How Many Automatics out There? (FE techniques discussion)
 

Just a quick poll, how many automatic drivers do we have out there?

Of course, the challenges are a bit different:

EOC or Not?
Shifting...
Tricks and Tips...
Power and Load...

Here's what I've done to "make-do" with what the car has (of course I'd like a manual, but the auto stays until it fails):

Low-speed EOC to enhance City FE (coast down / engine stops at longer lights)

Shifting is, well, automatic for the most part. I do have control over the first 2 gears with 1 and 2 gear selections. Before warmup, 2nd to 3rd requires 2500 RPM which begs the question: accelerate to 2500 to get that next gear to coast, or trod along at 1500 until warmed??? Lately I've given it a quick burst to 2500 and coasted in 3rd as the coolant warms. Even with the EBH, it takes 5 minutes of driving to full operating temperature. The heater blower is OFF with the temp selector in the coldest setting to preserve heat, and a modified rad-block is installed.

I've tightened the throttle cable to allow shifts when the transmission control unit has determined the lowest available RPM, and to allow firmer shifts -- this generally happens with a lift of the throttle at a reasonable RPM. In full TC lockup, a "lug" action of the engine can occur at 1200 RPM or the minimum 35 MPH engagement point -- good for FE with high engine loads. Downside: vehicles with little power or torque may be quick to downshift with throttle input and increased cable input (and increased fluid pressure). It all depends on involvement of a TCU processor and load.

I highly recommend obtaining a shop manual to figure out what your auto likes. It turns out that the Hill-Logic Control on the 'Teg gets quite confused with engine-off coasting, and doesn't allow TC lockup until the math checks out for distance vs. RPM/Load/Accel-Decel/TPS (which includes when the engine is off). Another factor in EOC decision.

Any auto gurus out there -- what have you tried, and what works, and what hasn't?

RH77

I have an automatic with D and an OD shift positions (don't know if it's a true OD Drive unit or just an extera transmission gear)

No mods to my shift and RPM equipment, I'm afraid to touch it because of my current tranny leak situation. (up to 2 gallons a week.)

Yikes -- I had a '77 Olds that I put that stop-leak purple stuff in all the time. It still leaked and got stuck between shifts when cold. Had to sell it for that reason.

Have you tried the stop-leak product? Which car, BTW?

RH77

Wow, it leaks that bad? have you tightened all the nuts and bolts to correct ft-lbs or in-lb's? Whens the last time you did a tranny fluid drain? the gasket could be bad and it's leaking.

As far as auto's go, getting it to shift earlier is to quickly let off the gas and go back to the throttle you had before, before your speed drops too much with rpms and it's too low rpm's to shift.

I don't have an overdrive shift position, but I do have an O/D off button on the dash near the steering wheel and near the rear window defrost. I've only used it when i got it (The Jeep) to see if everything was working right.

Also, another good way is to find out when everything shifts at. For mine I can do the throttle pulse and shift at these speeds:

1st-2nd: 15
2nd-3rd: 25
3rd-4th: 35
4th-O/D: 50

What you wanna do with the cold engine/tranny situation is get through your gears as quickly as possible, and by quickly I mean accelerate as slowly as possible and let your engine shift when it wants. You live in similar weather that I do, and I go there every summer, so I know about that too. In the morning, I go to about 1750 rpm and it shifts around there, and when it drops below 1500, let it slowly go back up to 1750 rpm, where it will shift again.

I don't know when yours will shift if you accelerate as slow as possible, but find that rpm, and go that fast until it shifts. You want to go as fast as you can with the lowest RPM's you can, it won't give the engine hell, it'll warm up the engine and you'll get better mpg's.

You said you have the heater off and special rad-block is installed. Best advise, do a grille block. I got one hole in my lower grille block the width of only about a 2x4 inch rectangle, but going down the highway the temp would DROP 20-30 degrees, just from that amount of cool air comming in. If I blocked the whole upper top grille, I'd be warming up even faster, and keeping warm. do one from something, cardboard spray painted to the cars color will work. I'm using duct tape. Do something to prevent cold air from cooling the coolant in the RAD.

I'm strapped for time, so I gotta get heading out. good luck!

My Camry is an automatic and it does pretty well, but it has relatively little torque compared to it's weight so it's very shift happy on hills.

What I have done so far is mainly just try not to accelerate much past 2000RPM if I can help it. When I am on the highway is the only time I make an exception to that rule because it goes to 2100RPM at 65mph which isn't terrible, but again it's very happy to shift out of O/D if it finds a small hill.

