I'm currently trying to do a bunch of maintenance things to try to improve my mileage but don't have the time or space to do it all right away. I was getting like 17 highway but only like 11 or so city. I recently had my injectors cleaned and it has increased my highway mpg a good amount but city only a little but also provided much better throttle response. I've read most of the threads dealing with ways to increase mpg (seafoam, throttle body, plugs, etc) but cant do them all at the moment. What do you guys think I should do first that would have the best effect on city mpg?

 

I think you will find the general consensus to be lighter on the gas. Treat the pedal like an egg is under it.

Assuming your rig is in good working order, this is the best advice.

Or you could just get the Tornado and gain 3MPG and 23HP...

 

Clean the throttle body (30 mins the most), do a sea foam treatment in the pcv and gas tank, and a tune up (if you haven't done one already. Should do the trick. Also, maybe O2 sensor(s) or MAF could be bad. All could effect mpg, and your city mpg is pretty low. But like 96 said, be light on the gas pedal.

 

henry,

as 96 mentioned, go easy on the gas. assuming you live in SF city though and probably do a lot of short distance trips in that hilly town of yours, no wonder your city mileage sucks

in order, i'd do this:

- seafoam (PCV and gas tank). i have not done this but you've read enough to know that it seems to be working for other members
- clean MAF sensor
- clean throttle body
- change out air filter (or clean your amsoil one if you have it)
- change out spark plugs AND wires
- increase air pressure in all tires

also as i always recommend, go into the maintenance section and plug in your vehicle's values into the 'maintenance engine" website. figure out what you need to do there as a starting point.

bob

 

do you have that link.??

Henry, I feel your pain i have the exact same problem ,
Ive changed my plugs ,dist cap ,air filter,fuel filter,done ISR mod & seafoam treatment.but i still cant improve on 12-13 mpg at best around town

 

go into the "maintenance" section of the forum and its right up there, stickietd at the top.

bob

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Guess I'll try the seafoam and throttle body first and see what happens. I already did look up the maintenance stuff and all the previous suggestions on what to do but like I said before dont have time or space to do everything now nor can I leave the runner at a stealor right now which is why I wanted to know what would have the biggest effect. I'm also pretty light on the pedal most of the time, well as light as I can be without driving myself crazy. Them hills arent much fun either. But there have been tankfuls that I have experimented with going very light on the pedal with no sudden surges or anything and it only yeilded very slight improvement.

Oh well guess I could always throw in that tornado and add tons of stickers right?

 

Henryv, "city" is very relative. What is your zip code? Can look up your population density per square mile.

For reference, I'm getting about 17-18MPG just as EPA advertised, traffic lights every quarter mile on average, and that's under 3000 people per square mile. In San Francisco itself the density is easily over 30,000, somewhere around 45,000 more realistically. If I drove through downtown in rush hour 5mpg would be a blessing.

 

Take the bus

 

Accelerate slowly and make sure your tires are fully inflated. My tires were low and immediately I got 50 miles more to a tank along with the change to passive driving. I'm at 18.8 mpg, city.

 

I get about 20+ in town. 1986 5speed turbo.4cyl. Like a little go-cart compared to my luxury sedan. Don,t know which one i like better. On highways ive gotten 28+ but think i can do better. I might try seafoam sometime. I thought i,d get 34 in truck when i bought it and was disappointed. Thats what brother got in his 86 carburated truck. Redline might help in transmission.

 

henry,

what was your avg city mileage before? and was there anything youve done recently that might have affect your gas mileage?

...like a Mugen power sticker?

bob

 

Most of us don't know what will get you the best bang because every truck is different. Tires, inflation pressures, humidity, condition of every mechanical component, condition of ignition components, lubricants and probably a couple dozen other things all affect your mpg. So do what most of us did....


We evaluated our vehicles, picked one mod or maintenance item and did it. Later, we did something else. Came to YotaTech, searched back posts and found out how to do more.

You'll probably find that, like mine, you get a little gain with each change...But it all adds up.

'95 3VZE, 5speed, 19mpg in city and 70 mph interstate. Pretty consistant.

 

im not saying i have the answer, but i calculated my mpg before i got my MAF changed and it was only 14.5 mpg in the city. after the MAF change its up to 17.something.

not amazing, but a big enough difference

 

2.5 mpg increase? That's pretty amazin'...Bad MAF?

 

yea, i think its also related to the fact that i was using my 4wd less.

in addition to the snow stopping, i had to use it for a while when a side street i take to get to work was under construction... it was a "enter at your own risk" street, and it shaved a few minutes off my commute, so i used it a lot. it was shaky ground going uphill. plus i started leaving for work a bit earlier, which made the traffic situation better.

but all these combined cant add up to 2.5 mpg increase... the MAF played in as well.

 

I wasnt getting great mileage before but I was driving mostly highway and was in a different town (small college town a lot less hills, people, stop signs) so didnt notice it as much. It wasnt great, around 13 mpg maybe, and dropped 1-2 mpg since I've been driving mainly in sf. Yea the population is a lot denser and there are stop signs or stop lights everywhere but I dont live downtown where most of the congestion is and I wasnt getting that great mileage before anyway. I will eventually get to everything recommended but its going to take time which was why I was wondering if there was something that would make more of a difference than another.