Features I'd like to have
 

I wish my car had two extra features: A selectable acceleration rate for the cruise control because the normal not-quite-flooring-it amount is often too much, and a computer controlled pulse and glide feature. I've just finished my first full tank in the Prot?g? and these two features kept popping into my head.

Yeah... I hate the way the computer will floor it when accelerating. I've even see the comp push it past 15 psi boost! What the heck? That's why I only really use the cruise on massively long flat stretches.

I've been thinking about that second one, too... I've noticed that stock CC's don't really hold it at one set speed, but rather hold it between 2 that are perhaps 2 MPH apart... If you could get into the computer and re-program it to have the 2 speeds be 10-20mph apart, perhaps then your stock CC would really become a P&G control, where you set the middle speed.

Yah, that might not be too hard to do. Or at least a feedback mechanism to tell you how your fuel consumption to power ratio is doing while accelerating.


A lone car on a flat hiway, sure, too easy, especially if you solve the most efficient acceleration problem above. But I find so much of when I pulse and how much I pulse and when I glide and how long I glide is determined by the environment (traffic,hills,wind,etc) that such a thing would not be practical till computers can see and understand what they are seeing and make reasonably good predictions based on past experiences.

Hello -

All ECU/PCMs should be flash-reprogrammable by design, aka something in line similar to the OBD II standard. In that way, someone could aftermarket an MPG solution that uses ECU/PCM reprogramming as part of the solution. Essentially, the software "bits" would be owned by you after you have purchased the car.

Obviously, the car companies would scream intellectual property, so the compromise would be some set of standard table access, aka the fuel map.

PS - I like the CC ideas too.

CarloSW2

I'd love to be able to by el-strippo beaters...closest you can get is getting the fleet/commercial package on pickups, but i'm not really a pickup guy...

I'd loved to have bought a Focus with power nothing, tape deck, and a 2.3 Dtec or a similarly equipped Dodge Caliber with the R/T 2.4...