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Trusting the scangauge or onboard readout can be a bit tricky in these situations, just as trusting a vacuum gauge was in the old days. My on-board display tells me that brisk acceleration to speed gives the best accumulated average fuel economy. Brisk acceleration in this case is 1/4 to 1/2 throttle. Feathering it at less than 1/4 throttle and a slow ramp to speed holds a low economy for longer time period. I don't know if I trust this total for the reasons others have given about how the economy data is generated.
Experimenting with driving style in tank to tank results seems to back up that the brisk acceleration returns the better tank averages over extremely slow acceleration.
The original poster's comments about lock-up speeds and loads are very astute too.
I find I have to accelerate to the shift point speeds dictated by the transmission.
Then I can back off and coast or lock the cruise on to keep over downshift speed.
Very interesting. Steve
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