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Old 10-18-2008, 08:07 PM   #15 (permalink)
Andyman
amateur mech. engineer
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: New York City
Posts: 112

Sporty Accord - '88 Honda Accord LX-i
90 day: 23.25 mpg (US)

Dad's Camry - '01 Toyota Camry CE
90 day: 22.81 mpg (US)

Artie's Camry - '98 Toyota Camry
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You can turn off fuel injectors with a switch. To protect the electrical system you should also install diodes that would prevent voltage spikes from reaching the computer. In my opinion, it wouldn't be a good idea to deactivate a cylinder unless you have to because a defect in one cylinder. I actually did that on a Ford Mustang with a 2.3 liter engine. The car didn't have fuel injection but I deactivated a cylinder by removing the rocker arms from the bad cylinder. It ran pretty well on the highway. It was a bit rough at low speeds. It ran too rich until I changed something in the carburetor. Maybe I deactivated a power valve somehow. The fuel economy was good.

I also deactivated a cylinder on a car like a Chevy Monza (Maybe an Oldsmobile Starfire) with a Pontiac 2.5 liter engine. It had a worn out exhaust cam lobe. On that engine I took out a pair of pushrods. The varnish on the bottoms of the valve lifters caused them to stick in the lifter bores after the engine was started. If they fell out it would have been a problem because of an internal oil leak that would reduce oil pressure. The engine wouldn't run with all the pushrods in because exhaust gases from the bad cylinder would go into the intake manifold and smother the other cylinders. It could be driven again with the modification.

You may not get any improvement in fuel economy if you just shut off an injector or two. You would also have to do two other things:

1) Close the valves in the deactivated cylinder to prevent pumping losses and a loss of oxygen sensor function.

2) Tune the fuel mixture. It is likely to go too rich unless you make adjustments.

The main reasons I don't recommend this are:

1) The car will shake a lot at low RPM
2) The exhaust pipe will probably break from the shaking
3) The engine mounts will have a short life
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