After Market exhast?good idea?Cold air intake?good idea?
 

Hello,
I was wondeirng if buying a aftermaket exhaust system will improve gas mileage?
What about a cold air intake?Also, would gutting the car improve fuel economy as well since I am making it lighter?I was thinking about removing a back seat and seeing how that went and if it went well then removing more.

Thanks,

Hi, i have gutted my 95 protege because i am the only one using it. NO back seat, passenger seat, no spare, removed items from the trunk. Next to go is the door panels other than the driver door, seat belts other than the driver, bolts clips, wires. I am leaving the a/c and power steering. Some guys also take out the dash, ducts, and all carpet etc. I am not getting that spartan about it. Yes it did make a difference on the mpg. Less weight to drag around. I just need to loose about 20 to 30 lbs to get myself around 170, but i dont know when.

The back seat can hold three people and weighs maybe 15lbs (mine did).The front seat holds one person and weighs 30lbs. Take out the front seat and keep the rear.

If your just looking for MPG and not worried about performance I would just get a drop-in filter.

I noticed a 2-3mpg jump when I installed my header over the stock manifold. It also really depends on driver style also though. Restrictive EM are good for low end torque but, peter out at any real rpm's as oppesed to a header which will yield power mid-top end.

I would say go for the header and leave the stock exhaust on it. The further away from the head the less effective-ness it will have.

Good luck man,
Chris

A lot of stock cast manifolds actually have rather too much volume to be very efficient, however, people tend to oversize headers for marginal top end gains at the expense of midrange. A "sensible" header that has reasonable sized primaries, which would be of the order of an inch and a quarter on most small 4 cylinder motors, would probably improve efficiency and fuel economy for a driver that can adapt their style to them. When the motor is making more torque and power then it doesn't need so much throttle angle to get moving, and can use less fuel if the driver doesn't just bury the throttle all the time.

Is there a site that has different headers available, or does anyome know of one that works best for FE as opposed to others? I'm not one to bury my foot in the pedal, and every little bit helps...

If you're driving for efficiency, anything above mid rpms is irrelevant. You're not gonna get economy by redlining the engine. That's where any gains show up with both intakes and exhausts.

For best results, leave both intake and exhaust in stock form, and adjust the nut behind the steering wheel instead.;)

ive cut off the exhaust on my s-10 right before the axel and put a flowmaster40 on it with just a short piece after it to deflect it down

i bought a ebay intake with K&N filter and those 2 combined MAYBE 1 mpg... hard to tell. i have the stock header on it and stock piping to the muffler still tho.

FYI:
According to the people over on the "Bob is the oil guy" forums (a forum that actually seems to test this kind of stuff), K & N air filters routinely let in much more dirt than stock filters do. i.e. the marginal (air flow) gains from a K & N come at the cost of additional wear on the engine. Not exactly a win for FE or the engine. About the only time that the K&N tradeoff would actually be a win, would be for racers that plan to change their oil right after the race (and therefore don't care if a little extra dirt gets in short term).

OTOH there are some other air filters that don't have that problem (of letting in much more dirt than a stock filter), but still allow greater than stock air flow. As one example, Amsoil has a (synthetic media) air filter that will fit a stock K&N cone mounting, has above average air flow, and yet independent tests (some of them done by BITOG forum members) have shown is actually above average at filtering out dirt from that air stream. Personally, I think you would be better off with that Amsoil filter, than with your K & N.

NOTE: The only reason I'm not using the Amsoil filter on my car (I'm technically an Amsoil dealer, so feel free to send me a PM if you would like my assistance in purchasing Amosil products), is that Amsoil doesn't make that "EAA" (synthetic media air filter) in a size/shape that fits my stock Honda air box (and I didn't want to go to the time/expense of modifying/replacing the air box in my car). However, if you have already gotten a generic K&N air box for your car, you should be able to purchase a K&N shaped Amsoil EAA filter that will slip right in without modifications...

MetroMPG tested K&N vs regular paper filter and found no difference.

Unless it's a turbo'd car, cold air intakes generally don't help MPG. On my civic I gained about 3 mpg with the factory over a short-ram (warm-air) intake.

Gutting the car will help.