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Hey everyone I'm new here and I've come to see if I can improve the mpg of my car via driving tricks that I'm sure you all know, looking forward to hearing from you guys!

Welcome to EM!

Tell us about your vehicle and start a fuel log.

Welcome to the site.

I'll echo Neil, what vehicle are you driving?

1. free - pump up air in tires to 40+. it's worth a couple of mpgs
2. Get a scangauge (see first ling in my sig)

Welcome!!!

My vehicle is a 2003 dodge ram 1500 quad cab that weighs around 6200 lb last time I checked it, negatives is that it has mud guards, running boards, truck bed hard cover, 200lb of ballast in the bed plus 6 extra gallons of fuel, a horribly large front profile, a massive 5.9 (soon to be 6.7) liter engine. Positives are fuel monitoring system that shows all relevant stats, front air splitter and air dam, very low needed engine speed (don't have to exceed 2k rpm). It averages about 11.2 mpg in combined driving, I'm looking to get it to at least 14. 15 would be great.

Any ideas how to do this? I cant ditch the ballast in the bed btw till winter is over

What's your appetite for doing aero mods? There are a number of pickup threads with lots of good things to do.

Are you logging your fuel mileage? This is another important - and free - step to take.

Almost everybody that I know has a truck, and most of those are 5.7L or 6.2L Ford F series or Dodge Rams, no Chevys or GMs. The tips and tricks I've learned to do and not to do are pretty simple.

1) Drive slower. Every single truck driver I know drives between 75 and 90 MPH highway and 9+ over speed limit city. This lowers MPG significantly. Try to drive 65 Freeway and 45 (or whenever final gear engages in the automatic)

2) Reduce City Driving if possible. Driving 90 MPH on the highway is more efficient than stop and go city traffic. I think it's 13 MPG for 90 MPH and 10 MPG for city.

3) Key off at stop lights. With a V8 you cannot go without keying off at stop lights. You waste so much gas at a light when you are idling with a V8 (I even do this with my Civic).

4) Tow less. If you can at all avoid towing, do it.

5) Use the MPG gauge. This is useful in all cars, but watching it like a hawk will increase FE amazingly.

6) Turn of the AC! Every truck driver that I know uses AC like crazy. When I keep my AC off, my tank average goes from 29 to 33. My father's Accord's Trip average goes from 32 to 40+ with the AC off.

My mom's Odyssey gets 13 MPG mixed driving (worse than EPA city) and she does the opposite of everything on this list. She prefers city driving, accelerating hard, speeding, idling the car even in park(!), likes to haul stuff in the trunk, and does not use a fuel gauge. It is amazing how badly she can ruin a perfectly good tank of gas.

I already drive as slow as I can and don't exceed 2k rpm (to the annoyance of those behind me at lights) and try to keep it in OD at normal speed and don't go more than 65 on highways. AC is only used it I'm on the highway and its too fast to have a window open. I watch my mpg gauge real time output but its very hard for me to get it above 14, and thats when my foot is off the gas all the way. I don't tow. What I am really interested in is the whole keying off thing you talked about, would it make that much of a difference with a 560rpm idle?

It makes a huge difference. 7 seconds idle = 1 start up. If the light just turned red, chances are that the light will be red for more than 7 seconds, so you can turn the car off. 1 gallon per hour, times 1/60 (assuming you wait at a light for 1 minute) and you go through 6 stoplights on your way to work, and 6 more on your way home. That is 12, and at the end of the week you will be up to 60. So 1 hour wasted just sitting at red lights. That is one gallon, 14 miles that your truck will not go.

Assuming that you use 11 gallons (way less than when you fill up, this is what I fill up to though) at 14 MPG, but one of those gallons is wasted at stop lights idling, you will be at 140 miles. If you had turned your truck off at each stop light, then you would be up to about 154 miles.

When you key off, just shift to Neutral (won't hurt the tranny) then key off then back to run. The "hey stupid, your car is wasting battery" lights will come on, but if you have a functioning alternator it won't hurt you.

