Do you have one? And does it actually do anything?

 

From what I understand the Tornado does and the mitsubishi MAF I believe it would worsen the gas mileage. The air is supposed to flow through the MAF in a straight fashion and the MAF design serves to make this happen. Start swishing it through there like a tornado and the Ecu is not going to get proper readings on the air to know what mixture of fuel to correspond with.

WADAD

 

best mod to improve mpg: Unplug the battery to reset the ECU and drive like grandma. It will learn your conservative driving habits and adjust fuel accordingly. $0 to save somewhere around 2 mpg.

The rest of the mods are kind of trivial if you ask me. "get a catback" for what $300? You'd have to save 100 gallons over the course of a year to make it pay for itself in that time. Unless you already want to mod your Lancer, because then you'd be having your fun and saving from it too. Now, it is true that many mods that increase power can increase mpg. Point being that if you have more power per fuel consumption, you can use less of it to get what you need to just drive.

example: My father had over 20 mpg out of his 1969 GT350 because he didn't have to step on the gas pedal to go from here to there. On the race track, it gets around 6 mpg with the same mods.

more related example: My Lancer, when it had teins, intake, exhaust, and reflashed ecu, got an average of 31 mpg around town. When driving from L.A. to Tucson around 110 mph, it got 9 mpg, and on a race course it got around 12 mpg (ironic, I know). So how you drive DOES make a difference.

In closing, reset your ECU, avoid frequent and hard accelerating and braking (yes braking, because braking fast means you spent too much time accelerating), and drive 65 on the freeway. I bet you get another 3 mpg out of that alone.

 

here's a thought: get off your @ss and start walking

but seriously guys, we as american's drive so many unnecessary miles. if there is public transportation in your city, use it. if your making a quick trip to mcdonalds or to pick up milk, grab a backpack and your bike and have at it. you'd be suprised how much you can save when you park your car during the week and start carpooling or taking the bus/train, etc

 

What is this safc everyone is talking about.

 

an air/fuel controller that allows you to pull some of the gas out of the engine... less gas = better gas mileage but also you dont want to pull too much out. there is a balance and this is called tuning

 

also, i went to fill up my tires with air and checked at what they were (first time filling them with air since I got them off melaz) and they had 18 psi in them each... for a 215/40/17 low profile radial...... ouch! i quickly got them up to 42psi. this should fairly increase my gas mileage which has been at 25mpg

 

no kidding! Make sure to check that every week.

 

so is an safc worth getting or no? i'm all confused now

 

yes. increase in power, and better gas mileage but you also have to get a iwdeband so no kabom

 

asides from driving likema granny, there isnt anything major that you can do to improve gas mileage. Although keeping up with washing and waxing your car, will give you 4-5% better gas mileage. Thats what they said on the news at least.....

 

Ach!!! I seriously doubt you're going to see an increase in mileage. I know I haven't. Why? Again because in order to get to where the piggyback actually works, you have to have your throttle at over 70% or your RPM about 4K. this is the opposite of economic driving. The fuel wasted getting the piggy to activate will negate any gains from pulling fuel. PLUS once you're cruising, your ECU goes back to "let's keep the AFR at stoich" mode and your piggy isn't working anyway. So unless you floor it from point A to point B you're not going to notice any fuel savings with a piggy.

AND THEN you have to consider that with the bare minimum of stuff to make it all work right it's gonna take months if not years just to break even financially. Let's pretend that it works like some folks say it will, and we'll do some math. Let's say $600 for basic eManage and Wideband controller... oops, now we gotta add a screen so we can SEE the AFR, add about $130 (I'm assuming it's the Zeitronix unit because they're popular and reliable). Or you can use a laptop to actually log the data so we don't kill ourselves by looking at a little screen on the dash while driving.... but let's stay on the cheap and call it $730.
Let's say you save 4MPG, and are now at 33MPG (you said 29 before), and you fill up 10 gallons every time. That saves 40 miles per tank or 1.21 gallons between fillups (40 miles/tank div by 33MPG= 1.21 gal) at $3 per gallon, that's a savings of $3.63 per fillup.

$730/3.63 per fillup = 201 fillups just to break even with the BASICS needed to adjust your AFR.

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to the person above who's at 13.8AFR: Boe says he's seen pistons melt at 13.5 and unless you have a constant monitor of your EGT I wouldn't go that low. If you do, cool, but be constantly checking to make sure your EGT doesn't go above about 850C. The 12.7 is optimal power for most gasoline engines and that's why we aim for that number, not because it's safest.

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kmcconn9- 4% by washing and waxing? For real? That's awesome! do you have a link to the story?

 

bottom line, u really cant make more power and gain gas miledge

 

pete...your mailbox is full.

so i should just get exhaust and call it a day. seems like the safc2 isn't worth it.

 

I got an idea... what if we install an mpg guage/meter? I was thinking of doing it before so I'm aware my mpg whenever I drive so I can tell what driving skills are more efficient on gas. some luxury cars have em, even beemers and volks. I only wish I know how to install my own mpg meter