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Step 2Cars
Cars get you to places that would be otherwise, unachievable by the common people. Although, they help us in everyday life, try to use them less, it will save money, gas, and the earth from carbon. The good choice is riding the bus, walking, or of course riding a bicycle.
Rishnai the Car Guy says:
For many of us, cars are an unavoidable fact of modern life. You don't have to go quite as far as hypermilers do in pursuit of saving gas, but there are a few easy things you can do to make things more efficient.
One of them is to put in more than the recommended air pressure in your tires, or at least check and fill them regularly. This will reduce their total traction, but that's not really an issue unless you have to deal with water. There is a reason that racing tires are slicks.
From a safety standpoint, it is probably only a good idea to raise your tire pressure a lot, espescilly near the limit, during your local dry season. You'll seriously need the tire's full water channelling and abatement abilities if it's going to rain on your commute a lot. Snow: forget about it. Use snow or all-season tires at the recommended pressure.
Don't try to save money and use lower grade gas than your car is designed for. This will actually hurt your fuel efficiency, since you will have reduced your power efficiency. That is to say, if it takes 140 horsepower to support the way you drive, in order to drive the same way with lower-octane gas you will need to burn more of it, since you'll need to burn more to make that same power. Don't hurt your gas milage like that. Use the recommended gas.
If you can keep a light foot but like to work on engines and have horsepower on tap if you need it (or are willing to pay to have the work done), it is a good idea to add a cold-air intake, a hot cam, port the heads, install a fan clutch, put on higher-ratio rockers, reprogram your ECM, or put on a turbo. Each of these will increase the amount of horsepower that you get out of each cubic inch of fuel/air mixture in your engine. That means overall a lower volume of gas for a given amount of power. Therefore, if you only actually use 140 horsepower to get around, you can get around just the same by going lighter on the throttle and using less gas. Bear in mind that for cams, high-lift, short-duration is good for torque, medium-lift, long-duration is better for high-revving power, and will take a bite out of your low-end performance, where most of us drive. Beware of that.
Rishnai the Car Guy says:
For many of us, cars are an unavoidable fact of modern life. You don't have to go quite as far as hypermilers do in pursuit of saving gas, but there are a few easy things you can do to make things more efficient.
One of them is to put in more than the recommended air pressure in your tires, or at least check and fill them regularly. This will reduce their total traction, but that's not really an issue unless you have to deal with water. There is a reason that racing tires are slicks.
From a safety standpoint, it is probably only a good idea to raise your tire pressure a lot, espescilly near the limit, during your local dry season. You'll seriously need the tire's full water channelling and abatement abilities if it's going to rain on your commute a lot. Snow: forget about it. Use snow or all-season tires at the recommended pressure.
Don't try to save money and use lower grade gas than your car is designed for. This will actually hurt your fuel efficiency, since you will have reduced your power efficiency. That is to say, if it takes 140 horsepower to support the way you drive, in order to drive the same way with lower-octane gas you will need to burn more of it, since you'll need to burn more to make that same power. Don't hurt your gas milage like that. Use the recommended gas.
If you can keep a light foot but like to work on engines and have horsepower on tap if you need it (or are willing to pay to have the work done), it is a good idea to add a cold-air intake, a hot cam, port the heads, install a fan clutch, put on higher-ratio rockers, reprogram your ECM, or put on a turbo. Each of these will increase the amount of horsepower that you get out of each cubic inch of fuel/air mixture in your engine. That means overall a lower volume of gas for a given amount of power. Therefore, if you only actually use 140 horsepower to get around, you can get around just the same by going lighter on the throttle and using less gas. Bear in mind that for cams, high-lift, short-duration is good for torque, medium-lift, long-duration is better for high-revving power, and will take a bite out of your low-end performance, where most of us drive. Beware of that.
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"a hot cam, port the heads, install a fan clutch, put on higher-ratio rockers, reprogram your ECM, or put on a turbo."
None of these will actually increase fuel efficiency. An engine is an extremely dynamic air pump. The term "hot" in reference to a cam typically points out higher life/more duration which will increase the volumetric efficiency of the engine at higher RPMs to make more horsepower. This is probably the best way to decrease your fuel efficiency. Higher ratio rockers will achieve the same effect. Porting the heads is a bit more complex, but once again you're changing the area in the load/powerband curves that the engine operates most effectively and most back yard porters will be a long shot away from improving efficiency over an entire OEM laboratory's years of work and data optimizing port and chamber design. Turbocharging your car is guaranteed NOT to improve fuel mileage; it's physically impossible. The way that OEMs increase fuel mileage through turbocharging is by simultaneously downsizing engine's displacement or being more conservative with cam/head/intake design. ECM reprogramming may improve fuel mileage, but often times you sacrifice reliability or other emissions which should be strictly reserved for offroad use. You're incorrect about lower octane gas as well. Lower octane gas burns faster than higher octane gas (higher octane is less prone to detonation). This has absolutely NOTHING to do with power while cruising at highway speeds where a car will typically use less than 20 horsepower. This comes into play under heavy load and acceleration where higher cylinder pressures may cause the mixture to detonate if a lower grade of gasoline is used. As far as whether a lower grade will help or hurt fuel mileage I'll reserve from commenting on that since I'd imagine it to be quite specific to the combustion chamber/piston design for each individual vehicle.
The basics of improving gas mileage are using a free flowing air intake with reusable cotton filter, free flowing exhaust (which will usually change the note of the exhaust and the volume of it), a good tune-up, and properly inflated tires (keep in mind that the tire manufacturers recommend certain pressures for certain vehicle weights)
Tony