Increasing MPG(real results)

Just wanted to share with everyone. There are a lot of aftermarket advertisements out there for products that claim to give you better gas mileage, quicker throttle response and or control, and even increased horsepower. I won’t drop any names on these products as I’ve never personally tried them myself, but I have looked into them from time to time. Anyways, long story short, for about 4hrs or my life and $81 to be exact I changed the spark plugs, did a thorough TBD cleaning, cleaned my air filter, oil and filter change. This gave me immediate throttle body response, noticeably lower TAC readings during normal driving conditions, quicker acceleration, and increased fuel economy. I went from 19mpg on a good day, to 22.43mpg. Stop and go traffic, I went from 16 to 18mpg.



Plugs that came out had somewhere close to 100k miles on them and were still wel within tolerance 0.049. I replaced them with Denso U11’s gapped to 0.044 out the box. I cleaned the throttle body by removing it, and getting a calibrated dish sponge(new) and a microfiber cloth along with some CRC Carb Cleaner. I also got down in the intake as far as my hand could go to get a lot of gunk out of the first could inches in there. It was pretty dirty. Sorry no pics of the maintenance work, I’ll try and remember this for next time. I plan to continue to do this service at around 30k to 50k mile intervals. The truck has 192k original miles on it and I’ve proudly driven it since purchasing it with about 13k on it.

 

This is funny!! 28.8mph for 8.92 miles. Really.

 

Hey give me a break man, I just got the OBII bluetoothed to my phone. Also, this is my second tank of gas since doing the maintenance. Before I was getting around 320miles to a tank and the last one I got around 380 total.

 

every now and then things align and you can squeeze out some good mileage.

 

I’ll try and post an update next week as the wife and I are hauling our 15ft camper about 120miles round trip. Before when we would travel with it couldn’t get any better than 10-12 but want to see if this made a difference.

 

Like the other day I drove to Dallas and had a strong 30mph tail wind the entire way up I got 23.5 mpg with 285s then on the way back had to drive into the wind entire way and got like 16.5mpg.

 

Definitely brother. Similar to when we’ve traveled up near Smokeys.

 

Sounds about right match's my 6 speed manual I tow a 17' and it's not a great deal better 13-14

 

what app is that?

 

likely just doing plugs contributed to the increased performance you're feeling, 100k is gettin long in the tooth

i just did mine, went from ~35-40k mileage coppers to iridiums and felt the difference. I mean it isnt 500 horsep0wAh or anything but you can feel it just runs better

 

Car Scanner Pro

 

I haven’t thought about trying the iridiums. I just ordered the Denso’s everyone has praised about. The 6 I removed were also Denso’s. To my recollection this is only my third plug change, first one I’ve done myself. Driver side a bit longer timeframe than the passenger side, but definitely DYI doable. Have you ran the Denso’s before? Any difference between the two?

 

Good job on the maintenance

41.23 lbs of boost - WTF?

 

was my first time changing out the plugs myself on the truck, first change out was done at the dealer at 30k, truck has 70k now. I went with the

$47 NGK LFR6AIX-11 -6 PCSNEW

NGK LFR6AIX-11's. From my research prior i dont think brand matters that much, the price differential isnt substantive, and its exceptionally easy to diy so whether u do copper or iridium it boils down to whether u watch to spend a little bit of time every 30k to knock it out

 

Yeah I’m not sure what the boost reading means!

 

Unless you are calculating by gallons used (when refueling not just by looking at the gas gauge) to actual miles traveled, those OBD car apps are never really close, especially in short distances.

 

That’s how I usually calculate it, total miles driven divided by gallons used. Not sure how accurate the OBD plug im using is, but it seems to just read data. How would I know if it’s accurate or not, in short distances? It’s constantly reading throttle body position, air flow, etc. so what would make that inaccurate? This is the first time I’ve really used this reader for what it’s worth.

 

Figuring fuel mileage on 9 miles is useless. I've seen 4 mpg and 40 mpg over a 9 mile stretch. Wait until you've run a couple of tanks through it and get back with us.

 

I like the NGK iridiums, I change them out every 2 years regardless of mileage and run sea foam through the intake. I always feel my Taco has a little extra Pep afterwards.

 

Regular maintenance will keep the truck running at it's best.

I don't subscribe to the high $ plug. I just use the basic copper based Denso or NGK and change at 30 kmiles.

Keep up with the maintenance and only figure MPG on fuel fills and the trip odo. It is the only way to track and keep your best fuel economy.

A year's worth of driving, my V-6 4.0L AT is averaging 19.3 mpg with a high of 20.8 mpg, all mixed driving and load hauling.