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Old 04-28-2013, 03:06 AM   #6 (permalink)
Xist
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Location: Show Low, AZ
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Chorizo - '00 Honda Civic HX, baby! :D
90 day: 35.35 mpg (US)

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Quote:
Originally Posted by jeff88 View Post
Thanks for the help guys!

@Xist: Does the the air/fuel mixture constantly changing mean the RPMs will constantly change, even 4%? I usually shift into neutral, long before the UG. I have no idea if I have DFCO, but I haven't seen the 999.9 number, so I'm guessing I don't have it. I would like to know if accelerating hard or soft is better for my vehicle, but again gauge jumps all over the place, so it is difficult (sometimes only a few MPG jump, sometimes from 30's to mid 100's). I'll look into calibrating it properly tomorrow. I very rarely use the A/C, so at this point it is only vampire energy from the belt, so a 30% increase probably won't happen. Maybe one day, I'll just lose the belt for the A/C, PS, alt, etc. and see where it gets me. I'll try it for a tank and see what happens. I just want to lower GPH, not the actual RPMs of the engine. I would like to do a kill switch, but for an automatic? Wouldn't that be hard on the starter, having to restart the car constantly?
On a side note, when I first joined this site, I had all the time in the world, so I've definitely seen the arguments and I know exactly which buttons to *not* press!
I would think that the speed would vary slightly based on how much power is derived from the mixture, but that is just a guess.

If you have an Ultragauge, you officially have DFCO, but you may never figure out how to engage it. In theory, you just remove your foot from the accelerator. The axle would actually turn the engine, so you would not notice any difference. I believe that the DFCO and OBD-II, which is what your Ultragauge uses, went into effect in 1995, so all 1996-model cars and later should be compatible with both, but again, DFCO depends on the car. I rarely coast in gear long enough. I cannot imagine any "normal" driver coasting for more than a few seconds! It seems like they either have their foot on the accelerator or the brake at all times.

I do not remember the discussion too much, but someone had two gauges and he watched his MPG and percent throttle. He actually figured out that 95% throttle was the most efficient. There was a discussion, I think that it was in http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...eage-7358.html, where someone explained that in order to reach highway speeds, we need access to way more power than we would use most of the time, so then our engines run under-capacity. In that thread they talked about EGR and from what they said, it seemed to help partially in the same way that a warm air intake would--warmer air takes up more space, effectively reducing the size of the engine, and requiring more throttle.

All that I can say is to try accelerating differently and see what your gauge shows you.

Regarding an engine kill switch, will someone please clarify if you can still do that with an automatic? I believe that people usually bump-start the car, which requires a manual transmission, but it just seems like people with automatics do not install kill switches. I have further limitations because I have AWD, so I confuse them sometimes.
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