When the car is cold DO NOT DO THIS! It will cool the engine down when you key off, and then your car will stay in fuel enrichment mode until it gets up to operating temperature. Also don't run your AC/Heater when the car is off, it cools the engine off really fast.

ah ok, that makes sense now. Only problem i can see with this tactic (for me at least) is that my truck has a heavy duty cooling package so it take almost 20 min to warm up (with heater off) in winter and most of my trips don't take that long. Ill see if cardboard can speed it up tomorrow

So you do a lot of putting around town then? With maybe short jaunts of highway driving? If you never tow anything, do you at least haul stuff in the bed? More info on why you NEED a truck would help but most here are going to recommend a small car for trips where a truck isn't needed...And considering your rather low mileage, a $1,000 beater car would pay for itself pretty quickly. A block heater would help get to temp faster, and deleting the clutch fan (if equipped) in favor of an electric unit...the newer trucks might have switched to E-fans and would likely be an easy conversion.

You are planning on swapping in a 6.7; is that a diesel swap or just bigger gas engine?

Grille blocks heat the car up faster during these winter months. Even a partial block will work wonders for you.

Well the reason I have a truck is I was given it for free from my dad and who would turn down a fully loaded car......anyway I like driving it because it is very good in adverse conditions and commands the roads due to sheer size and can do anything i need it to from carrying stuff or taking me and all my friends paintballing or whatever. The 6.7 is part of the upgrade plan I'm doing to the truck via stroking the engine and giving it a totally new top end with a custom cam plus a supercharger to round it off. The work done so far (headers, intake manifold, 4 hole injectors) have given me 2 mpg more on long trips. I honestly just love driving a truck because it so large and capable and mine is going to put about 525 HP to the ground (If the math holds true to real life it will also be much more efficient if I keep my foot out of it) but I really need to get at least 15mpg. A beater is a valid option if you guys know of something that I can buy that can make up for the truck's fuel addiction

Oy.

On the bright side, the hard tonneau is good for aero.

The rest (except using other means for the bulk of your transport needs) is fairly hopeless if your goals include saving money and fuel, and reducing carbon footprint.

If you go through one tank a week in the truck , then a beater that gets 30+ MPG then in 5 years you would have saved $9000 (according to EPA ratings). The beater will pay for itself 9 times if it only cost $1000 (Old Mech got his beater for $300 and gets 40 MPG). You will save so much from getting a smaller car. You can definitely pull more MPG out of the truck, but would it be worth it to put that much time and money into a truck just to save a few bucks? Or would investing in a used eco car be a better investment?

In addition to saving money a beater might also make you a more cooperative driver.

FreeBeard- well by that I mean that people don't ignore my truck and cut me off, I don't go around pushing into traffic wherever I feel like............and besides, im the guy that gets passed by everyone for going "too slow". Just on my way back from the mall 4 cars passed me, all much slower ones than my truck mind you.

what are good cars for 1000$ that will not give me much headache and that I can just leave to their won devices outside of standard maintainance? (My truck get attention because I like it, normal cars wont get this treatment)

My uncle buys used cars off of Ebay for his kids. He drives one that he got for like $1000 off of there after 5 years! This was a $2000 car though, but it was also newish for its time (bought in '08 I think and the car was a '00 or something). Just regular maintenance and still ran after a big thunderstorm.

There's also Craig's List. There are good deals on there, and some really bad ones. You can usually find some really nice "riced" Civics out there that still run and do all the things that the car was meant to do for between $800 and $1600. These ricers also come with free side skirts! Most people won't like that you got a ricer, but to be honest, just replace the exhaust and take out the CAI, and you will have a fairly stock looking car. These Civics shouldn't give you much headache, since they have been taken care of by someone who loved the car.

Honestly, if you go with a Honda Civic, you won't have any headache, except maybe at the beginning of your ownership when you have to replace the exhaust and CAI.

I've wanted a CRX for a long time but all the ones I've looked at gave me the impression many busy little unskilled hands had been working their "magic" over every square inch of the poor cars over the years.

Usually blowers and better MPG are inverse relationships. If you somehow find you get better MPG with one you are lucky. It's going to take A LOT of discipline to keep your foot out of the gas when you finish the project.

I say, buy a beater with the money you plan on spending on the engine, then with the money you save in gas bills, buy the parts and take your time building the engine. Most people with heavily modded vehicles NEED a beater for when the race car is down for service or just broken. Plus, once you put all that money into the truck and make that much power, you aren't going to want to drive it in bad weather due to how much trucks like to get sideways once a couple drops of rain fall...

I just picked up my Focus for $1,100 and doesn't seem to need any major work. Drove my Saturn for 100k miles and bought it for $1,500 and all it needed was basic maintenance and a couple replacement parts. If you don't like CL for finding cars, go to lots and look in the back of the lot, that's where they usually keep the cheap ones.

spaceman- Yeah that's what I was kinda thinking too, when the engine is out I'm gonna need a 2nd car anyway and people here seem to be recommending Hondas (I like those). As far as the engine build is concerned you are right, If I for any reason put my foot down the gas is going to burn fast enough to watch on the gauge.....however the engine "should" be about 75% more efficient than stock due to the crappy stock CR and bad bad BAD fuel management.

