I was wondering what the best/cheapest way to improve gas mileage in my 95 3.0 V6....I'm about to add a flowmaster muffler and a cold air intake? will these adversely effect my gas usage? PLEEEEASE help me, I love this truck and if it keeps drinking gas like it does, the wife is gonna make me dump it...

 

i wouldnt bother with the CAI, would just alter the air-box, and do the ISR mod.. and then add a K&N or AMSOIL drop-in. get the same gains for less then half the cost of the CAI.

https://www.yotatech.com/~corey/tech/techpage.htm
(very useful tech write-ups by the members here at YT)

as for the muffler, probably wont improve mileage too much, theres lots of threads on here about this.. plugs, filters, oils, o2 sensor, etc... just type in a couple key words 'mpg' 'mileage' '3vze' etc.. into the search box and you should get the answers your looking for.

oh, and welcome to the forum

*edit* oh and if you read about the deckplate mod, 2nd gens dont have that option, we can just remove some parts that are restricting flow, and then drill some holes in the airbox.
just for comparison, im currently getting 14mpg.. back in december it was an abismal 11.. slowly going up with the temperatures

 

How bad is it?

 

i get about 12 or 13 MPG, I drive about 35 miles daily to and from work. I'm not too saavy with cars just yet, I can do the airbox mod, but the others may be out of my league, at least for now...
oh, and i had to buy a Jasper at 98k miles, a piston shot through about 3 months after i bought the truck...and I already have a K&n filtercharger in there....

 

GA,

search "improving mileage" and you'll probably find a few threads on the topic. but bottom line is this: we drive suvs. suvs suck on mileage. some a little more than others. some things that you can do for it actually are not that cost effective and only contribute to a little gain in mpg.

if you really want to improve your mileage, buy another vehicle. and no, i'm not being a smart ass either.

you can only get so much mpg improvement out of a vehicle.

bob

 

yup, new they were only 19/21.. as said by toyota.. but when they were test driven, most magazines found them to average in the 14-16mpg range...

 

i get 11... feel lucky.

 

yeah I guess I'll just deal with the 14 miles that I do get outta this beast. I have a couple other threads out there, just trying to get some answers to get my runner back up to 100%... thanks a lot for the input, I'm, gonna get out there tomorrow and mod my airbox as it is 78 degrees now down here in GEEOrgia...speaking of....the asses running the emissions shacks down here tend to look at everything under the hood...is this mod going to mess anything up to where i might fail emissions?

 

GA,

I just realized something...your avatar is FREAKY! I was looking at it and noticed right below the mudflap, there is 1/2 of a face. Using some photoshop, I made a mirror image, flipped it and fused it together. LOOK AT THAT FREAKY FACE!!!

Maybe tahts why youre getting crappy mileage. Your shizzle is haunted!

Bob

 

thats awesome.. nice eye bob

 

Its haunted by Gene Simmons from KISS!

 

haha---good look
I'm gonna have to get this thing exorcised tomorrow

 

This may seem like a no-brainer, but make sure your tires a properly inflated. Under-inflation will increase rolling resistance and your miles per gallon will suffer. You may also experience slightly better gas mileage with a few pounds more pressure. Check and set pressures when the tires are cold.

I was rolling on my 285/75 BFG AT's at 35 PSI all around. A few days ago, I increased the pressures to 37 PSI, and have noticed an improvement. I drive 120 miles per day, and was averaging about 240 miles per tank. Now, that average is up to 260.

Brian

 

i write this rant (or a similar rant )a lot because there are a lot of fuel milage questions. by now i should just go search for previous posts and cut an paste, but i'm not going to start doing that yet.

in an EFI engine, fuel metered via the injector is adjusted to make sure that the ratio (by mass) of air to fuel is 14.7:1. so any intake mod that allows you to get more air into the engine also causes more fuel to be burnt because the ratio needs to stay the same. plus the only time an intake mod really helps you out is at WOT and that by definition is no good for fuel milage.

a less restrictive exhaust could help, but again, you won't see the benefits unless you're at really high revs, which by definition is no good for fuel milage. plus any expense you put into a flowmaster will take you years to pay of in increased fuel milage (if there is indeed any).

there are only two ways to make significant gains in fuel milage:

1) the expensive way (and you'll probably never earn this money back in decreased fuel costs): increase efficiency. since fuel==power, then anything you can do that will get the power from the engine to the ground will help. put on smaller wheels with less rolling resistance, decrease the weight of your truck, go with all synthetic fluids (really doesn't help that much), anything else that will decrease friction or drag will help.

