Lets talk gas mileage and improving it

[igo4bmx]

My buddy at work drives a jeep rubicon and due to his commute, he spends about $700 a month on Gas and tolls. about $500+ a month on gas alone.

basically I'm thinking he should trade his car in an get a wrx and run some type of super lean map in vacuum and give his better mileage on the highway, which is most of his commute.

thoughts?

[JET02WRX]

Well.. your thread title question doesn't really match up with what you actually posted. I'll address both scenarios. If your buddy is hating life with that kind of mileage and isn't really a car guy...then he should buy the most fuel efficient ride out there and not dick around with turboed cars or anything like that.
As far as what I'm doing as the owner of a turboed car to save gas... I stay out of boost as much as humanly possible. That netted me about a 2 mpg improvement. Then, I decided to push my afr's out a bit, running a slightly modifed map on my ecu made by me, so my low load / rpm driving runs about 15.1 :1 AFR's...out of boost. That netted me about 2 mpg more than what I was getting. I was averaging 16mpg when I didn't care.... now i'm getting about 20mpg. Still not great...

[redline]

tell him to buy a $500 beater to drive back and forth, I put 10K miles on my Omni and it got 30mpg+.

[Jeffros Spec V]

I also sold my Gas guzzler jeep and bought a little 1.8l GTI. I'm getting a bout 30mpg or so. I spent about $1450 on.

Actually tel him to buy the subaru for sale in the cars for sale section.

[TROLL]

A WRX isnt the move to make if gas mileage is the priority... a Honda, Neon, etc. would be.

As for tuning a WRX to get better mileage, its not logically possible at least. The reason is that most cars have open loop and closed loop fueling, and then you are cruising around at light throttle you're in closed loop which automatically targets 14.7 AFR. Any changes you make to your fuel map will probably only be to the open loop portion, which is only for heavier throttle areas of the map only. Now if you have your injectors or your MAF scaled poorly then the car may be missing that 14.7 target and running worse than it should and could be improved upon, but you cant really improve much on a stock or near stock closed loop fueling map.

[CleanNeon98]

Originally Posted by igo4bmx

My buddy at work drives a jeep rubicon and due to his commute, he spends about $700 a month on Gas and tolls. about $500+ a month on gas alone.

basically I'm thinking he should trade his car in an get a wrx and run some type of super lean map in vacuum and give his better mileage on the highway, which is most of his commute.

thoughts?

Why a WRX?? Im sorry, I like Subaru and all but it seems like everyone suggests them for EVERY situation..its a great car, its not a godsend damnit.

[dragonfly2k3]

i plan to do everything humanly possible to get better gas mileage in my accord. this includes low roling resistance tires with higher psi, tuning solely for gas mileage with no concern for power, driving slower(cruise ftw) etc. Im working on my first tank since i bought it now, looking for a bone stock with tires at 35psi and somewhat aggressive driving/not caring about mileage for a basic comparison.

[pearl]

Originally Posted by CleanNeon98

Why a WRX?? Im sorry, I like Subaru and all but it seems like everyone suggests them for EVERY situation..its a great car, its not a godsend damnit.

jesus <3 awd


i got 26mpg to my tank in my wrx, and that was about 95% highway (driving from Boston to NJ)

you could always put smaller tires on the rubicon or take some unnecessary **** out of it.

[omgjacki]

Originally Posted by CleanNeon98

Why a WRX?? Im sorry, I like Subaru and all but it seems like everyone suggests them for EVERY situation..its a great car, its not a godsend damnit.

Exactly, it's a great car.

[CleanNeon98]

Originally Posted by omgjacki

Exactly, it's a great car.

But for fuel economy, its not the best, not even close in fact.

[pearl]

im going to start commuting to work by bicycle. tell your friend to get into shape.

