set. I would be concerned about making the gears too long, because the outback is pretty underpowered as an awd sedan. It might actually increase FE by going to taller gear due to the slower acceleration. Truthfully what it needs is a 5th gear. It would then be able to accelerate to shift before 2500 rpm.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe I should have just gotten a pickup truck with 4wd.
But right now it looks like i'm stuck at 25.5's for mileage. That will probably go down a bit more as the weather gets worse.
I need some more ideas to figure out how to get more economy out of the car!!!
-LED lights - driving in winter and on 10 hour shifts, I don't see the sun. I could reduce the load on the alternator by 6amps by swapping to led bulbs.
-Weight reduction - currently removed spare, jack, hold downs, and trunk carpet. I don't know what else I can remove without starting to sacrifice the interior looks of the car (and potentially rendering the modifications as irreversible. I would love to try racing seats for the front, but the seats are wired into the side airbags. Removing these disables the airbag system.
-partial upper grill block. Its winter, so might be able to block off the upper grill slightly now.
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I wouldn't go with taller gears unless you have a lot of patience. The autos are very sluggish as it is.
What you need is a Legacy manual. I got my Su with 120,000 miles on the OD and she gave me 27mpg right away. At 220,000 miles Su was drinking a quart of oil every 2000 miles, but I refined my driving to get 30mpg. That was with no mods and accelerating pretty briskly. Really the only thing I was doing for FE was timing lights and traffic, and coasting every opportunity I got.
I bought a 2007 auto Outback and couldn't stand the sluggish acceleration, terrible mileage (23) and unsteady cornering. A month later I sold her and kept driving ugly Su (the Legacy). What I'm really getting at is that the best idea for more FE is a different car, and then add all of your sweet mods.
I can't imagine lower draw lights would help FE very much, but if you do it then I'd be curious to see your measured results. Weight reduction never translated into better FE for me, but then again I wasn't doing a lot of stop and go. I'd keep the spare and jack, but then again I was rallying the heck out of my ride and probably used the spare on half a dozen occasions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Weather Spotter
Hid's might be cheaper then LED lights.
A grill block is a must. Try it and watch the temps. You will be surprised how much you can block. I have 75% blocked until ambient temps are over 54 F.
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Agree with the HID's. I would do that just to get better night visibility, if you can keep from blinding oncoming drivers. Ebay has 'em dirt cheap these days.
I'm wondering if watching your coolant temp is sufficient when doing a grill block? Is it absolutely necessary to measure engine temp instead? Guess I'll have to break down and buy a scan gauge soon.
WS- How significant was the improvement in your FE after the grill block? My TSX already has a ridiculously low Cd, so I wonder what I can expect to gain.