Mods to improve gas mileage?

Wait until the next fuel price jump, there'll probably be 4 more threads to take its place.

 

Well shit if you are going to go to that kind of trouble you might as well make it a 1.5L and swap it to a 4 lug and get some 13" wheels.

 

Sell the tacoma and buy a hybrid.

 

No shit.

I was nervous that my low fuel light wasn't working on my last tank where I intentionally ran it down.

Nope... No problem with the low fuel light coming on and going another 60 miles.

 

OMG GAS JUST WENT UP $0.10 AND IT'S COSTING ME ANOTHER $4.00 TO FILL MY TANK WHAT DO I DOOOOOOOoooooooooo?????????

 

baaahahahahah!!! aaaaah that was funny

Guilty as charged though. I actually just went ahead and set the truck up for mpg instead

 

???

 

I hear there's a search engine on these forums....

 

sarcasm noted. not having any luck--

 

The radiator is capable of removing enough heat to handle very high throttle (up a mountain) with a trailer (up to 6500#) in the summer with the AC dumping hot air onto it.

I don't drive mountains, I don't pull a very heavy trailer, I don't live in the south, and I don't have an auto tranny that depends on cool air to keep its fluid from overheating (this part is important). Therefore I can push the air over the truck instead of thru the engine bay and under the truck where aerodynamics suck. The difference with the upper block was substantial. Before summer gas was introduced into the mix my average increased in the neighborhood of 1.7-1.8 mpg, essentially closing the gap to the auto tranny's mileage.

Only downside is you gotta pay attention to water temp (ultragauge & its alarm for it is a winner here) and listen for the cooling fan. If the fan starts kicking up, it's too hot in there.

We set a record with 87 degrees F in the month of March. The A/C was ice cold even with less airflow. Peak water temp was 194ºF going up a big hill. Fan clutch never needed to engage past its normal minimum level as far as I could tell.

My lower grille has a partial block. Didn't see much difference with that in either mpg or water temp but it doesn't hurt. Upper made the difference. Love it or hate it, for my application it's a winner. Besides unless I point out that it's there no one is the wiser.

 

thanks, man!

 

So this mod is a no-go for automatics?

 

If I had an automatic, bare minimum there would be a scangauge with tranny temp up at all times and an alarm if it supports it. Boiling tranny fluid is not a food thing.

Another option could be doing the upper 1/2 of the upper grille. That should keep enough airflow and give a mild bump in mileage.

On a related note, I made considerable effort to blow out the carbon and drove quite aggressively from the start of the tank and at 330 miles it's still reading 21.6 mpg. It definitely works.

 

any details on how you did the grill block?

 

Fortunately nothing one needs an engineering degree for. It ties to the hidden vertical supports of the stock grill. The sides of the grill have a layer of gorilla tape (not visible) that fills the holes you only notice when you put the block in.

I just wish I could have found black coroplast just for aesthetics when the hood is open, but the satin black of the gorilla tape looks good enough from the front I probably would still use that on black c.p. anyways. Better than paint; the car wash won't phase it.

Zipties are easy to cut and replace later if I need more air (for a trailer or whatever).

edit: material is blank for-sale sign stuff at Home Depot for $5. One panel of 24x30 is sufficient to do the upper grille plus all those cross-layered supports I gave the zipties.





22.7 mpg over 150 miles putzing around today on 87 octane. Finally ran and got diff oil to replace the factory stuff that has 38k on it.

 

http://www.fuelly.com/driver/iroh/tacoma
Fuelly seems a bit less enthusiastic, but that still damned good for a V6 4wd, and it's obvious that the grille mod was responsible for a 1-2mpg jump compared to January.

Averages are where it's at though.
I had my best tank ever (26.5) right after I installed my cap.
My next tank was 24.5 (within averages), but my next tank was only 23.1.
My current tank is looking very promising... about 370 miles and I'm still on 1/4. I'll be topping up before Monday.

There's just too many variables in the real world to be able to solidly claim that a specific mod provided a specific improvement when only working with one or two data points.


But....
Is it worth it? Scangauge is in the $150-$200 range.
The mod is free, but dangerous on the automatic without the Scangauge, so for the mod to pay for the scangauge, if the mod provides a consistent 2mpg improvement:

500 miles a week at 25mpg = 20 gallons = $85
500 miles a week at 27mpg = 18.5 gallons = $78.63
Savings per week $6.38/wk.
$150-200/6.38 = 24-31 weeks just to break even

As gas prices drop as we get closer to the election, the payback will take even longer.

 

Thanks for the details Iroh, I'll look into doing that for next wintertime, I also block the automatic trans cooler during wintertime as it overcools.

 

Meh, fuelly will come around. 18 tanks, 17 on winter fuel, 15 with an open grill.

My investment was far less - I had my ultragauge leftover from my Honda, and including the extra sheet of c.p. I needlessly purchased and the roll of expensive tape I am only in $17. Pretty much paid for already.

Still wish I had a taller 6th. I shouldn't have to get all drastic with aero to keep this truck over 20mpg just because its always spinning over 2000 rpm. Although, I was able to do so without it, I just had to work for it before. Now it just happens.

 

Taller tires, but if you do a lot of stop and go, it's going to hammer the 1st gear start loading.

I just ordered an Ultragauge, but of course it doesn't read trans temp.

 

How do you like it?

Has anyone noticed any significant mpg diff w/ the 2nd gen auto vs manual?