improving fuel efficiency

[meanmx]

Personally I always have my car in the appropriate gear even at lights. Driving basics 101. Always make sure you have control of your car. That's also why you shouldn't slip your car out of 5th into neutral and coast to a set of lights. You have no control.

[StuwieP]

downshifts ftw

edit: *unless what you want is good fuel economy

[Silvia]

Suspect questioner doesn't have a clue how much (how little) her car will use so the question is hypothetical.
Smooth design and lightness mean it is a very economical car with no need to ever worry about excessive fuel charges . Shopping around and using coupons from Coles/worths will also save more money than economy driving methods. We've seen previously that coasting in neutral uses more fuel than coasting in gear....

[NitroDann]

Smooth design and lightness mean it is a very economical car with no need to ever worry about excessive fuel charges . Shopping around and using coupons from Coles/worths will also save more money than economy driving methods. We've seen previously that coasting in neutral uses more fuel than coasting in gear....

No.

Dann

[sailaholic]

S

No.

Dann

LOL


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[wun911]

reduce the weight of the car in as many ways as you can think of remove stuff like air con trim spare wheel etc.

dont drive people around actually remove the passger seat and tell them to walk.

drive with less fuel in the car and then drive it as if you were going to run out of fuel before reaching the next petrol station.

get skinny tyres less rolling resistance or buy four space savers inflate them to recomended specs and put them on.

remove the boot rack and antenna to reduce drag.

calculate the best milage in your rev range and install a rev limiter should be around 2500 - 2800 rpm.

don't waste fuel to warm up the car just drive it right away.

drive only at night in cool weather more oxygen and less traffic.

put your kippah and think about it.

Y.J.

[meanmx]

Mr YJ (prince of liteness)

Can you please tell me why you still have carpet, stereo and passenger seat in your car. Do we need to take the prince of liteness tag away from you as you are just a pretender?

[stilletto_rebel]

Is your 5 your everyday drive? How many kilometres are you doing a year? If you are doing in excess of 25,000km a year, I would recommend converting to LPG.

My conversion cost $2,500'ish and I received $1,000 back from Centrelink. (There is still a government rebate offered). LPG is roughly half the price of unleaded 91 and performance is exactly the same. My conversion owed me $1,500 and, as I travel circa 700km a week (36,400km a year), it paid for itself in just over 7 months. Cheap motoring ftw! With annual usage of 25,000km a year it should take about a year of motoring to pay for itself.

The only downside is you lose two thirds of your boot to the tank and either do not carry your spare wheel or place it behind the passenger seat. (I've opted to carry a couple of cans of tyreweld).

[Silvia]

Seems when you coast with fuel injection ,fuel is shut right off.
When you idle fuel is being fed to keep engine idling...

[sailaholic]

Seems when you coast with fuel injection ,fuel is shut right off.
When you idle fuel is being fed to keep engine idling...

Until a cut over point where idle control comes back in to stop the engine stalling the instant your foot goes on the clutch.


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[Okibi]

When driving through twisty roads, keep momentum around the corner...

Bad and dangerous advice. Slow in, faster out is safer. Always drive within your limits and your car's limits. The road is NOT where you test those limits (that's what race tracks are for).

[droo]

I've found with 2 years of really trying, compared with my previous cars, the mx5 doesn't really respond that well to changing of driving style or oils/air filters/plugs/ignition setup, etc to improve economy. Cruising speeds vs city driving yields only 10-15% difference in economy. Other cars, including my 2.5tonne 4wd AND previous 850kg suzuki hatch yield a 20-30% difference between city and cruising economies..
Various exhaust setups had made minor changes, not enough to justify on fuel economy alone..

I've since experimented with more direct inlet tracts and modifying the AFM internally along with different forms of air filters and their feed in positions. I've now achieved a nearly a 30% flat road improvement on cruising speed economy, 20% improvement on the hilly highway i drive to melbourne with. Repeatable. Inlet temps measured at (in) the throttle inlet are now between 0-4 degrees above ambient (depending if it's cold or hot outside)

Stock mileage was 10.5km/L cruising to now 13.5km/L on the same highway, same driving technique.

Fueling with E10 from United, which is and has been (where i live) considerably cheaper then shell fuel after discounts.
This with a car with bigger cams, larger pistons, stock edu, a ducktail, 15x8 tyres - typically things that go against achieving economy..

To those who say just enjoy driving the car and don't worry about fuel, i understand, but as i drive it several times a day, you can't help but worry about it.. Yet i enjoy it even more so now.

It's my daily, and with an average of 26,000km a year, 2/3 highway kms, (so 15600highway kms @$1.38/L at 1155 litres per year (13.5km/L) vs 1485L/year (10.5km/L, is a $455 saving)


Incidently, the mileage goes up to 15.25km/L on non hilly highways at 100kph, but as i don't live in melbourne, i don't realise these savings.

[droo]

Wun911, you forgot to mention bowel evac before driving, the greenest drive starts with the brownest wipe.

[Mr Morlock]

E10 is unlikely to save anything according to Drive tests done a drew years ago. Some vehicles are not suitable to run on E fuels- including MX5?

[hks_kansei]

E10 is unlikely to save anything according to Drive tests done a drew years ago. Some vehicles are not suitable to run on E fuels- including MX5?

The fuel itself isn't more economical in that it is used at the same rate as normal fuel.
However it tends to be cheaper than regular fuel, so the running cost is lowered.