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Not much of an Eco-modder at heart, I converted my Sonic to run Flexfuel. Driven as I normally do, I've logged dozens of tanks of E85, and got a fairly consistent 22-23mpg. Recently though as part of an experiment, I did one tank driving reasonably; not hypermile style, not granny style, but accelerating gently, shifting early, keeping the RPM's down under 2K and staying at or barely above the speed limit. I got a little over 31mpg.
So it is very much not unreasonable to say that driver style can influence mpg, and it is also not unreasonable to say that experimental bias could, even subconciously, cause someone to drive more economically when testing a mod out, and less economically when doing the "A" portions of the test.
To eliminate this, I could for example give someone else the keys and tell them to go fill up my tank with either 87 octane gasoline or E85, but not tell me which, go drive a tank using "there and back again", and repeat the exercise several times, never knowing which fuel was being used each run.
I would not, however, be able to test things like this 'driving style" exercise, or the effects of pulse/glide, or the effects of coasting with clutch in vs in gear for injector shutoff; those strategies require someone actively pursuing them. Many of these would also preclude testing using CC, because varying speed is in fact the point of some strategies.
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