I also knock the car into neutral at the slightest downhill, even if I don't think there is enough hill to allow me to maintain speed, I always try since I'm still trying to learn what hills it works on and which it doesn't, but I try to read the hills and judge if I will be able to maintain speed in neutral and usually, since my car coasts rather well, I can get away with it so I put it in neutral to keep the RPMs down as much as possible since coasting down a hill at 55mph puts the engine at 1900RPM, but in neutral it idles back down to 800RPM.

One thing I'm considering doing, and I still need to do more research on this before I do it, is remapping the ECU controls for the transmission to make it want to stay in gear longer before it tries shifting down. I have noticed many times that I merely want to maintain speed going up a hill, but it down shifts unnecessarily, forcing me to lose speed to observe my 2000RPM self limit. There are commercially made computers that you can plug into the OBDII port under the dash that can do this pretty simply and many performance auto shops will have special computers that they can plug in and do the same thing, but often times a bit better since they tailor it to your car and your preferences. This only works on certain, OBD2 cars though and that is the part I need to do more research on.

Mine is a 4-speed auto; the top gear is OD.
No lockup, the car is too early for that.
Wish it was a stick.

I got a tach into it last March. If you don't have one, I recommend it.

Much of my driving is long highway commutes, about an hour each way. Sometimes I coast in neutral with engine running. Owners manual says I can EOC (OK, flat tow) but only up to 40 mph and 40 miles distance (!!!). So on highways the best I can do is neutral coast with engine idling; I'm not really sure if it's helpful. Sometimes it seems to make sense, as when coasting downhill.

Next car will likely be a stick - but so far I'm running this one. It's been very faithful.

My SkuttleButt. (96 Ford Taurus) I could call it "S**tButt" because all that
transmission fluid ends up on the rear bumper and the sides of the car as it's
driving and leaking. So all the fluid i put in eventually winds up dried out on
the butt of the car.

The stop leak didn't work, i only tried 2 doses of the stuff (i don't want TOO
MUCH clotting in my transmission) The problem is a (cracked?) transmission
line where a nut joins it to the (engine? transmission? don't remember for sure
where it's joined.)

I tried to tighten it with a wrench to see if maybe it was just loose, but no
luck. it's on stiff and there is almost no room for a wrench.

BTW, it's been leaking this way for about 2 years. ($6 a gallon of transmission, you do the math) I'll be glad when i get my EV done.

That's one of the ONLY upsides to a big engine with a low redline. I don't ever remember a time where my Jeep down shifted trying to go uphill.

If you find that it down shifts all the time going up a hill, the best way is to GAIN speed just before you go up the hill, and maintain that throttle until you get to the top, then neutral coast down, or EOC down the hill.

There's this on downhill that goes into a long low slope hill, and the speed limit is 40 going down, but I try and hit 50 by the time I get to the bottom, let it shift into O/D, then keep 50 mph up the hill. The speed limit changes to 50 before you get to the top anyway. So I try and get there so I don't have to accelerate later, The downhill basically accelerates for me.

That's RPM I very rarely get to at any time. I don't get to 2000RPM until 70mph. I don't know how higher in gearing I can go without sacrifice in other area's.

Waxy, have you tried putting sealer on the tranny line itself to stop the leak? or getting a new tranny line? (you'll end up, or already have ended up spending more on tranny fluid instead of replacing some parts).

A/C fixed yet? :p

Heh, i skipped fixing the AC for now because i spend the money instead on that motor. (you know, the dead one that was too small?)

I thought about putting a band-aid on the line like JB-Weld or something, but when i tried that with a metal radiator line that didn't hold. Isn't the tranny under pressure, too?

http://members.lovingyou.com/images/smilies/hijack.gif I think we're off topic, btw. I'll start a new thread for this since a lot of curiosity seems to be out there.

EDIT: RELOCATED OFF TOPIC THREAD

I have an automatic right now, that I currently don't drive; my little brother has it while I am at school. I only started to begin using some efficiency techniques before I went back to using my legs. Keeping the RPM low - although I need to find the optimal range somewhere for my 2001 Focus SE - often by accelerating at a moderate pace and letting up on the accelerator so the tranny will shift earlier. I experienced huge savings just by keeping a more constant RPM and not a constant speed over the white and green mountains. I tried EOC and my car didn't like it, to say the least... the nasty thud scared me.

Have an automatic. No EOC. Engine off at lights and pick the best route that will allow me to get into OD quickly and stay there as much as possible. Speed 55-60 on the highway and drive with load on the hills.

