Gas Mileage Experiment

Hello,

Ive been a lurker on this forum for about a week. Done a TON of reading. Just purchsed an '07 Tacoma 2.7 5-speed on 10/11/07. Have less than 300 miles on it.

I just purchased a ScanGauge II. I plan on doing some serious mileage testing on this vehicle. I plan to exceed 30 mpg highway.

For the first 5000 (break-in) miles I'm running it bare bones stock with the SGII logging info. Oil change will include Mobile 1 synthetic

For the second 2500 miles I'm going to remove the charcoal filter and log the mileage gain/loss.

Finally, at the 10,000 mile mark, I'm going to treat the engine/tranny/rear-differential with 32 oz. Microlon C-100 aircraft engine treatment. Engine should be broke-in sufficiently at this point.

Engine break-in will consist of highway cruise @ 70-75 mph with 50/50 4th gear...and 5th gears selected. This should allow for 1000+ rpm range of break-in (Toyota says not to remain at one speed/rpm over long distances).

I do a lot of highway driving so mileage should be fairly accurate. I also had a '95 LT-1 Z28 automatic that got 25 mpg @ 75 mph pretty often. This vehicle was all stock. Highest mileage was 27.2.

Wish me luck.

 

Thank you sir!

 

A man with a plan! Welcome aboard. I'll be interested in hearing your results. I've never heard of that "aircraft engine treatment" before. Got more to tell us about it?

 

Good luck! welcome to TW!

 

Here's the link. www.microlon.net

Look under "products", then "aircraft". You should find the C-100, this is what I'll be using. I think for the tranny and rear diff. I'll be using the C-90 4 oz. The C-100 will be the 32 oz. This should adequately cover the entire internal surface area of the engine.

The important thing is that the directions of application are followed (i.e., drive for at least 1 hour after application), and install it through the oil dipstick and not the oil cap up top of the engine.

The reason I picked this stuff over slick-50 is that the FAA approved this stuff. Read through the testimonials. Make your own informed decisions.

Note: this stuff is pretty expensive! I think you get what you pay for.

-TSU

 

OK, so if I can dumb it down, this product is basically better lubrication through chemistry? Kinda like a teflon coated skillet, only inside your engine? Interesting.

 

Welcome to TW!

How expensive are you talking about on this stuff?

 

Go check out the link if you haven't already. Make sure you take your heart pills.

 

Correct. That's why it's important to have the engine properly broken-in. Everything internally must be seated well (rings, valves, etc.) since using this treatment implies that no more (or very little) wear will happen after the treatment.

If all goes according to plan, I should notice a decrease in manifold pressure and throttle position for a given speed (MPH) because friction is being reduced and thus, less horsepower is needed to achieve RPM and MPH before the treatment.

This is why it's so important to have logged specific benchmarks with the SGII during break-in, removal of inner air filter, and then Microlon treatment. For all I know it may not make one bit of a difference. But wouldn't it be nice to see a difference in a logical progressive system?

Tomorrow, 10/24/07 I plan to take a trip from central CA to Camarillo, CA (fires allowing). One leg will be 360 miles. This will be a great highway mileage test (including the Grapevine) on a new vehicle. It will be my first benchmark.

 

Welcome Tsunami. I have been to Stockton on numerous occasions, performing IT support at the Heinz factory, prior to Heinz selling us to Del Monte...

 

OK....drove to Camarillo from Stockton

404.7 miles with 14.2 gallons used (topped-off) = 28.5 mpg

Note: On the downgrade slope into Castaic I coasted

....sometimes, gravity is your friend.

 

That is some excellent mileage!

 

So far, I'm finding that filling the tank all the way to the brim is what's hardest. The pump keeps wanting me to shut off too soon and I have to manually squeeze it (which seems like forever). I can actually get almost another 2 full gallons in it.

One of these days I'm gonna run it out all the way until the fuel light comes on. Then I'm gonna see how much I can fit into that bloody tank! I bet it's more than 21.1 gallons.

In the mean time I need to go out and de-bug my grille after that 800 mile one-day trip..........which I have to do all over again on the 30th of October.

(job interview flight)

 

I've had that problem too! Is this just a second gen thing. Why are the auto shut-offs on the filler nozels so unkind to my tacoma?

 

So far, have made 2 trips of 800 miles and averaged 29.2 mpg @ 75
mph. With the scangauge setup I notice a huge difference in gas
mileage between 60, 65, 70 and 75. At 60 mph I think I would see 35+
mpg but I haven't had the patience to drive a long distance at the
speed.
I did notice that the LOD (engine load) is less at the same speed in
4th as opposed to 5th gear. Also, at 75 mph the temp of the water is
indicating 197 degrees steady. The minute I slow down to 70 mph, the
temp goes to 193 steady, and when I drop to 60-65 it drops to 190.
What I'm gathering is that the drag between each 5 mph increment is
huge and the temps and gas mileage is coroborating this.

I thought it was interesting to find that @ 75 mph in 5th netted 197
degrees while 75 mph in 4th reduced the temp to 193.

I'm begining to think that 4th gear might be more beneficial at higher
speeds at 70 and above than using the 5th gear. 5th might actually be
hurting mileage above 70 mph.

I'm getting this mileage with the secondary filter still in place. I'm going to continue to test for consistency and then at 5,000 miles I'm going to remove the secondary filter and log the results (LOD, FWT, MPG, GPH..etc).

 

That is some EXCELLENT information. Thanks!

I have noticed that my mileage drops significantly above 75 MPH. Best mileage I have seen was driving in the hills at a fairly steady 65 MPH.