2) the easy way: take your foot off the long skinny pedal. accelerate slowly, plan ahead for stop lights, coast up to them so you don't need to brake. no sudden changes of speed, and keep your max speed down (drag increases roughly with the square of speed, so you do better at slower speeds). really the only way to increase fuel milage is to burn less fuel - yes it sounds like a stupid thing to say.

here's an example of how keeping your foot off the throttle will help you out that i posted in another thread:

using winter fuel (in colorado thats 15% ethanol) and 31" tires on my '89 22re i get about 18-20mpg under normal (50/50 highway/city) driving. but i did an experiment for the last two tanks where i really concentrated on keeping under 1/3 throttle (that's where the EFI runs in closed loop and runs more efficiently) and over those last two tanks i got an average of 23mpg. on highway trips i have seen as high as 26mpg if i average about 65. when i have to take the poor 22re over the mountains of colorado i can expect 16mpg for highway driving.

i've gone through more tanks of fuel since i originally posted this, and i'm consistantly getting 25mpg if i keep my foot out of the throttle. that means i cruise on the highway at about 60-65 and in town i accelerate pretty slowly from stop lights.

 

Here is my fuelsaving mod.
Then again my recent job change reduced my commute drasticly

http://images.rei.com/media/716167_9723Lrg.jpg

Generally, try to drive it like you are driving miss Daisy. Take off extra roof rack (Yakima or similar). Don't go 85mph. That will help you milage
Or learn to live with it.

 

Exactly!! Too many threads being started about gas mileage. I've said it a hundred times before to the customers that bring their vehicles in with SUVs and Trucks.... Option A: GET USED TO IT!! Option B: Walk or ride a bike, or Option C: Buy a clown car. You don't know how sick everyone in the service department is getting just listening to customers wanting to know the "insided secrets" that we supposedly have. The only time to worry about gas mileage is when it drops drastically then you may have leaking injectors, stopped cat, brakes dragging, or etc.

 

Good advice. I often say the same things on the 80 series' boards. I suggest (just repeating what is above in different terms) to drive the truck like it's carbureted.

In a carb'd engine, we all years ago knew exactly where to `feather' the pedal between increase in power vs. how deep to press the pedal. Driving right below this inflection point used to easily save 25% on one's mileage.

As above stated, the pedal now adjusts air intake and the computer adjusts fuel mixture, but the point is also to find that ``inflection point'' in the pedal, just below where you feel any more pedal does not improve your speed or needed power. In conjunction with driving easy, and especially during an accelerating start, you'd be suprised how much fuel you can save. Also, (I don't know the RPM off the top of my head) but don't rev the engine above ~80-90% torque curve if accelerating.

Most 80 series' owners see between 10-15 mpg, but driving correctly, one can get at least 18 if driven as described above. I'm sure the same may help in yours.

 

86 turbo x-cab. Stock. 31+ highway about 24+ city highway. I drive conservatively often shift at 2200rpm. Cruze at 60 or so but i know thats no fun. 36 lbs in tires. 205 -70 R 14.

 

If you're getting 12-13 on a 3.0 with a 5-speed, then either you're driving it pretty hard, you've got oversized tires and your gearing is wrong, or there is something wrong with your engine's state of tune. Even at 75 mph, I get 15+ mpg and normally it's 17-19 mpg. Just got back from a trip and got 20 mpg.

Synthetic gear lube, magnaflow, synthetic oil, swapping out fuel filter, plugs, cap, rotor, wires and tires at 32 lbs. is all that I've done. Then just drive it like the torque comes on low...because it does. And shift before 2500 rpm...never higher than 4500 rpm.

 

I know the feeling, commuting 110 miles RT to Fairfax each day is a killer, my truck can't pass a gas pump for more than 3-4 days. I'm thinking about either getting a diesel Passat or an old Honda for the commute. 40 mpg is looking really good but I think any savings would be eaten up by a car payment if I did the Passat.