Standings and Stats: Beginning May 21

[usedgeo]

Originally Posted by CO ZX2

CO ZX2: Filled 8.499 gallons, 755.6 miles, 88.9 mpg, SG tank avg 42 mph. !!!

Unbelievable. Not that I don't belive it. I am impressed.

Pardon me for asking but have you tweaked the fuel air ratio on this car too? That is darn fine mileage.

[CO ZX2]

Originally Posted by usedgeo

Unbelievable. Not that I don't belive it. I am impressed.

Pardon me for asking but have you tweaked the fuel air ratio on this car too? That is darn fine mileage.

I do not have the knowledge or equipment to properly attempt to alter the F/A ratio of my car, but I will admit I have spent a lot of time pondering the question. I have read of others' revelations of their experiments and have never been convinced of any real gains. I do not personally know of any meticulously tested gains in FE thru specialty ECUs or wide band o2 sensor arrangements.

Most of what I have read concerns attempts to trick or fool the ECU with resistors and potentiometers. I have never known these methods to produce any honest FE gains, even though they will oftentimes trick ScanGauge and SuperMid. Hard to give up a new-found FE gain? Then it comes down to the car owner admitting the fallacy. I appreciate your straightforwardness in this regard with your own HAI experiment.

I did buy a Ford Workshop Information CD specific to my car. While reading of fuel trim I ran across a reference that the ECU recognizes values within a -20% to +20% range. These values can be changed by command input to the ECU. After many inquiries and discussions I finally found a Ford Tech that seemed to understand the premise and agree to change my values. He found indications that my setting was already 7% on the lean side. He changed this to indicate 20%. Better FE but introduced drivability issues; stumble and cold start dying. We were able to live with 15% after I started using engine pre-heaters. This change definitely increased FE with no ECU grumbles. I have never been off by more than .15 gallon SG vs actual gallons pumped. I do use the same pump for 90% of my fills.

I could go on forever but will not for now.

[landspeed]

CO ZX2 : I know of one well-tested example of the use of a wideband O2 sensor - my car!. Because it allows me to apply the throttle to just before the point where the engine enriches the mixture (thereby wasting fuel). So it is really a source of info to adjust my driving style, rather than a direct modification. It cost US$240, but has paid for itself many times over. Interestingly, the enrichment always happens at the same 'vacuum' level, although when the engine is cold, the engine runs leaner (13:1) at half throttle, and rich at high vacuum, and being able to see this has greatly helped my cold-start economy.

Anyway, I will now add my latest tank to my gaslog (almost made a month without filling), and then have a shower etc.... And then fit my new SuperMID conversion unit and see if I can get realtime MPG feedback at last

Results : 551.4 miles travelled, 12.814 US gallons, for 43.04MPG (US), for 95.6% above EPA.

All 13-mile cold-start journeys too, and bad weather, engine block heater still not fixed. This is about .08 worse than my previous best, but that was with hot weather + perfect block heater

[CO ZX2]

Originally Posted by landspeed

CO ZX2 : I know of one well-tested example of the use of a wideband O2 sensor - my car!. Because it allows me to apply the throttle to just before the point where the engine enriches the mixture (thereby wasting fuel). So it is really a source of info to adjust my driving style, rather than a direct modification. It cost US$240, but has paid for itself many times over. Interestingly, the enrichment always happens at the same 'vacuum' level, although when the engine is cold, the engine runs leaner (13:1) at half throttle, and rich at high vacuum, and being able to see this has greatly helped my cold-start economy.

Anyway, I will now add my latest tank to my gaslog (almost made a month without filling), and then have a shower etc.... And then fit my new SuperMID conversion unit and see if I can get realtime MPG feedback at last

Results : 551.4 miles travelled, 12.814 US gallons, for 43.04MPG (US), for 95.6% above EPA.