Engine on Pees and Gees, are what really work for me. I also found out that there was little or no loss from going ~63mph instead of ~55mph... So Peeing and Geeing, WOT acceleration when I know I won't brake, staying of the brakes as much as possible in the city, and cruising at ~60+mph highway are surefire ways to pull 30+mpg with the six.

what i've been doing in the cavy, is neutral costing down hills, shutting off the engine at a fresh red light & accelerating as moderate as possible...i count off 1...2...3 etc for each 4-5mph i gain, torque converter lock-up doesn't happen until around 38mph, i try to do most of my "harder accelerating" then

I'm not sure that I'd agree that's the best way. I'll agree with gaining speed before you hit the hill, but I'd go into the hill with a set engine load in mind that will having you hitting the summit at a slower speed. The less traffic the lower that summit speed can be. If you let you speed bleed going over the hills and then recoup it as the road dips down you keep your power curve far far flatter and I would think that would be more optimal.

From a LOD perspective, where my regular flat stuff is all in the 30s, ideally lower 30s, moderate hills try and restrict LOD to 50, bigger 60, major 70. Grade and length of hill both have to be factored in, along with how much of an obstruction you might be.

***********************************************

For my slushbox strategy, I:

• restrict EOCs to under 1000' where I'm coming to a top if tranny's warm
• frequently shift to neutral whenever a coast opportunity is there
• sometimes use the manual shifter option to force upshifts sooner
• if not manually upshifting I lift off at 62 to force 5th gear upshift
• try to get into 5th quick and stay there, 62kph to shift in, 50 shifts down
• accelerate at 50 LOD in lower gears, with grade opportunites in 5th
• switch off for lights over 20 seconds
• downshift for mild DFCO when traffic slows up
• rarely let SWMBO drive, although it's hers, she drives my stick Accord! ;)

The biggest thing for me is getting into 5th efficiently, my sweet spot is from 60 to 90 kph, if I can't get into 5th in urban areas (where I drive most of teh time), I P&G because 4th is at least 15% worse for FE.

RE: Neutral vs In-Gear

OK, I did some careful observation of the GPH (gallons per hour) on my ScanGauge II this morning during the commute. As far as the civic is concerned, this is the data I've got:

DOWNHILL COASTING:

In-Gear : 0.00GPH, but with slight engine braking
Neutral : 0.22GPH, with better speed retention

COMPLETELY STOPPED:

In-Gear : 0.20GPH
Neutral : 0.22GPH

So I'm happy enough knowing that I'm only using .02GPH more by keeping it in gear while waiting at a light vs Neutral... however I'm still on the fence about which is better for downhill coasting... for the sake of transmission wear, I'd be inclined to coast in-gear for most of the time.

Improvements
 

I know for sure I need to get a full rad-block and seal the hood. I have the largest gap sealed on the leading edge, but cold air seeps in as it always does.

I did some observing over the last couple days too...

50 MPH is all I can get from 2000 RPM in full lockup. My most efficient speeds are in the 45-55 range if the momentum is carried.

On the highway, I use DPOV's speed building technique on downhills to load-up the next hill and scrub-off speed. Maybe I need to look at LOD?

The current cruising target is 55-60 MPH instead of the old 71-76 (depending on limit and traffic patterns). 60 is about the fastest before that wall of air hits and the begins turning too quickly (2 strikes). I think the 'Teg suffers from "sporty" gearing and fuel maps.

Not sure if this works best for acceleration but the car won't shift under 2-grand unless the low-loads are detected. So, to get anywhere, I give it about 40-50% TPS, lift at 2300-2500, shifts, etc. If traffic is in the way, lift at 2xxx RPM and then throttle.

Getting on the highway, I use 3K as the rule and lift. The cable mod overcomes the upshift uphill with a quick lift of the right foot, and then the throttle plate opens. The game ensues of how much pedal to give it before it wants to kick down. Apparently it's different with a passenger (LOD factor) -- it'll downshift briskly. Getting up to 55-60 is tough overall.

Reduced pumping losses with top gear and high TPS is the theory.

I'm curious about this method -- I used to try it, but the Weather changed too much to test it properly. With WOT the open-loop kicks-in, so is it closer to 90%? I wonder if the FE at WOT or TPS-90 to 60 MPH in 2nd gear onward is lower than what I'm trying, or if slower is better.

In town, I'm constantly popping into Neutral and back in D or D3 (D3 reduced the Grade-Logic madness) -- maximizing coast.

RH77

Wow, if you're pulling 30mpg with a V6 doing that, that's basically what I do with my Camry (I p&g with engine on, shifting into neutral), I can't wait to see what my fuel millage average is when I finish this tank off, the sad thing is is that I don't think it's going to be gone before spring break which means I am going to have to fill it before it's fully empty so the trip odometer won't read a nice pretty 450-500 miles on a single tank...god that would be lovely.

Righ now I'm at 130 miles to this tank and haven't even touched the 3/4 tank line :thumbup: