Better Gas Mileage

So far my attempts to squeeze more mileage by granny driving seem to bear this out. Very unconfirmed and seat of the pants, but judging just by the fuel gauge, granny driving has pushed my mileage DOWN by slightly over one MPG. I'm planning to run the tank down real low and get an actual fill-up number (same station probably same pump) and get a real figure. As I mentioned before, I'd really like a good reason to use a little more accelerator.

Yeah, I had noticed the fascination with diesels

 

I kinda roll one th throttle like i learned to do with a very low horse power diesel... not slam the throttle down...just give it enough you feel it pull..then shift...roll on throttle till starts pulling..then shift

 

I noticed the SAME THING!!! My wife got in the truck a few weeks ago and started driving like she stole it. She got 25 MPG hauling stuff!!!

I don't really pay attention to how I drive anymore as much as I just try not to hot rod it or torque it out. My biggest problem is passing some one going slow. Then they speed up, and you are stuck in the left lane. I hate that - so, I end up flooring it and going around them. That kills my fuel economy more than anything. Especially since I like to do 75 MPH when towing.

 

I think my problem is that I got accustomed to my TDI. It had enough torque that you didn't have to downshift to pass, or go up hill, or merge, or... anything.

That is why I miss my diesels!

 

Ok, so my better half and I went to the shore for the weekend. It was jsut the two of us, the dog, and two bicycles on the hitch rack on the back of the truck, No trailer. I was also granny shifting at 2000-2100 RPMs. We'll see how the next numbers come in if I go back to shifting normally.

Here's the break-down:

160.0 Miles
8.655 Gallons
18.49 MPG

Driving time 3 hours 37 minutes
Stopped time 7 minutes and 36 seconds
Driving Average 45.3 MPH
Overall average 43.8 MPH
Max. Speed 75.2 MPH
45% was Highway
15% was around town, like 25-40MPH roads with lights
40% was limited access 2 lane back roads, 50-55MPH very few lights.
Air was on 85% of the time.

The conlusions. The last time I made this exact trip with the bikes on the hitch rack (not as bad aerodynamically as the trailer, but still adds some drag) the mileage was 16.86 MPG, so based on that we are looking at a little better than a mile and a half per gallon increase, and considering that my average for all highway with no trailer or bikes is 19.05 MPG.

So my impression thus far is good, and I hope to be-able to bring you guys more numbers soon.

 

I've been checking out this product for awhile on line and have found that http://www.goodcommonsense.net/vialfuag.html
has the cheapest prices and they also offer fleet purchases. I.E ECO-2 (4 and 6 CYlinder) for 219.95 and ECO-1 (4-cylinder and some 6-cylinder gasoline engines, motorcycles, smaller marine engines) for 149.95 for complete install kits.
Another site which has good info on it is which more data is
http://www.ecofuelsys.com/134049.html
Here is a you tube video of a news report described earlier on the product.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZH9lDDZ6x4
If you guys can get it from the Manufacturer for a fleet price I'm in.

P.S. Great forum

 

I filled up the tank after 2weeks of granny driving, and my seat of the pants reaction was accurate. Mileage went down 1MPG. I'm just going to drive normally, no street light drag races, and see what happened. I'm also thinking of switching gas brands. I've been using Union, and am thinking of switching to Shell. We'll see.

 

I just put on a Leer 100R shell. It is the same as I have on my Ranger. It seems to improve my MPG by about 5% That doesn't seem like much but at gas for $3.00 it is .15 a gallon. $.15x20 gallons is $3.00. that is just putting on the shell. I think I will pick up the AEM? oil-less air filter when changing time comes. I just went on a trip to Bodega Bay Ca. and got 21.47 with a combo of highway/city mix. On city/highway I get 19.5-19.94 average....Rich

 

I installed an Eco-2 on my 4L 2007 Tacoma yesterday. I noticed an immediate increase in "power". Today, however, my truck wants to idle at about 1200 rpms and the rpms surge up and down when coming to a stop in neutral. I did disconnect the battery yesterday to let the computer reset. Also, it is VERY humid today. Any ideas?

 

Here's a photo of my installation. I'm beginning to think I did something wrong. Please let me know.

 

My truck did the same thing for about 2 days after I installed the ECO-1. I attributed this to the ECU not remapping my AFR fast enough. Several weeks later, I no longer have this problem.

Keep us in the loop!

 

Looking at your install - my only concern would be that you have it strapped to one of the lines on your brake reservoir. I wouldn't want a jostle or a nudge to pull that thing off - however unlikely it may be. Otherwise, it looks like you have it installed correctly.

 

Okay, here are the latest numbers...

Tank 1 (Sept 24-28) - 245.2 miles / 10.414 gallons = 23.557 MPG
*My cruising speed was 74 MPH.
*Top speed was 80 MPH.
*Minimal "heavy footed" driving.
*22% (55.0 miles) was spent in heavy city traffic.
*78% (190.2 miles) was highway driving with moderate to heavy traffic.
*The Air Conditioning was on 100% of the time.
*No towing.
*No hauling.