All 13-mile cold-start journeys too, and bad weather, engine block heater still not fixed. This is about .08 worse than my previous best, but that was with hot weather + perfect block heater

landspeed: Good point on the wideband. Not mechanically contributing but, like ScanGauge, causing driver adjustments that do help. We will never go wrong with as much good info as we can get. What is your opinion of the value of a controller in combination with 5-band to actually change F/A ratios?

Thanks for the GasMisers5 help with your recent excellent tank. Good job.

Are you still considering moving? When will that happen? I thought we were just passing the time of day when you mentioned Colorado a few weeks ago.

I've intended to ask if you are a native of Scotland or a transplant?

[BeeUU]

361 miles
7.85 gal

approx 46 mpg. whew what a load off. I am going to drive crazy for a couple of days to get it out of the system......

[zpiloto]

Originally Posted by BeeUU

361 miles
7.85 gal

approx 46 mpg. whew what a load off. I am going to drive crazy for a couple of days to get it out of the system......

Wow really good job. 4-5 reporting had record tanks this last week for team OB! whoot.

[usedgeo]

Originally Posted by CO ZX2

I did buy a Ford Workshop Information CD specific to my car. While reading of fuel trim I ran across a reference that the ECU recognizes values within a -20% to +20% range. These values can be changed by command input to the ECU. After many inquiries and discussions I finally found a Ford Tech that seemed to understand the premise and agree to change my values. He found indications that my setting was already 7% on the lean side. He changed this to indicate 20%. Better FE but introduced drivability issues; stumble and cold start dying. We were able to live with 15% after I started using engine pre-heaters. This change definitely increased FE with no ECU grumbles. I have never been off by more than .15 gallon SG vs actual gallons pumped. I do use the same pump for 90% of my fills.

I could go on forever but will not for now.

Thanks! This is interesting. When I first read a fuel trim comment by you I was thinking "how will this help?" Won't the computer just relearn and reteach itself a new trim? This sounds more permanent than the usual adaptive trim. This may explain why some of my Fords ran the way they did as the years went by. I usually just gave up and put adjustable fuel pressure regulators on my Fords. They did not seem to have the range to adapt to changes as the engine wore and sensors drifted. Well sometimes I changed things too I just assumed that the look up tables did not have enough range to account for cam wear, cam timing, or simple things like that. Of course I am making a pretty big, poorly substantiated, leap in what I am saying right now.

My GM cars just seemed to always run more consistently as the years went by.

[rh77]

OK folks -- Reminder to fill up by Sunday Midnight EST to count for a Cycle 1 tank.

In the interim, new teams for Cycle 2 should post their Team Rosters to get ready.

As a reminder, this is a seamless transition into the next cycle, so Monday the 21st begins Cycle 2.

...so new teams get ready! ...and exisiting teams get back in that groove.

Expect the BIG Winners to be announced early in the week. The Data Center in Kansas City will process the data (or wherever the laptop is in the U.S. -- honestly could be a variety of locales) -- and double checked.

Good luck to all, and Best FE

The Commish

[Peakster]

Filled up tonight. 100% P&G driving only netted 50.1 MPG(US) this time around. 4.616 gallons used and 231.3 miles travelled.

I have no idea why my P&Ging isn't working well any more other than the fact I had lots of cold starts and short trips to and from work. I think I'll return to my steady 0.4 GPH @ 50km/h driving again instead of P&G as it's less stressful on the car/feet.

I'm also pending a job opportunity to be a hot-air-balloon crew worker over the summer (company vehicle, paid hotel rooms and food allowances!) so if I get that job *crosses fingers* I probably won't need to fill my car until August!

[landspeed]

Filled my tank today again. Used extremely accurate method - filled to the top of the filler, from the same pump, parked in the exact same place both times!

This was my first SuperMID tank - used to calibrate it. I was just trying to 'get better numbers' on the (currently) completely uncalibrated scale.

Results : 110.1 miles. 2.082 US gallons, for 52.88MPG (US). I cannot believe this - although the fuel tank gauge correlated with the insane MPG!. This is 140% over EPA!

I'm looking forward to more crazy tanks with the SuperMID