Ah yes, the good ole watch the gauge drop on your truck. Most commonly seen when truckers are speeding through traffic going 85+ constantly braking and accelerating again.

The car doesn't specifically have to be a Honda, but they are very common cheap cars. They last a long time though, and don't give too much headache.

Maybe you should rethink that claim...

75% per unit of fuel used.........you know, volumetric eff ratio? The engine stock has a much too low CR, wasteful cam, bad injectors (one hole instead of four) and an intake manifold that doesn't atomize fuel well. All these thing are going to be adressed with my project so the engine will use the fuel its given much more thourghly than it is right now

Those OEM boys must be dumber than a box of rocks then.

Well that's a little extreme. OEM tends to leave some room on the table on a lot of engines, but they do so for the sake of reliability and durability. If stock intakes had the best flow, there wouldn't be a reason for the aftermarket. Same for exhaust manifolds vs headers. Granted, most of these "better" units are for the purpose of making more power, but the theory is still that an engine that breathes easier will burn less gas. And diesel programmers are able to make lots more power with computer tuning and nothing else; whether or not that comes at the cost of reliabilty is not something I can comment on.

"75% more efficient"- is that like making 525HP vs 300HP on the same amount of fuel?

yes......thats almost the exact amount it will go up in fact

stock is 255 and according to everyone who has done similar builds 525-575 is what is made after all the parts are updated from the ones that were originally drafted in the early 70s....modern tech tends to be MUCH better

"75% more efficient"- is that like making 525HP vs 300HP on the same amount of fuel?

YES SAME AMOUNT, stock injectors flow OVER 24 LB/Hour and waste huge amounts of fuel because the engine fails to use most of it. 24 LB/hour sized injectors in a V8 are supposed to make over 500HP if the rest of the engine is set up correctly (best it can be eff wise) even more so if it is supercharged as forced induction overcomes any small imperfections in the engine setup via simply forcing air past areas that would otherwise not flow optimally

Well you can get more efficient while using less fuel, compare 2014 Civic to a 2010 Civic. According to EPA, the 2014 gets 2-4 more MPG while having more horsepower (I think it's like a 5HP difference, but still).

You can also compare 1990 Ford F150 V8 to a 2014 Ford F150 V8 and you have a bigger engine on the 2015 and get better fuel economy according to EPA.

This should show how much room for improvement there is on cars without converting to a hybrid or all electric vehicle.

With my totally stock engine if I went foot DOWN I could WATCH THE GAS GO DOWN, this shows the massive amount of fuel the injectors are able to throw into the engine even though it wasn't using most of it (tested it for over richness at it was at an almost sad 6:1 AFR). With the work I've done so far I'm getting 3 mpg MORE and if I choose to hammer the gas it uses said gas more effectively and goes faster than stock....if I use the gas normally I can get up to the speed I like with LESS rpms needed to get there in the same amount of time as before and I can also keep the rpms lower at any given speed. This leads to me using (however slight it may be) less gas than stock

and as awcook said, newer engines make more power AND use less gas. Im taking something MADE IN THE 70s!!!!!!! and updating it to modern levels

That's a nice increase! :thumbup:

From what I've seen on ecomodder, the '90s were the best years for Fuel Economy in smaller cars. But, those numbers are a little skewed since those cars have less safety features and produce more emissions (more emissions = more power for less fuel) whereas today we have too many safety features and produce close to no emissions (for compact cars).

The best years for Power, however, are whatever is most modern. I mean, we have street legal cars that go 0-60 in ~2 seconds! We have normal, everyday trucks that can haul 30,000+ lbs. All while using less gas than previous generations.

You should put your truck in the Garage on here, Striker, and start a fuel log. The log has helped me see where I am making mistakes and how I can make a tank last a long time.

Okay ill do that, in regards to what you said about emissions that is one thing that I'm very worried about. I installed headers, a mid pipe and new cat back with two precats and a high flow main cat but even though I did that (most people don't bother with cats on a performance car but I care about that sort of thing) I am producing slightly more co2 than stock and I'm trying to find a way to fix it.....

thanks lol, it just kinda always bothered me that my engine was not using it's fuel as well as is possible lol