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Hey, bringing the thread back to life!!!
Unfortunately, the best I have in terms of benefits from folding the mirrors in is the estimate in my first post, somewhere from 1 - 1.5mpg. This is a VERY rough estimate, because the measures were taken on two separate trips, a week apart. This kept the route similar, but traffic may have varied slightly, and temp could have been different. I used a longer trip to try to "normalize" smaller changes out, but outside of that, there was not much in the way of minimizing other variables.
I've changed my driving quite a lot, actually. I've moved my shifting points (usually shift by 2200 rpms, 2500 uphill), and I try to keep it under 2500 pretty much everywhere. This means slower acceleration outside of first and second gear. I'm also trying to coast more, and time the lights better. I've been driving exclusively with in gear and clutch in coasting as opposed to EOC, as the car seems to behave a little strangely when i get the motor running again, and I think it might be dumping some fuel initially when I start it back up (whether I clutch bump it or use the key). I want to evaluate whether EOC is triggering the issue that makes it idle funny, and suck extra fuel. I've reduced my brake usage, and in general been driving a little more slowly. The lightened flywheel probably helps in traffic, so some of my gains might come from that. The other key change I've made is exploring and mapping. I've been altering my route to allow me to go further without stopping. 2x a week I drive about 25 miles in dreaded Los Angeles traffic to a class I'm taking. I've begun taking exclusively surface streets rather than the highway, as the highway is just about gridlocked. Surface streets were initially an experiment, and it took almost exactly the same amount of time. I felt much less angry when I arrived, though, because I felt like I was moving more consistently. Try altering your route for less stopping, if you can.
62mph.....no, I don't remember how I chose 62. I think it might have been keeping the speed similar to what I drove the previous week for mirror testing. The other possibility is that I was trying different RPM points (rather than speed - that was when I still thought my speedo was off; turns out it's almost dead on). I usually keep it to ~57 mph now, and that's just because going above that takes me over 2500 rpms.
I've also been a terrible slacker, and while I've drawn lots of pictures, and gathered several of the parts/materials, I've not actually done anything else to mod the car, other than a small undertray...
Tell me more about your car - miles, mods, driving habits, etc. I'm really curious about the 180's diffferences from the 240 (obviously the motor is the biggest, but what's the gearing? Does it have the same trans/gear ratio as the silvia/sr20 version of the car? things like that).
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