Aftermarket Cruise Control

[Jay2TheRescue]

Originally Posted by theholycow

So DWL is not effective (or too much trouble with vastly varying speed) on short rolling hills? Most of my commute is defined by constant road angle changes. I haven't tried DWL mainly because I'm not interested, but partly for that reason too.



More importantly, the hand throttle should be easier to unstick. I don't know if this is true of all cars, but in GM vehicles, pulling up on the gas pedal does not forcefully close the throttle; the pedal can only open the throttle, not close it. This can be demonstrated by setting the cruise control and pulling the pedal.


This issue is true of nearly every driving behavior and most modifications we discuss on this forum. Everything about what we do requires more thinking and more attention than one expects from a common non-hypermiling driver in an automatic.

In fact, all the extra attention, thought, and activity are part of the reason I hypermile. It gives me something to do. I love my scenic, low-traffic roads, and I love looking at the scenery...but it still gets boring.

I sure know that one... When I used to work for the Gov't one of the vehicles I would drive was an 18ft Chevrolet Step Van (Imagine a huge UPS truck). I was driving out on the back end of Quantico MCB near the FBI academy. The speed limit out there is 45 MPH. When I went to stop the throttle cable was stuck and that truck was a beast to stop (I estimate my weight was about 3 to 4 tons at the time). I shifted into N and cut the ignition. I then had to pull over and stop w/o power steering or brakes. I called my office on my cell and asked for motor T to send a tow truck, they told me to drive it back... That's the gov't for ya.

-Jay

[spotaneagle]

cruise control doesn't work well on my car up hills and its factory, it causes misfires when the car is fully packed, just thought you should know this because it could be that it is working and that cruise control causes many cars to lug up steep inclines due probably to not being able to detect the need to accelerate a little more at the bottoms to help the car up to the top.. My engine also has a misfiring problem because I need a cpu reprogram.. but this occurs while backing off from under alot of load in 5th gear. I'd say anything quicker than my car should have no load problems like this, because I barely have this problem, and cars slower than this(auto sl2s for example or saturn sl1s), I would assume would experience this more, I know automatic sl2s barely get up some steep hills without downshifting and 5spds are better, basically the faster your car is I would assume the better your cruise control works.

[Jay2TheRescue]

I would think a misfire has nothing to do with the cruise control. All the cruise does is activate the throttle for you. If your ECM has some bad data in it and needs reprogramming its not the CC's fault. Also, the cruise may need adjusting. I've never had to adjust a newer cruise unit, but I've had to do extensive adjustments on my 81 Regal and on my old 80 Bonneville.