gtjosh's Fuel Economy Build

I picked up a 2016 Tacoma 2WD TRD Sport in early December and I have been trying to decide which direction I wanted to take it. I come from a background of moding turbo charged cars to have more power and take turns at higher speeds. The truck I traded in for this one was a Ford F150 Tremor (single cab short bed with a 3.5 ecoboost motor and 4wd.) That truck had full bolt ons with lots of torque and power but I needed more seats and more doors. I was also tired of getting 17 mpg using 93 octane so that is why I said goodbye to the F150 and Hello to my Tacoma.

So again, I have a 2016 Tacoma 2WD TRD Sport. I picked it up as a CPO at a dealership north of Dallas with it only have 21,500 miles on it. Everything on the truck was stock except a gigantic TRD sticker that was on the sides of the truck and a soft tonneau cover over the bed. During the 300 mile trip back home from I was averaging about 25.5 mpg until I hit the 130 toll where the speed limit is 85mph. After that my mpg’s took a dive and I could only muster about 22 mpg. Once home I reset everything on the truck to get a more realistic mpg number for my daily drive.

Here is a little background info. I live in Central Texas where most of the speed limits are 70mph and its somewhat hilly. My commute to work is 11 miles with 75% of that being interstate. With all that being said my first month of commuting to work I averaged 23mpg which really isn’t that bad.

Ok back to why I decided to choose to do a fuel economy build. My truck is 2WD and I had only ever gone off road once in my 4WD F150 where I didn’t need 4WD so I really have no use for putting a lift on my truck with bigger tires. I know it could look cool but the practical side of my could never justify something that is just for looks and kills my mpg’s. I thought about dropping my truck for something different but I do still want it to be somewhat functional if I ever had to take it off road. Making the truck have gobs of power really wasn’t in the cards either since it is a NA motor that would need a lot of work to make the power that y F150 had. So what is left? I figured since one of the reasons I traded my F150 because the fuel economy was so awe full that maybe I would try to focus on that with this truck. I also decided to make fuel economy the focus of my build based on the search results I got from looking how to get more mpg’s. Seems like on every thread there was someone posting “Drive better”, or “It’s the way you drive the truck” while this is true and probably the big reason why I get such good fuel economy in my truck (because I drive like a grandpa). I wanted to really see what else you can do to help get better fuel economy other than just “Driving better”

Here are some Ideas I have about how I can try to improve fuel economy on my truck. I will try to list them in the order that I am planning on testing them.

- Air up tires to 35 psi and use Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0W-20 oil (averaged 24.62mpg)

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$25 Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy Full Synthetic Motor Oil 0W-20, 5 Quart

https://www.amazon.com/Mobil-120758...sr=8-1&keywords=mobil+1+advanced+fuel+economy

- Install a S&B Cold Air Intake (averaged 24.65mpg)
o https://www.sbfilters.com/cold-air-intakes/toyota-tacoma-3-5-intake-75-5096d

- Use ethanol free gas

- Install a catback exhaust

- Install tires with a higher UTQG rating or with Eco Focus

- Try to add some under body plastic panels to reduce drag

- Lower the truck a inch or two to reduce drag

- Replace the clutch driven fan with electric fans

I will try each of these ideas in time and after I have applied one I will see what kind of result I get before moving on to the next. I may alter some of the stuff I want to try out as time goes on but will keep trying to update the thread as I do. If anyone has any questions, comments, or reasonable Ideas to add please feel free and do.

Update 1/11/2018

As of now I am running Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0W-20 oil and my tires are inflated to 35 psi cold. When the tires warm up they are normally around 37 psi. I have been running the truck like this for about 5 days now and I am seeing a mpg average of 23.5.

Update 1/28/2018

I have refilled my tank twice now since inflating the tires and changing the oil and on the first tank I saw 24.2 mpg. We did get a hard freeze a few of thjose days which i brought my mpgs down. The last tank went 465 miles and I got 25.3 mpg on that tank. My overall average since the oil change and tires is 24.6 mpg.

update 4/24/2018

uploaded a picture of my truck so people can make fun of the giant trd sticker

 

Have you thought about installing a retractable tonneau? I've heard people have good results with them. Keep the updates coming! I'm curious to see how much mpg modding can do since I know doing the opposite shows these trucks can get below 14mpg.