[igo4bmx]

Originally Posted by CleanNeon98

Why a WRX?? Im sorry, I like Subaru and all but it seems like everyone suggests them for EVERY situation..its a great car, its not a godsend damnit.

he wants something decent.
honestly he is also paying $500+ bucks a MONTH on a car payment.
a used wrx will get him roughly a 300-350/month car payment.

so compare theses
jeep $500+/month payment + $700 gas/tolls (14mpg avg)
WRX $300-350?month payment + slightly less than $700 in gas and tolls

[igo4bmx]

Originally Posted by pearl

im going to start commuting to work by bicycle. tell your friend to get into shape.

his commute it from levittown/newtown area to conshohocken!

[CleanNeon98]

Originally Posted by igo4bmx

he wants something decent.
honestly he is also paying $500+ bucks a MONTH on a car payment.
a used wrx will get him roughly a 300-350/month car payment.

so compare theses
jeep $500+/month payment + $700 gas/tolls (14mpg avg)
WRX $300-350?month payment + slightly less than $700 in gas and tolls

But even if he gets rid of the Jeep, isnt he still going to owe money on it?? What I mean is if he wants fuel economy, a civic, corolla, elantra, are good choices. A WRX might be fuel efficient, but not on the same level as the other 2. I just dont understand why when someone needs a car, a WRX is one of the first suggestions, its not a one-size-fits-all car, I know I wouldnt have bought one, even if it was cheap.

[Renegade_]

Originally Posted by CleanNeon98

But for fuel economy, its not the best, not even close in fact.

On stock turbo it sucks.

Throw a 20G on the bitch and your back up to like 28+

My car on the other hand blows for gas mileage - I get like 5psi at like 2600 when I put the pedal down, no joke.

[sisforsurfing]

boost alone is not bad for fuel economy. Low revs + boost is better than high revs + no boost by a long shot. Never revving the engine past 3k nor getting into boost is best, sure, but then you are a giant wuss and shouldn't be commuting in a turbo car. /opinion

FWIW, I average 24 mpg and will get at least 27 mpg on the highway. WOT at least a couple times per tank. If he wants fuel economy he'll get a Corolla, Civic, or 3-cyl Geo Metro. If he wants better fuel economy than his Jeep by a long shot and to actually enjoy his car, a used 2.0L WRX isn't a bad choice.

[CleanNeon98]

All I know is that I got 33mpg city in my civic all the time...i cant get even close to that in my miata.

[JET02WRX]

Originally Posted by TROLL

A WRX isnt the move to make if gas mileage is the priority... a Honda, Neon, etc. would be.

As for tuning a WRX to get better mileage, its not logically possible at least. The reason is that most cars have open loop and closed loop fueling, and then you are cruising around at light throttle you're in closed loop which automatically targets 14.7 AFR. Any changes you make to your fuel map will probably only be to the open loop portion, which is only for heavier throttle areas of the map only. Now if you have your injectors or your MAF scaled poorly then the car may be missing that 14.7 target and running worse than it should and could be improved upon, but you cant really improve much on a stock or near stock closed loop fueling map.

Not exactly true Bryan. You can force the WRX/STI to be in open loop all the time. The only difference is its up to YOU to make sure that you have everything dialed in, in order to run correctly. These days I run completely in open loop, and only i have it set up to only run wastegate boost unless i push the throttle down more than half way. Many of the guys over on RomRaider run this way. Thats where I got the idea to target 15.1:1 afrs and not worry about ruining anything. I've pulled the plugs twice in the 9 months since I made these changes and they look perfect.

I also should have mentioned...that 20mpg i get... thats a 7mile commute that takes me 20 minutes each way... the car rarely gets on the highway.

[sean3]

Dare I say it... cobalt SS :X I remember reading about some of the people over at cobaltss.net discussing econo tunes and some people were pulling ~35MPG highway with cars in the 230-250whp range. Even without an econo tune they can easily do 30MPG highway even with the smaller SC pulley and bigger injectors.

[evomike]

Swap a diesel into the liberty and go bio, I'm not sure if the liberty was one of the platforms offered with diesel. But hey I mean if subaru guys are only getting 26 hwy he could beat that, I mean in my crew cab 2500hd I get 25 hwy and 19 city. And with the programmer going in this week its gonna go up tell him to get a mk3 tdi vw.