Allow me to introduce LoudRice
 

Hello all,

I recently decided to step up my environmentalism by trying to squeeze every extra MPG out of my admittedly selfish car (hopefully a diesel/scooter/etc is in my future) but so far I'm pretty impressed considering that it is Turbo/AWD and I got 25MPG on my last tank including an autocross. Still I'm not going to stop trying until I get close to 35MPG. Any tips are appreciated, any other Subarus out there?

Dan

my friend and i were just talking about his fe in his sti today. it will be intresting to see what you can get even tho it itsnt a sti its pretty close.

with a turbo, you should be able to adjust the boost lower when you don't need it, in theory a low boost turbo engine is running more efficently then a non turbo engine, of course it's all in how you use it, and how much of the power being produced is being used, if you don't need power, why creat it?

You interested in rally? That's one of my little obsessions. Love the car, and there's definitely hope for it's mileage.

My wife has an unmodified '05 N.A. 2.5L Saabaru with a stick. She gets between 30 and 32 mpg with some minor hypermiling techniques. That's ~45% above what EPA says it's supposed to get (20/27, 22 combined). You could probably get 35 or more if you put some quality time into it.

Yeah, but a cat on.

And welcome!

Staying out of the boost as much as possible is likely your best starting point. But doing that for very long can make one wonder why they have a sports car at all.

I had both an Isuzu Impulse RS AWD Turbo (~400 HP and 2500lbs), and a more or less stock STi. If I got low 20's out of either car, it was an exceptional tank of gas. More often 15-16 mpg was the norm for both of them. Absolute power corrupts absolutely! :D

Now when I drive, it's our new mini-minivan, which just doesn't produce the same accerlation grins, so I don't even bother - but I still don't slow down for the corners much. It's quite impressive in the handling department.

Anyway, welcome and good luck.

a turbo acts like a muffler for the car. all the exhaust noise has to go around the turbine and looses a lot of the energy that it would normally have. so a "cat" might not help as much as you think.
the new srt/4 neon had no muffler, just a cat. and it is no that loud.

This isn't about noise levels...

sorry svoboy. quoted the wrong person.