MPG improvements?

Hey all. I’ve got an 06 Tacoma, 3” toytec lift on 33s (aired up to 35 btw). Engine is stock, I do have an MBRP exhaust tho. My MPGs are around 12.5-13.5 tank avg (highway/city mixed). Gonna say this before, I don’t drive aggressively, I keep RPMs under 2k as much as possible, use cruise on hwy. I’ve seen people on here claim 17+ mpgs in lifted 2nd gens, what sort of mods/maintenance/etc should I do to get there? thanks.

 

Keep current on maintenance items, don't use cruise control and keep it under 70 mph.

/one and done.

 

tbh your best bet to regain some mileage will be changing to a smaller/lighter tire and removing the lift. You could try getting the MAF cleaned/air filter removed which might lead to slightly better mileage, or you could regear, but 12.5-13.5 is about right. I'm on a 3" King lift, with 33" E rated tires, as well as a decent amount of armor and other stuff. But the biggest MPG drop I saw was when i installed the lift and changed the tires...all the other extra weight only made a 1MPG difference or so.

 

I'm going to try hard to not make this sound like an advertisement, but I highly suggest looking into a Sprint booster throttle controller for several reasons.

I have been working in automotive electronics design my whole life and have dyno tuned, flash tuned ecus, built ecu dataloggers from scratch, did design work for the big 3, etc. the Sprint booster is one of the best automotive plug and play products I've seen in my life. However, doing some research online, they are very polarized and mixed reviews, after getting mine, I couldn't figure out at first why some people hated them and some loved them.

A friend of mine sells them in his store and talked me into it, which is the only reason I considered it. Being very familiar with (more old school) ECU tuning, when i first saw the sprint booster, I thought BS, that's not going to work or do anything. However i am more familiar with cable throttle body and not drive by wire at the time. now newer cars are all drive by wire, the throttle bodies are electronically controlled. You can get a complete stand alone ECU, tuned, custom turbo charge your engine, change everything, if you still have that OEM throttle body and pedal, it will always be the same. The performance of the Throttle body never changes. The ECU has no idea that it is even there, it only gets TPS signal coming back.

So if you were to slam your gas pedal down all the way, there's an accelerometer circuit inside the pedal assembly that senses that rate of change, deadens it out, and opens the throttle very slowly and controlled. The majority of this functionality, IMO, is for saftey, and some for longevity. Imagine our truck engines, lets say 200hp/200 lb ft, thats comparable to a lot of muscle cars decades earlier. Those type of cars not every grandma can get in and hit the gas 1/4 throttle, without slipping all over the place or crashing. Its a lot of power, but by today's standards its average. With the drive by wire, anyone can drive these vehicles, especially a truck with a light end.

Now one thing you are interested in is MPG, and most people do not get a throttle controller for MPG. I learned that MPG can actually be increased with this. Take the 2nd gen Tacoma for example, hit your throttle 0 to 75%, i mean slap it back and fourth. it almost does nothing. imagine being on the highway, curising 65 mph, you want to overtake a slower vehicle in front of you, you merge over one, and accelrate to pass. With the stock throttle setup, that 0-75% is doing nothing, you try to go to 50% and it doesnt give it enough to pass, so what happens is you end up going to that 75% or whatever (im using arbitraty numbers but you get the point). once you get past that 75%, now its too much, the engine revs, the transmission kicks down, and you just used way more gas to do this simple task of passing someone on the highway. Now with the Sprint Booster, depending on how aggresive of a setting you are using, you can push the pedal not even 1/10th, and instead of kicking down and revving out, it just gives a little. vrrrrrrrrrrr, and you are accelerating enough to pass the car, without downshifting or anything like that.

When im towing a trailer, all of the things i described are now exacerbated greatly, that's when you can really feel the thing working in your MPG benefit. Now me personally i drive very heavy, and this thing is not going to save me MPG because on a daily because I have it in 1:1 race mode all the time. When I'm careful on long road trips it does help. but your driving style will be the most influencing factor. Another customer at the shop mentioned his MPG increasing greatly, and he was the type of guy that drove carefully and tried to conserve gas.

I recommend trying one, because they have a no bs 30 day trial period, it installs in 5 minutes. if you don't like it, send it back.

