60MPG in city!
 

Everyone knows I have oversized tires, misaligned front end (just need alignment). I never expected to get anywhere near 60MPG yet but I managed it today!

A trip to the store today for my parents, approx 11 miles of very, very heavy traffic, hit 9/10 of the stop lights and a 400ft increase in elevation from my start point. Numbers are increased by 4.5% from the gauge due to bigger tires.


http://imageshack.com/a/img743/4850/mVh1xx.jpg
For a total of 57.4MPG.



Return trip home, hit 10/10 red lights, along with a broken down car in the road so it was basically another stop light.

http://imageshack.com/a/img537/8348/t5pjyQ.jpg
For a total of 60.61MPG

Once I get my alignment done, and the proper tires 65-70 should be a piece of cake. And remember THIS IS IN THE CITY, NOT FREEWAY. I'm keeping up with traffic, not driving like a grandma, shifts at 3-3.5k RPM.

Was this in the Insight or Mustang? :turtle:

Nice, I found that 60MPG seemed to be about the base MPG in city, looks about to same for you.
Are you using the FCD? Seemed to be pretty accurate in mine.

Insight of course.

Yea I am, but I go off ultragauge as well because it's within 1mpg of what the FCD is saying.

Thats quite the intake temp. Usually I read about 15-20 over ambient temps. Are those temps normal for you? I have had one insight that constantly read high but idk if it was that high.

When it's 100F outside I guess. That's what's it's been since I got it when it's that hot outside.

How's that gauge hook up? Does it just plug in to the port?

Into the OBD2 port Yea.

60 in the city is an impressive number! Especially with the IMA as compared to Toyota's system. Congrats!

One way to limit the effect of misalignment on FE is to raise tire pressure, to the point that if raising tire pressure gets you more than 10% efficiency gain over OEM tire pressure you can bet your life your alignment is out.
I guess you already did raise the pressure, but there's no harm in checking ;)

Actually ty for reminding me, the pressure in those tires hasn't been checked in weeks.

Aha! All tires were at 38, all at 47 now (44 is max sidewall). It's hot right now so when it gets cold they should be right around 44.

Very cool:D that's with ac running too, I presume based on 100f temp? Is the ac separately running with engine auto shutdown at stops w the Insight?

Get the alignment sooner rather than later.....
chewed up my front tires on the Q45.

60 MPG In-City? That's an achievement. Do you have engine heaters?

How does this work? I'm not sure I follow the idea yet.

You can set the toe with a tape measure. At least that would get you close.

regards
mech

Nope.


Nope, no A/C. The car has A/C but it's out of freeon. And the way the insight works, if you have the A/C set to "Econ mode" it will turn off the engine (and the ac with it) at stop lights when it enabled auto stop.


Yes, I will be doing it this coming Friday for sure.

How?

Also guys, I learned my UG is reading 5mpg lower then what I'm actually getting. So I actually got 66 I suppose instead of 61 on that trip.

By raising the pressure you lift the tire a bit, making the footprint smaller.
Specifically the front and rear part of it, which are most out of line.
It can be the difference between staying under the limit of tire profile flex and rubbing the tire.

The same applies for parking without power steering.
If you have no power steering then it is hard to change direction at very low speed.
The electric PS on my wife's car failed twice, she couldn't park the car anymore.
I raised the pressure from 30 to 40 PSI; that halved the effort needed.

Yea I'll be honest, upping pressure from 44 to 52 did help a little but, it seems to pull less. I'm getting an alignment done this coming Friday anyway so it's all good.

Measure the tread width on the front and back of both front tires (which groove makes not difference, just the same one). The 1st gen Insight toe is very close to 0 difference. It has to be done with the car on the ground, preferrably after having rolled at least 50 feet.

regards
mech

Woah Wut, I'm either really really stupid or to tired to comprehend what your saying haha.

If the threads at the front of both tires are closer together than at the back you have toe in, the other way round toe out.

Take a tape measure and an accomplice and make him/her put the tab in the outermost (easiest to reach) groove in the thread at the front of a tire.
If your tires have a straight groove, like in the middle of the thread as some tires do, take that.
Pull the tape measure tight and straight to the front of the tire on the other side and read what it says at your favorite groove.

Do the same at the back of each tire. If the distance there differs you don't have neutral alignment.

Divide the difference by the distance between front and rear measuring point and you get your percentage.

If at the front the grooves are say 1451 mm (57 1/8") apart
and at the back they are just 1445 (56 7/8"), so 6 mm (1/4 ") difference,
and the difference between both points is 305 mm (12"),
then you'd have about 2% total difference, making 1% toe out per wheel.

I just hit 40 mpg for the first time. Doesn't sound as cool after reading this, haha.

Nice one, Balto! I think that's about what I am averaging in the city, too.

I may re-think my daily commute route once again, and try to get away from so much stop-and-start. There's a back way I might try that's a little longer, but has far less stops, and when I carpool with my wife it's more of a straight shot to her work.

With a route change I should be able to wind up getting over 70 mpg without doing anything other than what I'm doing now. I am also going to add a full belly pan in the next couple of weeks, which might help, too!

Hey, Wolfy. Aren't you the guy that has attracted a lot of attention and sincere help concerning your ongoing overheating problem, in another thread here?

I'm not too stupid or tired to comprehend what you're saying.

Ha ha, indeed. We can all play each other.

BTW, I got 100 MPG today in city traffic. And that's down from 120 MPG from last week.