How are you guys getting 20+ MPG V6 4x4s

I got 20mpg when I first drove it home around 100miles.Now I get around
16 and in 4x4 I get around 12 ,but I also have a Prius that gets around 50mpg and more. in the winter it goes down in the 40"s.So I have the best of both worlds. Fun and not so much.

 

The best way to do it is:
A. Get a high flow filter to replace with stock
B. Find the one gas station around that sales non ethanol gas
C. Remove charcoal filter doesnt do much with our V-6's but with everything together it seems to help.
D. Replace stock spark plugs with E3 diamond fire plugs they worked like a charm for me unfortunatelynot all auto part stores have them i know pep boys does
Doing all that should help you out

 

Four year old thread needed a bump eh?

 

Intake doesn't do anything for mpg, and unless spark plugs are badly out of spec they do nothing.

 

and non-corn gas costs more...so while it may be a MPG winner, not sure the numbers add up financially.

 

btw, I get right at 20 mpg (yes, 10% corn fuel)...and I'm not afraid to use the accelerator pedal.

 

driving habits has A LOT to do with it. i know mine wear much better last year, and i got better MPG. i always get PB gas 87 most the time. i have got from other places and seam to get worse MPG. most the time i get about 280 to 300 miles to a tank, i have got 370 all mixed driving, (some hills, back roads, interstate, stop and go)

 

Indeed. Add in any "oh no I gotta get there" or "I don't want him in front of me" then just start throwing money out the window.

If it's not working the v6 isn't too terrible but give it any motivation at all and watch that mileage meter go down past 6, 4, 3, ......ouch-mpg.

 

just drive casual. you dont need to hypermile it..but it helps, to drive casual.

i got 21.8 coming back from Idaho a few weeks ago..full truck, couple ice chest full of elk meat.

 

Agreed, I took a trip a couple weeks ago, was driving slow since my step daughter was following so she wouldn't get separated from us. kept it below 65 for most of the trip, at 60 for a while (when that was the speed limit) and did very little passing. Kept watching the Ultragauge and even calculated on a bathroom stop and at the destination. Averaged 22+ until I had to let the truck idle to keep my wife and baby boy cool sitting in the truck while we were unloading it which killed the mileage after a couple times of doing this.

On the trip home w/o her following and getting late ran a bit faster, set the cruise at 70 when I got back to the 70 zone still trying to keep the mileage up but only averaged like 18 coming home and that was with no load in the bed also. So that 5-10 mph made a big difference.

Also though, I noticed how hard the truck will accelerate with the cruise set which was used quite a bit more on the trip home. On the up hills it pulled much harder than I would have if I had been controlling the throttle.

 

FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE

Intake has a lot to do with mpg if the truck cant breath and is more labored to bring in nice cool air then your mpg goes down. And these are also opinions of mine for my v6 4x4 get 23 avg in town after doing all these mods a far cry from what i got originally. For the spark plugs yes they do help a better spark plug will burn the fuel better thus leaving less left over wasted fuel. I know here in Augusta there is a non ethanol store that if you pay with cash on Wednesday's its five to ten cents cheaper.

 

The air cleaner is not the bottleneck in the intake system. You can use a huge straw but you can only swallow so fast.

 

If you're pulling so much air that the air cleaner even begins to have an influence on mileage than you're only getting about 2 mpg anyways. The throttle body is just cracked open when cruising, and so little air goes through that the airbox is effectively 10x oversized for the application at that load (20 mpg is on average what, 30-40 horsepower or so?).

If your intake lets it draw down warm air, mileage might go up a little. Lower air density means wider throttle opening for same cruising power, which also means higher pressure in the intake manifold and fewer pumping losses. Works great in the winter because air under 40F tends to cause a big loss in mileage. In the summer air over 120F tends to make it pull ignition timing too much on the 1GR and any gains are washed out. Check out the Saturn dudes putting 160F air into their 1.9L speed-density engines to pull 50 mpg out of them.

Plugs not efficient? Can't convince me of that. Fire is fire. The 1GR is already trying to squish a conflagration into the brink of detonation (that's why premium works better on these engines), it doesn't get more efficient than that unless you go diesel, use more spark plugs, or use late direct injection with a mini-cupped piston to create a smaller effective combustion chamber. Take Honda's i-DSI. Four cylinders, 8 valves, 8 spark plugs... mileage that would make a Prius cry.

Besides electricity follows the path of least resistance and it does so once. Cool looking spark plugs may look effective with the shaped multiple electrodes but in the end the spark is only going to travel one path per firing anyways.

23 mpg in town is stupid easy if you know what you're doing. Shoot, worthywads may have two fewer cylinders but he can almost touch 40. If I didn't have to travel across the county I'd be getting awesome mileage. The truck gets an easy 30+ mpg cruising at 35 mph.

 

Read this, it concludes that even a clogged intake doesn't hurt mpg.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/pdfs/Air_Filter_Effects_02_26_2009.pdf

Sure a fouled plug is not going to provide a good spark but some 3 head plug doesn't ignite fuel any better than an oem plug. Just marketing BS. Any engine made in the last 20 years doesn't leave any more than .5-1% unburned fuel. No gains to be made.

I get 35mpg driving 60 with oem plugs and stock filter with secondary intact. I'd be wasting money with intake and plugs.

No argument with E0, I used to get it for 5 cent more, but that station discontinued. I lost 6-8% with E10.

 

the plugs also last longer causing them to not go down as fast making it better for longer either way. iroh that is still an increase and i drive balls to the wall and get 23 not slow and steady. Ask any good mechanic or anyone that actually knows about engines. A higher flow filter or different cold air intake increases gas mileage and power.

 

if you dont believe me put a piece of paper infront of your filter and watch your gas mileage

 

bad example..

sure if you CLOG the system............ i think other posters are stating that the airfilter is not the air's slowing down point. a better example would be to remove the air filter and see what happens.

 

So you didn't even read the study that concluded you are wrong.

They increasing restricted the intake using shop towels until the intakes were seriously clogged.

No drop in mpg.

Carbureted engine does need a clean air cleaner, but closed loop fuel injection engine just adjusts to compensate.

 

Dude put a peace of paper in front of your filter and run a tank and then do it without. That was a hack A#$ study that didnt run all the miles. yes it does adjust by dumping less fuel to make the ratio better but it still directly affects your gas mileage

so instead of relying on that stupid survey do it yourself and see.

 

Driving my DC LB from FL to AZ, I averaged 19.8 mpg going 75-80 all the way. At the time, it was completely stock with a bed cover on it. Here in AZ with 265-75-16 A/T tires, I'm averaging about 16-18.