How to build a muscle car for better fuel economy?

[kafer65]

Ecky, do you change oil filter more often than the oil? I’m inching my oil change intervals up past 10k and 1 year and analysis is always very good so far.

[Ecky]

No, I think I would if I were pushing toward 15k, but I don't buy bottom of the barrel filters.

[oil pan 4]

For today I'm changing the oil in my friends 2014 Toyota camery.
They drove it about 6 or 7 miles, it shows that the coolant is up to operating temperature, but the oil pan is barely warm to the touch.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Easiest way to improve city economy is a kill switch, and run the engine is little as possible. Kill it at traffic lights, while coasting, etc. and you'll get considerably more benefit than improving the engine's efficiency.

I am not going to go crazy like that. It sounds dangerous and the constant starting will be too much wear-and-tear on the starter. I appreciate the suggestion though.

[Phoenix'97]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Perhaps you had a malfunctioning EGR?

It could be possible, but it is good piece of mind to buy cheap all-synthetic motor oil and change it every 3 months. Yes, they can specially formulate it and make the claim that it protects for 10,000 miles or one year, but knowing that the motor oil is going to be mixed with that much time of gasoline and carbon deposits altering the chemistry of the motor oil, I really don't feel comfortable going against the manufacturer's recommended oil change interval. I have learned a lot from the mistakes I have made and often times I was proven wrong, keep it stock and follow the owner's manual!

[freebeard]

I am not going to go crazy like that. It sounds dangerous and the constant starting will be too much wear-and-tear on the starter. I appreciate the suggestion though.

What did you think about a mild hybrid? You could toss the starter completely.

[oil pan 4]

Don't worry about wear and tear on the starter.
When I was in the air force they came up with a lot of stupid rules.
One of those rules was called the roll over FOD check, that wasn't the problem, the problem is they put these check points all over the place on the flightline, to where it didn't even make any sense.
This lead to vehicles being stopped and restarted up to 100 times per day, 7 days a week.
You want to know how much hitting the starter 100 times per day shortened their life?
To my surprise it didn't even cut the life of the starter in half.
Doing that for 10 years I only had one starter fail on me and that vehicle was 14 years old at the time.
Time, weathering, corrosion is the main thing that kills starters.
Worring that starting it a hand full more times per day is going to wear out the starter faster is laughable.

[Ecky]

What instrumentation do you have? Generally, the largest improvement comes from having driver feedback.

Do you use the garage's fuel log? Data is useful, and by logging your tanks, you can get an better idea of how weather, conditions and modifications affect your averages.

A lot of methods being recommended here are tested and proven. I understand that you may be skeptical of some of them, but the data is here if you want to know.

I understand you're not, you're just looking for ideas, but if you have a difference in opinion about something and would like to recommend it for others to try, having data to back up your assertions lends credence. I hope I don't come off as harsh, but I'm highly skeptical of (as an example) running exotic fuels and doing 6-8x as many oil changes as a method of saving money over time.

[Daschicken]

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

Well, what helped me to make my decision about changing the motor oil every 3 months was seeing the inside of my heads after my motor broke down and I was forced to buy a Jasper remanufactured motor. My stock LT1 heads were so coated in black deposit and dirty that it was amazing that I had not noticed it while driving, and this was using Amsoil 0-30 Signature Series! I slowly began to lose oil pressure over the years although I didn't notice until my needle one day dropped to zero. I got a manual oil gauge to verify that it wasn't just a malfunctioning gauge but my motor oil pressure was too damn low! I played as much of a role in the failure of my stock LT1 motor as did having too old of a factory radiator with a crack that I was unaware of bleeding off my coolant and leaving a massive air bubble in the system, overheating the engine and doing further damage with time...

It don't matter if the motor oil is tested by a lab to still be able to provide lubrication with carbon deposits in it, you still have carbon in the motor oil and you have gasoline and they are slowly working to alter the chemistry of the motor oil to make it more acidic which damages gaskets, and ultimately becomes more abrasive. I will never allow my motor oil to get as pitch black as I was used to seeing it! One year is INSANELY TOO LONG to change motor oil, let alone 18 months! I refuse to let my motor oil get that bad, not with my newish Jasper motor!

