Speed adjusting cruise control for mpg
 

Hey folks,

I'm new to posting on the forum, but have been an occasional visitor for the last few years. I started becoming more fuel efficiency aware about 2 years ago when we got a new vehicle that actually reported the fuel economy instantaneously.

I started doing some of the basics - turning off cruise control going up hills, dwb, mainly. At some point I decided to try to automate adjusting the speed, kind of like the mpg cruise control some folks worked on here for a bit, but based on the route you're driving. The idea is your nav system (perhaps on your phone if you don't have one in car) does some number crunching magic and provides the recommended speed to the cruise control.

I'm thinking of making this available for others, and wanted to know if people here were interested in it. Looking at elevation/speed/road curvature as inputs to the speed determining process right now.

Thanks,
Richard

I never kept up on the project, but a while back we had another member make something somewhat similar. You might want to check out his work.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ogic-2031.html

Also, welcome to the posting side of EM! :)

Or you could just have a trigger activated throttle lock cable

Sounds great, if all the roads have at least 2 lanes in each direction.

Back in the 70s there was an accessory that mounted under the dash and used an electro-magnet and cable to hold the throttle pedal in a constant position. Pull out the knob at the speed/throttle you wanted to maintain and it would hold all day. Touching the brake pedal broke the circuit and released the throttle. I installed one of these on my 1973 Datsun 610 Wagon and it worked fine. I haven't been able to find an old one or a new version since then. Let me know if I'm just missing it.

When cruise control became more standard on cars, this version disappeared.

@Daox: Thanks! I've read portions of that thread. My goal is more like what Pete C mentions on page 15, 2nd paragraph (I can't post links yet).

If I'm not worried about minimum speed, sure. However, I do care about minimum speed, and once I introduce a min speed into the mix constant throttle might not be the most optimal. Also, from what I've read on ecomodder so far, optimizing for the vaccuum for DWL is better than constant throttle (someone correct me if I'm wrong).



Hoping to have some ABA testing done in a few weeks. Have a ECU or electrical issue in my vehicle (96 dodge stratus) that causes it to stop reporting fuel flow rate randomly that I either need to fix, or find an aftermarket flow meter to install in the fuel line.