How to use scanguage to accellerate? Which guages? - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

rmay635703 · 07-01-2009, 01:35 PM

I finally broke down and bought a $124 scanguage from JCWhitney.

I know that accelleration is a tough one but since I now drive mostly city and rarely highway (opposite of my former life) I can't figure out how to bloody accellerate without terrible FE.

Anyway the 3 vehicles that I usually end up with (depending on what the other folks here are doing) are a
1. 2002 TDI Jetta 4sp auto
2. 1998 3.8Buick 4sp auto
3. 2001 Dodge Ram crew 5.2 auto
(I love to drive electric but since I drive much less now the electrics are usually out and about without me

I have figured out the dodge mostly, I just accellerate harder than normal to get to speed than coast and carefully monitor the throttle to keep high fe, this one is the easiest to improve I can defiantely see how hard I can push before MPGs drop.

The buick is a little tougher but it seems like again push harder than normal, let off to coax a shift, push harder than normal, repeat. Once up to 3rd I gradually let off the accelerator during accelleration and the MPGs actually move up rapidly as compared to the low gears that stay terrible all the time.

Now the one I don't Get the 02 TDI jetta seems to be impossible to accellerate, my mileage is always in the dumps even SLIGHT accelleration causes the MPGs to drop in half, the harder I accelerate the worse the FE but any accelleration cuts FE in half. Low gears cut FE in half. Its like a rock and a hard place I just can't get the car up to speed without a huge FE hit and I don't drive long enough stretches to get FE up.

Any ideas what guages or x-guages might help me make heads or tails as to how to drive these in town? I just can't seem to figure out a pattern or method to accellerate without having very low mpg's. In other words with or without the guage at least in town I haven't been able to improve FE significantly, although for long trips its worked wonders, I should have had one of these years ago.

I know about coasting, the sad part is the Jetta coasts about as far while DOWNSHIFTING as it does in Neutral which is not very far. These blasted autos coast like a brick without wheels.

THank You
Ryan

chuckm · 07-01-2009, 05:59 PM

I'd hazard a guess that LOD would be a good choice.

Daox · 07-01-2009, 06:13 PM

IMO autos are tricky. Its easy to pin LOD where ever you want with a manual trans, but with an auto you have to learn to balance things. You don't want to loose a ton through the torque converter by loading it up too much. But, you don't want to loose a ton to pumping losses either. You really just gotta play with it until you find what you think works best. Using LOD should definitely help with that.

Matt Herring · 07-01-2009, 06:40 PM

I'd also use LOD as one of the 4 guages to monitor. For the other 3 it's really a preference and you might end up using different guages for different vehicles depending on how they feel to you. MPG is an obvious one as you need to see that live to know where your sweet spots are. If your cars don't have an RPM guage then RPM is a good one to monitor as well. I never accelerate past 2000-2100 RPM unless I'm straight uphill and have to do it to keep up to speed.

For acceleration, the SGII is going to be invaluable to you. When I first got my SGII I tended to baby the acceleration because I didn't want to peg the RPM but I found that moderate acceleration to get it past the first couple "gears" in the automatic and up to 30-35 mph was best for FE. When I started doing that I was able to use P&G more often in my commute and saved alot more fuel than dragging up to 30-35 mph.

PaleMelanesian · 07-02-2009, 11:14 AM

How did you get it for $124?

rmay635703 · 07-02-2009, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

How did you get it for $124?

Actually it was $127.XX they have/had a 20% off and free shipping coupon for JCWhitney.com online orders, just lookup JC Whitney 20% off coupon and you should eventually find the coupon code.

I figured out the Jetta, I finally took the diesel on the highway and it says I am getting 27mpg which means the Scanguage is WAAY off, I had it set for Diesel A, Diesel B ended up worse accuracy wise (not to mention the throttle doesn't go up like diesel b anyway). The funny part is I can sustain around 46mpg per the scanguage in town at lower speeds but at highway speeds its always around 27mpg which is very very wrong.

Not sure how I correct/tweak very very inaccurate readings with the Scanguage on my Volkswagon Diesel.

The Buick was quite accurate out of the box, Dodge was very close but apparently the SG doesn't like diesels much.

Sad part is if I do a lot of tweaking I will need a way to reset the SG often as I move it from vehicle to vehicle often; as the other drivers won't use or look at it.

Cheers
Ryan

Matt Herring · 07-02-2009, 02:59 PM

Your best bet would be to use the SGII for a couple tanks in a row in one vehicle and then record the % adjustment for that car before moving the SGII to another vehicle and repeating the process. After a few tanks in each car you will have your % adjustment for each vehicle and you can plug that in when you move the SGII from vehicle to vehicle.

There is a thread on ecomodder where guys have posted their % adjustment for their cars so maybe you can find your cars in that thread and use their % adjustment values if you don't know what they are already.