Hello Everyone (student with Mustang LX 2.3L 14-18 mpg looking for help)
 

My name is William and I am a college student. I drive a 1993 Mustang LX 2.3L and right about now I get between 14-18 mpg on my daily commute to college and to work.

I am looking for anyway to get extra money and I figured I might as well start with my car. If anyone can tell me how to go about this, I would really appreciate it.

I think you will see the best gains ever if you sell the car. Best advice I could give you really, but i will suggest you buy new spark plugs a air filter , distributor cap and rotor. Doing those few things could help large with the poor mileage.

William, glad to have you here. The least expensive thing you can do is to change your driving style. Take a look at 100+ Hypermiling Tips, if you haven't done so. Tell us about you car and commune. How many mile on your car? Well maintained? Stock? Auto or manual? What is the commute like city highway or combination? Do you log your fuel mileage?

If you are looking to cut costs, can you carpool, ride a bike or take a bus? Is replacing the car an option? You could get a car that would get double the mileage. Keep us posted on your results.

There is a guy on here that made some changes to his Mustang convertible and posted near 40 mpg ( I think, don't quote me ). And that is with an automatic transmission.

The thing you need to do now is a compression check and a leakdown test. You are getting the kind of mpg a 5.0 would get without the fun, and a stock 5.0 with the right gearing and driven easy can get mid 20s or better ( manual transmission ).

If the engine passes the tests, do a full tune up and don't forget the timing belt and O2 sensor. Put a fresh catalytic convertor on too, if it's clogged up, engine can't breathe.

After that, get an electronic gauge that is compatible with your electronics ( I believe the Ultragauge is compatible, or an MPGuino ) and learn to drive by that. Consider it a game on your commute and make it fun.

don't forget to clean the EGR.

14 to 18? That car is easily capable of double that. It has problems. Fix them. Then work on your driving style. And if you're anything like the kids in my town (probably not since you're in school!) no, it really isn't necessary to put on 200 miles/day going up and down main street. To them I say get a bike and a hobby.

Also that easily forgotten thing, brake binding, easily can cause a lot of increasing to fuel consumption.

Wait! I just thought about this! ( Brain was so slow )

Motorize your bicycle! They have electric, 2 stroke gas and 4 stroke gas conversion kits.

http://www.youtube.com/user/SaferWho...?v=qIPpUv3s_4g

Hey Frank, you have an electric bike, right?

Yes, of course find alternatives to driving your car more then you have to, now lets assume that you bought it because you want to keep it, so working with what you have you should first fix whatever is wrong that is getting you lousy mileage! trying to make improvements on something that is broken is hard, if you can't find anything broken, or don't think that anything is not working correctly then are their any bad modifications that have been done? exhaust that is sized for a 5L engine for example, engine that's chipped to put out more power, in other words "race" modifications.
As part of fixing the broken stuff, do a tune up, make sure your rear end gear oil is fresh, synthetic should help too, same with the transmission and engine.
After that, start making improvements, your car is 19 years old, but just because a product claims to increase HP and mileage doesn't always mean that is the case.

Yes I do and because we had such a mild winter there wasn't much downtime for scootering at all! :thumbup: