70 MPG/1100/1200 Mile Club

[Randall]

That's a good point! I have a downpipe with out a CAT I should put on it!

 

[whitevanman]

I cant understand how near everyone here is getting 1000 miles per tank and im only getting 50mpg driving carefully on my afn b5 passat. should I get the turbo,intake manifold and EGR cleaned out?

 

[Randall]

I think it's the Fred Flinstone mod!
I will be happy with 55. That's my curent goal! 60 is a dream! 70 is "A fairy tale"

From what I understand the EGR and intake will mess with your top end first. Since we are trying to drive on the bottom end I doubt that's the case here. It's always a good idea to clean it but I doubt that is your problem unless it's real real bad.

My next moves are cam timing, tuning and remove the CAT.

 

[vlad0401]

What is your highway cruising speed, & average daily journey distance (each direction)? Do you ever do short trips (for example, to the shops?) Is it still cold in your area (noting your thread where you said that you were idling for 15 minutes prior to moving off - when it's cold your mpgs won't be good).

it has been in 30s the past 3 months or so. my average trip was 2 miles ( i know it is bad for engine) and that includes 10 mins idles in morning and 1 min on the way home. 38mpg. not bad but i only got up to 42 in the summer last year. this year ill see what i get, i need to change TB and check MAF sensor.

 

[MikeMars]

it has been in 30s the past 3 months or so. my average trip was 2 miles ( i know it is bad for engine) and that includes 10 mins idles in morning and 1 min on the way home. 38mpg. not bad but i only got up to 42 in the summer last year. this year ill see what i get, i need to change TB and check MAF sensor.

If your average journey is only 2 miles(!!), then 42mpg in the summer is pretty good going. No point in hunting for faults if the mpg you are getting is reasonable under the circumstances. I'd have been tempted to walk it & leave the car behind.

The thing about 60-70 mpg is that everything has to be perfect for the whole tank (journey, weather, traffic, driver, car) - there are no shortcuts and any number of ways you can fall short.

 

[josh8loop]

Filled up tonight after 932 miles on this tank. My wife has a trip tomorrow, so i wanted to be fueled up if I have to rescue her or I would have pushed it a bit further. I have my best tank to date for all in town driving(happens to be where I get my best FE)-this tank was 64.85 MPG. For a 16.5 gallon tank that puts me at the ability to go 1070 miles on one tank. Maybe the 1100-1200 miles tanks aren't as far of as I thought!

 

[Fix_Until_Broke]

The cam timing data that I linked in Post 172 had an error in it - Please re-read the linked thread if you are doing any cam timing changes!!

 

[sqhschief]

I can't understand how you guys are getting numbers like this. The best I can do is usually 600 miles per 15 gallons, which is 40mpg, albeit my TDI Jetta is an automatic.

 

[Vekke]

To be able to get higher than 60 MPG with a 1.9 TDI you need to drive under 60 MPH or have lots of mods on the car. If you don`t want to change the fifth gear I would suggest changing the tires to 175/80R14 to front and after that set the stance correct with lowering springs.

Other things that help:
- lowering the car, more the better
- lose weight
- 0w-30 engine oil and Redline MTL to manual transmission
- Loose the brakes
- Check and adjust tyre angliments
- DRL led lights and led tail lights
- Aeromodifications as much you are willing to change your cars looks
- Remap your ECU. If you just use evry mod your fuel consumtion will increase if it is always on. Evry help on accelerations.

And most importantly hypermiling driving technigues. Rapid accelerations and drive without brakes etc...

There are many routes to 60 + MPG range depenging do you want to spend money or just drive more slower and or use more fuel efficient driving techniques or install aerodynamic improvements.

 

[sqhschief]

To be able to get higher than 60 MPG with a 1.9 TDI you need to drive under 60 MPH or have lots of mods on the car. If you don`t want to change the fifth gear I would suggest changing the tires to 175/80R14 to front and after that set the stance correct with lowering springs.

Other things that help:
- lowering the car, more the better
- lose weight
- 0w-30 engine oil and Redline MTL to manual transmission
- Loose the brakes
- Check and adjust tyre angliments
- DRL led lights and led tail lights
- Aeromodifications as much you are willing to change your cars looks
- Remap your ECU. If you just use evry mod your fuel consumtion will increase if it is always on. Evry help on accelerations.

And most importantly hypermiling driving technigues. Rapid accelerations and drive without brakes etc...

There are many routes to 60 + MPG range depenging do you want to spend money or just drive more slower and or use more fuel efficient driving techniques or install aerodynamic improvements.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean drive without brakes? How would LED tail lights increase fuel mileage? Also, how does rapid acceleration help mileage?

 

[Digital Corpus]

The overall current drawn of switching out just brake lights woldnt have that much of an effect. However, if you switch out every tungsten filiment bulb, you can save a couple watts. Moving over to HIDs will save more, but even with all of that you'll gain 0.5-1 mpg so you'll have to recoup expense over many many many miles and then you might see a return, but it'll still be within statistical noise.

What he means about driving without brakes is to drive your vehicle with enough forethought to negate as much braking for slower traffic, for stop lights, for corners and so on and so forth. The reason being is that braking converts your kenetic energy into heat via friction. When that happens, you willfully remove energy from the vehicle via heat. Coasting has the normal parasitic losses. Engine braking uses some of that energy to stop fueling.

Others have witnessed that pulse & glide acceleration and coasting improve economy. I have some doubts and will test this as soon as I have some solid methodology to back it up.

 

[MikeMars]

...

Others have witnessed that pulse & glide acceleration and coasting improve economy. ...

The main benefit of P&G is to avoid engine resistance.

I found quite a difference (several mpg) on my old Passat, but a fairly small improvement (nearly imperceptible) on my current A2. The big difference between these two vehicles is weight & engine resistance. The A2 is much lighter than my Passat was, hence has less momentum & hence less of a glide phase. The engines are roughly the same (both PDs), but the A2 only has 3 cylinders rather than 4, hence less internal resistance, hence less benefit when gliding.

 

[Digital Corpus]

I've completed long distance logging (25+ miles) of IQ, delta IQ of the other three cylinders, RPM, and speed. From that, using an average density of my fuel, I converted mg/stroke to milliliters/stroke. From there all I needed was distance traveled and how many revolutions the engine did in that time frame.

The VCDS sample rate was ~1 sample a second so doing even that long distance took a bit of effort from the computer. I need a larger sample to see how accurate that is to a tank, but the early numbers were very very close.

 

[MikeMars]

Could I ask the speed-range that you are using for the P&G? Any benefit will disappear if the peak speed is more than 65-ish (due to the higher average aero drag compared to steady-state driving).

 

[Digital Corpus]

Low speed of 55. Depending on conditions I've P&G'd to 65 or 70. 70 is more of a downhill pulse.

I'm adding another 1100 mile to the wall. Just filled up 1116.24 mi, 19.338 gal.

 

[JohnWilder]

I finally found the right place.
From 9 Aug. 2014 through 10 Aug. 2014 I drove from Sedona, AZ to Leander, TX on one tank of fuel. This was a concerted effort to see how good mileage was possible even if impractical. It was grueling. I rarely exceeded 47 mph. It is hot in Phoenix and West Texas in August! I did not use the A/C!!

Results: 1,123 miles driven. 16.4 gallons of fuel purchased in Leander. I estimate my tank to be 17 gallons. This works out to be 68.48 mpg or 3.43 l/100 km.

I shall not do it again.

A few caveats: Sedona is higher than Leander by about 3000 ft. I benefitted from that. I just thought you would be interested. I don't see how I could get much better mpg in this car.

 

[garyk]

Maybe get to 1100 on this tank

Well, I've just beeped at 1005 miles. Definitely will be my best tank. Since the wagon does seem to hold a bit of extra fuel I'm thinking it'll be mid 60's mpg. If I'm feeling brave/lucky I'll go for half the club membership (1100 miles). At my best prior tank for distance (around 59 mpg and 1005 miles), the beep was at 910 miles. So I did get 95 miles on that one after the beep, but was kinda scary, especially since 5 of the last 10 miles was very steep uphill.