Most of this tank was highway driving back and forth to work, so I expected it to be around 25 MPG. Although 23.5 isn't bad for a truck, I was seeing 25-26 before putting in the VPE on this exact same tank. I am starting to wonder about the combination of the Hi-Flow air filter AND the VPE.

The next two tanks were not well documented as I had to make an emergency trip to Dallas to install some systems at a plant...

Tank 2 (Sept 28) - 290.4 miles / 12.6 gallons = 23.048 MPG
*Cruising speed was ~78 MPH.
*Top speed was ~85 MPH.
*Minimal "heavy footed" driving.
*The Air Conditioning was on 100% of the time.
*No towing.
*Hauling 500lbs of computer equipment.

This tank was mostly driving up to Dallas (At least I was smart enough to take the back roads going out there). Fuel economy was decent, but it still was not as high as it has been.

Tank 3 (Sept 28) - 239 miles / 12.007 gallons = 19.917 MPG
*Cruising speed was ~55 MPH.
*Top speed was ~90 MPH.
*~90% "heavy footed" driving.
*The Air Conditioning was on 100% of the time.
*A TON of idling (perhaps over 2 hours worth).
*No towing.
*No hauling.

Between the traffic in Dallas, my heavy foot, and the sitting for ~2 hours in Austin on I-35, this tank didn't have a chance at getting good fuel economy.

Tanks 5 and 6 were bogus because I did not have enough money to fill them up to the top. Both tanks were used to haul junk from Houston to San Antonio. The last time I topped off my tank was on October 1st, so when I fill up today I should have one last report to give.

 

Please note: I am thinking of beginning a new test. I am of the opinion that I have enough tanks to do a report on the VPE+AFE Filter setup. When I fill up today, I am going to replace the AFE Filter with a OEM Paper Filter, and see what that does for my fuel economy and performance. I am doing this because I was averaging 25 MPG with a top of 27 MPG before adding the VPE (I had removed the 2ndary filter and added the AFE Hi-Flow Filter.).

I know that the VPE is helping my performance (via butt-dyno), and I believe that it is helping my emissions (although I have not tested this yet). I also beieve that my ECU is fairly confused by the changes brought on by the VPE and the Hi-Flow filter. Therefore, I will be resetting my ECU at the beginning of this test as well. I expect to go through 2-3 tanks before the fuel economy stabilizes.

I won't be doing this until the end of today. Let me know what you guys think!

 

I'll continue to drive and let folks know. Thanks for the heads up, 007.

 

I still haven't made any changes to my current config. I was hoping for some input from the group. What do you guys think?

 

I dont know what to tell you 007. So far the results are not too impressive at all. Iknow you're conciencious when you drive, but do you think you are pumping the gas a little more due to the better feel from the engine? Sort of like people that insall intakes and exhaust shoudl get better mpg but usually dont since they like the sound when they gas it? So far this is a big dissapointment. I'd like to see a compiled list of Adams numbers when he's done to see if the v6 is any better

 

Well, for the first tank or two I know I was goosing it. It was nice to climb hills in 5th gear going 75 MPH. It really does help with the performance off the line the most. It doesn't have the lag at start-up. I was impressed with that.

I documented if I rode it rough though. I am hoping that it is some kind of configuration issue. I really want this thing to work correctly (giving me some better fuel economy), but it hasn't so far.

I think I am going to split this up into 3 tests:

1) with stock air filter

2) with stock air filter + ECU reset

3) with stock air filter + ECU reset - ECO-1 VPE

I need to test what the decrease in fuel economy is after I remove the VPE.

 

I'll have a nice batch of number for everyone this time next week. This weekend the better half and I are heading down to VA for a camping trip, so we'll have roughly 250 miles of towing numbers each way, plus a little side trip to see her sister, so that should be about 140 or so of running solo, so I should have three tanks to report when I get back on Tuesday.

I was going to use the taco for my daily driver durring this test, but ultimately decided there would be little to no point for the sake of comparison since I never used it for back and forth to work and such before, so I would not have accurate comparison numbers. So my final compiled numbers will consist of limited access 2 lane 55mph backroads, and all highway, and towing numbers, but I hope everyone should be able to figure out from the difference in those three categories what their arround town gain would be.

007,

as for changing your configuration. I wouldn't bother. The purpose of the test was/is to determine if the VPE helps your fuel mileage. If it does do that then it should do it regardless of what airfilter you've got in the truck, and if it can help with a paper filter, but not with a high flow filter, then that would have to impinge on being able to recommend the product to other TW members, I mean a device that runns almost 200 bucks needs to work. Period. So if you are going to do anything, I'd remove the VPE again and record those numbers for a few tanks. If your numbers really are higher still without the VPE, then I suspect that you'll have your answer. Changing filters will just add another variable to the test.

Perhaps as ND said, you've been a little heavy footed? Or perhaps the refineries have made some change to the formulation of the fuel at your station reacently? Maybe the VPE is only promissing for the first couple of tanks on the tacos as after that the computer learns and adapts the AFR to revert to stock? I dunno just thinking outloud.

 

I agree with Adam, it should improve mpg with or without the aftermarket filter. It shouldn't work with just stock engines only or that would be a pretty lame piece of hardware