The mechanics and engine builders in the know use conventional motor oil and change it every 3 months and their engines have lasted beyond 200,000 miles and they are so clean on the inside! My stock motor didn't even last 100,000 miles and it was PITCH BLACK AND DIRTY on the inside! Nope, no lab will tell me it's okay to keep the motor oil in my car longer than 3 months...hell no!

Well, if you are going to continue to throw away real lab test results and only trust color...After those 10K miles and 19 months my oil was a dark amber color.

Oil is one of those things that people adopt the "If it works for me, that must be the ONLY way to do it" style of thinking. Try to expand that thinking a little, AT LEAST get an oil analysis and see what they say.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

I am not sure if this is even possible but it would help with unnecessary fuel consumption at higher RPM and no throttle!

Not sure if it is possible to add it or possible to have it on a manual car? Newer cars all have decel fuel cut off, but your car is of an age that it might not have it.

Originally Posted by Phoenix'97

My driving style incorporates both. Depending upon driving conditions I take my dear sweet time braking for a stop light or congested traffic ahead of me by pushing in the clutch and lightly, featherly, applying the brake with added increments of pressure until I am at a full stop. I drive like I have air brakes and am hauling a trailer. This gives traffic behind me ample time to be alerted to stopping traffic ahead if they are the type who don't pay attention when driving and like to ride your bumper dangerously!

It really depends on the situation, but generally the moment you start touching the brakes (ASSUMING YOUR CAR HAS DFCO), you should have been in gear and cutting off fuel. I assume you have read the 100+ hypermiling tips link at the top of the page, and know how to ACTUALLY time traffic lights.

I have looked into the gearing of your car, with 3.42 rear end gears and the six speed manual, and 235/55/16 tires it looks like you can do 1535 rpm at 70 mph in sixth. Is that right? If so, that's some seriously tall gearing, so use that to your advantage.

When I am stuck in traffic or have slowly accelerating people in front of me I will use high gears to get me around 900-1000 rpm when not accelerating. Do you do this? Especially since you've got a big(comparatively) honking V8, you should be able to run it between 1000-1500 rpm most of the time, excluding acceleration. I do that with my 3.0 V6. You should be shifting based on load, not necessarily rpm, so when you need to accelerate, feel free to rev it to 2500 rpm, but when you are cruising, feel free to shift up. When I am putting around in traffic, I rarely exceed 1200 rpm. When I do, it is only to accelerate because traffic is clearing up, or if I am at a speed/gear combination that would require lugging the engine to accelerate the slight amount that is needed. For example, in traffic I am in 3rd gear at 10, 4th at about 15, 5th at 20, and 6th at 27.

If you are going to run the engine at low rpms, it is important to establish where it would be lugging, or where it runs rough. This is where it is awesome to have a scangauge or equivalent that can tell you your engine's load percentage at that rpm. I have established that I can use up to around 45% load between idle and 1300 rpm, 50% load at 1400, and the full house 1500 or above. If I exceed those load limits at those rpms the engine will feel and sound rough. Try to go and find your load limits for your engine so you can find out how you can operate it safely at low rpms.

[oil pan 4]

On lean burn you only melt pistons and damage stuff if you don't know what you are doing.
All that happens at wide open throttle.
I had a v6 camaro that had a bad IAT that caused it to run lean all the time. It had burned valves and scorched pistons.

I ran a lean burn tune for cruising for 9 months. I had it running 18:1 at idle, 16:1 for cruise, 14:1 for mild acceleration and 13:1 flooring it, with a carburetor and aem wide band O2 meter. I was able to get 10 to 20% better fuel economy with no loss in power.
Where is the down side?

Then I tore the engine down, because it had a leaky head gasket, the head gasket was leaking long before I attempted lean burning. No burned exhaust valve or damaged pistons.
So you can run lean burn as long as you don't do it by tricking sensors, making it run lean all the time.

All the go fast gear heads are afraid of lean burn, well pretty much because they are ignorant, don't know how to tune a fuel curve or never attempted it.
Some of these idiots will tell you that you need to be running a racing distributor (no vac advance) because you run a hopped up engine.
So anything that involves fuel economy, don't listen to them and forget everything you ever heard from them.