I was driving with a couple of gallons in the back, but it was only after filling up that I read that it wasn't so easy/good to restart an out of fuel TDI. Since then I've read that PD engines are easier to restart than ALH, but how big of a deal is it as far as harm to the engine to run out? I think I'll go for it in any case since : the beep seems pretty reliable; 95 miles like it did before would do it; this is a "better tank"; and won't have to go up the big hill at the end like last time.

 

[garyk]

Made it easy peasy 96 miles after the beep.

Final numbers 1101.1 miles/16.857 gal = 65.32 mpg

Could've gone a bit more it appears since my 1000 mile tank had 17.1 put in.

1200 mile club will be right at 70 mpg X 17.1 gallons, so if I ever get 70 mpg I'll be a full fledged member

 

[Fix_Until_Broke]

Congrats!!!

 

[garyk]

Thanks, and thanks for "raising the bar"!

 

[Nevada_TDI]

I need your help here, I believe my math is wrong. VCDS said I was using 3.1 liters/hour and I was driving 60 mph. I calculated 3.1liters equaled 0.818933 gallons, so 60 miles on 0.818933 gallons of fuel came out 73.2 mpg. Is this even possible? Where did I mess up on my math? Help.

 

[Fix_Until_Broke]

Your math is correct, the 3.1 liters/hour is incorrect from VCDS (unless you're actually getting 73.2 MPG, which is possible, but I'll go out on a limb here and say it's unlikely).

The VE cars are not notoriously accurate in the reported fuel consumption department. You can change this value to match up to real data for a given set of conditions, and it will be generally repeatable, however if your driving conditions change significantly, it will be off again. Calibrate to your daily stop and go commute and it will be accurate (~1% or so) for your daily commute. Hook on a trailer for a few hundred highway miles and you'll find it's now 10% off using the same cal numbers when compared to actual miles/gallons

The newer PD engines are better and the CR engines are better yet due to their much more stringent emissions "requirements" (maybe "suggestions" is a better word to use here ).

Fill to the brim, drive, fill to the brim, calculate - that's the best way on your car.

 

[Nevada_TDI]

Bummer. Thank you FUB, I thought it was possible something might be off. At 70 mph I calculated 64 mpg, and wondered about that too. A few years ago I got 52mpg at 75mph, but that was with the old timing belt and previous IQ setting which I don't remember any more... I average 40mpg (using the fill to the brim and calculate method) in my daily driving which doesn't include highway driving on cruise but does include the occasional green light blast off.

How would I change the value to reflect more accurate fuel consumption numbers?

 

[Fix_Until_Broke]

I'm not aware of how to change these values reported by the ECU - I know it's possible with VCDS, but have never investigated enough to figure out how to do it myself.

I use a scangauge which has a calibration factor in it to correct for what the ECU fails at. You adjust it at each fillup, it thinks you used 19.8 gallons of fuel when you only used 14.5 gallons then you adjust it down at that fillup and it will be closer at the next fillup. After 3-4 fillups it's typically pretty accurate (within a few % or so) as long as your driving habits don't change significantly.

 

[garyk]

Here's my biggest effort this year, similar to FUB initial post description in terms of the pain and output:

07/22/16

Driver: garyk
Miles: 1124
Gallons: 16.77
Model Year: 2004
Model: Jetta Wagon
Tranny: 5 w/0.681
Fuel Type: ULSD

MPG: 67.02

1200 was not to be mine and may never be. I'm trying again on the current tank but we'll see. But FUB, did you see that NOOC posted a tank in the June mileage competition?? Awesome that the legend is still down there driving around. I PM'd for some tips. Just amazing that NOOC did all those 70+ tanks with pulse and glide, no EOC, or as I like to call it pulse and glidle...

 

[Vekke]

I have now got one tank over 80+MPG us in my audi A8 with 1.2 TDI engine. Best was 83 MPG US with 57,1 MPH avg speed.
2 tanks over 70 MPG so far.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/em-fuel-log.php?vehicleid=9193