Now for an example where it doesn't work. A friend of mine got an F-150 ecoboost. those thigns make tons of torque, twin turbo, all that. He wants to start tuning it up, so i recommend for him to buy one. He installs it and says it does nothing, i go drive his car to confirm, hes right, its very minimal difference. I called the vendor that sold it, he recommended putting it in manual transmission mode instead of Automatic to give it more sensitivity. We tried a bunch of stuff and it didnt work. Driving his truck though, i realized that compared to our trucks, his gas pedal actually works after 15-20%, its already a very sensitive pedal and very torqy engine. So that explained to me why some people do not like this thing and some do. He was able to return it no hassle, however he ended up getting one for his nissan Z instead where it made more of a difference.

I know there are several brands of this, i am more attracted to the sprint booster one as they have the original patent on it, but dont seem to be enforcing it in the US as they are a Greek company.


As for other MPG factors, i can only suggest the obvious, but there is not going to be anything that is a major game changer.

Tire pressure (actually tune it if you really want to dial in your MPG).
take off cap, or heavy tool box or extra weight.
air filter, general Maintenace, scan engine for MIL's.
check for brakes dragging
tire balance
alignment

A friend of mine lifted his truck, but left stock wheels on for a couple weeks until his wheels came in. he said there was no difference in MPG with the lift, his previous theory was that the aerodynamics would affect it a lot at the higher ride height. once he put the heavy 33's and wheels though, that's where the loss started. with that said I don't think air dams or anything would help much with something that already sits too high off the ground compared to a car.

 

lift and tires are not doing you any good what so ever. You will never get good MPGs with that especially if they are LT e rated

 

Best way to improve mpgs is to go back to stock. Going up in tire size effectively reduces the gearing advantage of the engine and trans meaning it needs to work harder to go the same distance. Another option is to get new gears in the diffs to try to get back to a stock ratio.

 

Take secondary highways and get a second set of P rated 245's on alloy rims.
How heavy are your wheels (rims and tires)? Unsprung weight is a mileage and acceleration killer.
Past 55mph, air resistance/drag becomes multiplied. You'll get near 40% more fuel consumption at 75 vs. 55mph.

 

If you truly have "been working in automotive electronics design my whole life" you should understand the simple analog circuit of the throttle pedal on our trucks and how it connects to the ecu, is literally two analog rotational hall effect sensors, 1 for main and the other as a reference. Being a plug and play inline product to that simple analog circuit you would understand that the spirit booster does nothing more than simulate one pushing down on the throttle pedal more (sport modes) or less (eco modes) than they actually are. It DOES NOTHING and CAN NOT DO ANYTHING to change the mapping of the throttle pedal to the throttle blade in the engine bay.

It, does not and can not reduce the "lag" between the throttle pedal and throttle blade, and in fact there is less than the blink of an eye delay from pushing on the throttle pedal to the throttle blade opening (even fully to the floor and wide open at the throttle blade). THE ONLY TIME the ecu EVER deviates from the requested throttle blade angle as set out in the ECU's map is if traction control needs to step in due to wheel slip, or in the case of gear based limited throttle blade angles (which only applies to stock toyota TRD supercharge tunes).

 

Buy a Honda accord, you're driving a truck . . .

 

I get 16-17 mpg mixed driving with my 07 4X4 DC. On the road 18-19 mpg and on good days 20. No lift, but I do have a mildly aggressive 265/75/16" tire which is just under 32".

Wider tires hurt mpg worse than skinny tires in the same height. Tires with aggressive mud tread will cost you 2-3 mpg compared to a less aggressive AT tire even in the same size and load rating. The lift is causing more wind resistance. I'd say with all of that you're about where you should be.

 

Regearing would help get your to closer to stock ratios for some MPG improvement, but the best you could do is get rid of the taller + heavier 33s, lower it back to stock, and if your truck had/has an air dam up under the chin, make sure to use it/keep it.

 

Lol that’s me. Truck for fun and going out.

2015 accord for commutes to work and stores. Average of 30-31 on the accord

 

That's about where I've been ever since the LTs went on

 

I also noticed that every truck is different. Some get better mpg. Some get worse.

Im lifted 1.5-2” on 265-70-17 and get 15-16mpg. Meanwhile other people get 17mpg with the same set up. Im on top of all maintenance and have perfect alignment and perfect tire psi.

then there are people who run 33” tires. Some get 13mpg. Some get 16mpg.

 

Try 35’s with a steel bumper.

I’ve only put 5000km since March of this year lol!

 

Carry less weight, decrease rolling resistance, max 70mph on the interstate. Simple as that; how you get there is your decision.

 

Extend front air dam down to within five inches of the ground.

 

Remove the lift, go back to stock tires.

Or get a Prius.

With all those mods, can you really expect more mpg’s?

 

Cruise control is perfectly fine to use, provided you're on relatively flat ground or very gradual slopes.