It's turbo..... NA Lancers get decent mileage

 

My Evo is my economy car when I need one! Hahaha

A good tune can not only increase power when needed, but also increase fuel economy when you play with the crusing maps... I got an average of 28mpg on my trip to Houston - through the mountains and everything, and it could have been better with cruise control

DD:

 

cruise control generally doesnt give you better mpgs unless you just cant keep your foot out of it

 

Fuel economy has a lot to do with your driving habbits, if you know anything about hypermiling there are tons of tips to get better fuel economy from these habbits.

Here are a few tips in general.
Generally keeping the highest manifold vacuum will yield the best results, so a boost/vac. gauge is very helpful in monitoring this. Sometimes its actually best to go faster ...or drop down a gear than it is to go slower... or up shift to drop your rpm's down. This heavily is effected by the topography of the area you are driving it, it will change constantly depending on what type of loading your enduring on the engine or drivetrain... that's why you need to constantlly monitor it for best results.

This is also helpful when you are entering a valley area with a hill on the other side, often times its best to your use kinetic energy from speed to help climb the other hill... so a slight accel to speed up is very helpful to killing all that speed on the next hill.

Also, use your brakes as little as possible, always allow engine decel braking, not only because of fuel cut, but just because of an energy standpoint. Often you over shoot your decel and you'll need to speed back up, everytime this is fuel loss (can also happen the same way if you engine brake too much). So keep adequate space between you and other vehicles to judge this.

Now, driving like this will increase fuel economy.... and also will **** off everyone else your driving around because you are all over the place with speed... so generally I only do it on long commutes, late at night etc... when there arn't many ppl around.... and doing these tips (and many more) has yielded me 30mpg on my 100% stock evo... which isn't so easy to do.

 

My problem was that it was a 22 hour drive... If I had cruise to give myself a rest, I would have had better results.

 

Traffic is a *****. Do your best to avoid it and watch your MPG's climb. The best way is toplan your commute, or leave a little earlier to avoid rush hour. The downside, an empty road will tempt the right foot. So, empty road and no boost for best economy...

Ah what the hell, I'll just buy a prius.

 

keep it under 5 psi driving and drive 65-70 on the highway while staying in vacuum. that keeps your car running around stoich which will achieve better gas mileage while staying at or under 3k rpms. When I do 80 or so on the freeway I feel like im losing about 5-6mpg. No factual data to back this other then my trip meter. But I guess best results at 65-70 because staying under 3k, keeps the car from being at the rpm will it will wanna boost with the slightest throttle pressure. Having a laggier turbo like an fp red helps too keeps you in vacuum longer which in turn helps get the best gas mileage. So throttle pressure is mostly key, 20-30% on throttle will keep you in vacuum and keep your afrs near stoich in highway.
There ya go.

 

That's not true, though cruise control doesn't do anything that a human theoretically could do in terms of throttle control, but it's better at keeping a steady speed. For example, most drivers generally just keep their foot on the gas pedal at a steady speed, but there are slight variances that we may not notice, as we just keep our foot on the pedal even though we stay at the same speed, more or less. But when the cruise control is on, when there are slight adjustments like tiny declines even for just a brief moment, it lets off of the throttle while maintaining speed (rather than using the gas the whole time like you would if your foot were on the pedal). You can see it better on cars with mpg readings.

In the end, it doesn't amount to a huge improvement, but it is a little bit better for regular highway drives.

 

I'm going to just add my aviation notes to this.

Every engine has a specific RPM that is it's "best economy" RPM and a specific RPM that is "best power".

If you peg it at best economy, on a flat smooth road with no wind or precip, then that's your best fuel economy.

Some vehicle manufacturers will mention which RPM this is in the manual, or a speed, but I don't believe Mitsu has done that.

So in short... I owe all of you 20 seconds of your lives back.

Also... cruise control vs. a driver that is paying attention will get worse mileage every time.

 

I'd say that applies in situations that require shifting, since an attentive driver will know when to shift from what they see ahead since cruise control won't shift until after it senses changes like increased inclines (and sometimes "gear hunts" when it should stay in one gear), though again that applies more to automatics. But if it's a situation where you're on a relatively flat surface that doesn't require gearchanges, cruise control might have the edge.

 

yesss i swear its at like 4000rpm on the evo lol

 

Yeah I noticed that even at ~2k RPM in a higher gear if I floored it , it would start boosting about 5psi. I thought it was only RPM related.

 

Only if it's an NA motor haha... but even in that situation it's more about throttle position than rpm.

 

Keep it in vacuum.

Onset of boost (neutral, 0psi, whatever you call it) nets you approximately the same instantaneous MPG you'd get at WOT on a naturally aspirated 2.0. I try to keep more than -10 vacuum for best results.

 

Cruise control is reactive, whereas a driver can be proactive. Cruise control is a unit that does what you tell it to do, and it's very basic. All it does is maintain a speed. If you're going up a hill in cruise in an automatic, it will continue to open the throttle until it reaches it's speed again. It's the equivalent of trying to maintain 55mph, and every time you get to 50mph, flooring it.