From Chicago to Michigan (UP) and back on one tank

[slowbro]

This past weekend I visited a friend in the upper peninsula of Michigan and my goal was to get there and back on one tank. The route I chose was 890 miles round trip, and thanks to MetroMPG, I learned I would need to drive 50 mph to achieve my goal. The Honda Insight's tank is rated at 10.6 gallons, and that's what I based my goal on. I filled up before I left Illinois, once I arrived in Michigan, when I left Michigan (since I had to drive around while in Michigan to show my friend my new car), and when I arrived in Illinois. I used two gas stations (one in Illinois, one in Michigan) and my goal on the two fillups that counted was to fill up with less than 5.3 gallons.

Results:
First leg-
462 miles
5.389 gallons
85.73 mpg

Second leg-
428 miles
5.125 gallons
83.51 mpg

Overall-
890 miles
10.514 gallons
84.65 mpg

Driving technique-
=>Lower speed pulse and glide with EOC until I reached the highway
=>Maintain leanburn and drive with load on highway at 50mph +/- 5,10,15mph depending on hill
=>for large hills I pulsed up them in 3rd gear and glided down with the engine off
=>Driving without brakes, of course

Notes:
=>Driving 50mph in a 65mph zone was surprisingly not difficult, and most drivers anticipated me, so I didn't get too many angry people.
=>Lean burn is almost impossibly hard to maintain over long distances, especially over the course of a ten hour drive
=>Roads in Michigan feel like they are covered in molasses. The only way I could maintain speed on a flat road in some cases was being in 3rd gear at 50mph
=>My second route was shorter because my first route was purposefully chosen to avoid Milwaukee. After the first fillup though, I needed a shorter distance to achieve my goal (requiring to drive through Milwaukee), and luckily it worked out.
=>made my goal with 0.086 gallons to spare

[slowbro]

I'll add the fillups to my garage when I get home from college this weekend since that's where my car and log data are.

[Weather Spotter]

where in our fine state we your going? it seems you must have been on the good roads, the ones around here seem to be covered in glue (chip sealed)

[slowbro]

where in our fine state we your going? it seems you must have been on the good roads, the ones around here seem to be covered in glue (chip sealed)

I went to Houghton, MI. It was beautiful. I mentioned in my post about the roads feeling like they were covered in molasses (maybe you missed that part). Most of the way the roads were good. It was probably about 100-150 miles of the total round trip that I had to deal with those roads. I was praying to get off of them as quickly as possible. Why do they make them like that?