 

I do have a soft retractable tonneau on the truck already. It came with it when I picked it up at the dealer. Thought about maybe switching to a hard one at some point if I find one at the right price.

I will update as soon as I feel I have reliable data. This past week it was cold down here which dropped my mpgs to around 22.7. Hoping that will bounce back up in about two fuel tank cycles.

 

The soft tonneau is probably better because its lighter and contours to the wind better. A hard tonneau would likely be worse for fuel economy. I think theres a way to incorporate your fuelly stats into your signature by the way.

 

Been thinking of some other ideas I could try to increase fuel economy

1. Use a engine block heater to warm up the motor before starting it up to.

2. Use ethanol free gasoline

3. I dont think this will help but using just the re-circulation button for the air instead of letting it come from the outside.

 

An engine block heater isnt a bad idea, there isnt really any easy way to get one into a 4.0L, at least mine, so I actually put a heating pad on the bottom of my oil pan for cold mornings to reduce wear. I havent looked at fuel economy scientifically for when I do and dont plug it in though

 

Well if you do ever look at it please share what you find. This is most likely something I will never add to my truck since I live in Texas

 

I'm in CA and it's just for those rare mornings the temperature hits 0C. I'll fuelly it next cold spell

 

So this wa taken on 3-6-18. The average fuel economy number has not been reset since my last oil change.

 

I'd like to know how much of an increase the intake will make. I have a 2017 TRD OR. My commute is about 56 miles one way basically from Providence RI to Boston MA. I can usually average 22mpg per tank and that's having my tires inflated to 40psi (in the summer). I also added a cat back but haven't really noticed a major increase .

 

I am planning on installing the intake in about 2000 miles. I wanted to wait until the next oil change to move on to the next thing on the list that way i get a good sample size and can see if there was an improvement or not. I will report back with results once I have them but it may take some time.

 

Smart man

 

Lookin good! Not sure if the 3rd gens take synthetic oil but I’d go for some high quality stuff like penzoil platinum ultra or motul which might reduce internal friction. Also draining and refilling your rear diff with a synthetic should help, brought me from a 16.7 avg to 16.9 so far in similar conditions.

 

I am running the Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy right now which is higher quality than normal synthetic and I am going to stick with it. I plan to do the diff around 32,000 miles and fill it up with redline.

 

your doing about as best you can not much more you can do, just use light weight tires and keep the weight of the truck from increasing by adding on extras

 

I did my diff at 30 and it was like silver paint, I’d recommend doing it at 15Kish

 

As long as I'm not in a hurry this isn't that uncommon

 

Wonder how big a difference the MPG is from a 4x2 to a 4x4 though? Will have to look at some of these ideas when I get my truck next month.

 

You likely will get an uptick in MPG. However, it won't be nearly enough to offset the cost delta to even break even, much less reduce costs.

Most things on your planned list either won't do anything, or if they do, won't be cost effective.

One thing I'm not seeing in your plan is weight reduction.

Have you looked at any hypermiling websites for other tips?

Driver inputs are critical. Installing an analog vacuum gauge and driving with it being your guide will be much more effective than any electronic instant/average readout wizardry.

 

My list wasn't really planed around being cost effective. I know that ethanol fuel cost more and wont be worth it but this thread is really about how to get better fuel economy and really try to get the best possible mpg's out of this truck.

As far as weight reduction goes you could remove the spare tire but that could come in useful. I keep my truck pretty clean and empty and dont haul around extra stuff with me. I have thought about trying to find some budget friendly wheels that are lighter than stocks but have had trouble finding the weight of the stock wheels. I should just take one off and weigh it myself.

I have looked at hypermiling websites and from those I have collect a few thing that I put on my list.

As far as driver inputs go I am really consistent with my driving and do the same speeds down the same roads every day. I wanted to try my best to have that as close to a constant so that the testing of everything on my list shows what it did to my fuel economy. Maybe adding a vacuum gauge to my list is something I should look at.