Quote:
Originally Posted by UFO
Get a Scangauge. It is the best tool for monitoring your engine and ECU. It will give instant feedback on mileage and it can display all sorts of engine fucntions including RPM.
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This. So many times. I got my old Civic up to 42 mpg without a gauge. The first tank with a gauge was 46 mpg, and that was my new low - every one after that was even higher.
But you can roughly work out the rpm by calculating speed in each gear. For my 1996 Civic DX, it worked out like this:
1500 rpm - 2300 rpm (my road-tested ideal rpm range for the Civic)
2nd gear: 13 mph - 20 mph
3rd: 20 mph - 30 mph
4th: 26 mph - 40 mph
5th: 33 mph - 50 mph
Or to keep it simple, when you reach (gear x 10) mph, shift. When you're in 3rd gear, shift when you get to 30 mph and don't take 3rd gear beyond that speed.
It gets troublesome with 5th gear. What are you going to do? You don't have a 6th gear to shift into, and you can't limit yourself to 50 mph always. You just grit your teeth and deal with the high rpm cruising and grumble at the engineers who built it this way.
Remember that neutral is an option as well. It takes a good amount of energy just to keep the engine spinning at 2000 rpm at a steady speed. If you shift to neutral it takes a lot less fuel to spin it at idle rpm instead.