got my Scanguage II

[Zate]

OMG this thing is fucking awesome !

so driving in today, i got 44 MPG average (over 25 miles).

I noticed a couple of interesting things.

#1 - @ 70mph = 38 MPG, @ 60mph = 55 MPG @ 55mph = 65 MPG .. on CC. It varies greatly depending on the gradient.. slight down was over 100 MPG @ 55 mph, slight up was down around 30 MPG, itś the LOD that changes.

#2 adding AC reduced each of those numbers by about 15%

#3 accelerating mildly wasnt as bad as I thought on MPG, going from 60-70 at about 2500 RPM - 90 LOD was about 28 MPG.

#4 - Load and TPS are very important, and they affect the IGN timing which affects MPG a whole bunch .. i bet the next ¨craze¨ in Hipermiling will be with the openECU stuff and putting together special maps for ultra lean cruising MPG.

man i love this thing.

[Loren]

Remember in my hypermiling tips when I said "have a light foot"? Now you understand why. :)

And, yeah... the ScanGauge is a neat toy. Makes you anal about MPG, though!

[TIM TIM TIM]

how does that thing work and how accurate is it really? It could deffinatly be a good tool to help you save mpg.. Let you know whats really working and what you wasting your time with

[Loren]

It plugs into the OBD and reads directly from the ECU. It's very accurate, though it is a little slow. For instance, you don't want to try to use the tach in a competition environment because it simply doesn't respond quickly enough.

The MPG stuff is all calculated, and if you have the unit set up right (you have to tell it some basic things like displacement, gas/diesel/lpg, etc) it's pretty accurate. I've found it to normally be within about .5 mpg from actual over a full tank. Which, at around 40 mpg is less than 2% error.

It will tell you just about anything the ECU knows, and you can display 4 "gauges" of any four parameters that you want to monitor in real time.

I usually leave mine set to
MPG (instantaneous mpg... what's the mpg RIGHT NOW)
MPH (because my car has a stupid center speedo)
TPS (in theory, if you're cruising a constant speed and back your TPS down by about 2 percent, you'll get better economy and an almost imperceptable loss in speed)
LOOP (if the car's warmed up, OPEN/CLOSED loop is an indicator of when you're in DCFO. No fuel being burned results in the ECU going open loop due to no feedback from the O2 sensor)

Of course, I usually don't use the gauge display at all. I use the "Trip" display and leave up my "Today" mileage. Lately, my target is 40 mpg for a day of city driving. (only managed about 39.5 today, dammit) That particular display is good for immediate feedback on how what you're doing is affecting overall mileage.

[TIM TIM TIM]

thats pretty awesome. I wish I could get 40 in the city :lol:. The rx8 gets like 17-19 but I really rag on that a bit.. the integra though gets about 26-27 in the city driving it pretty easy.. Its also 10 years old and needing a tune up though.

[Zate]

it is not just a MPG tool either... it pulls and resets codes, and the XGuage function lets you make a guage out of any of the outputs from the OBDII on your car.. it's a great tool for any car i think.. wish i had one in the STi ages ago.

[TIM TIM TIM]

so how many mpg's do you get at idle?

[Loren]

At idle with the car moving or stopped? Obviously, if you're stopped you're getting 0mpg.

At idle coasting downhill out of gear, you get 80+ mpg.

[TIM TIM TIM]

I was seeing how much you guys were paying attention... you won :(

[omgwtfbbq!]

I think it'd be a nifty tool to get, but with a JDM ECU it wouldn't work on my car :(

[Loren]

Hehe. Even if you're dumber than a brick and don't know what to expect, when you're at a stop, the ScangGauge reads 0 mpg. Doesn't take long to pick up on the trend. ;)

Avoiding sitting stopped and idling is actually one of the many good "hypermiling" techniques. You're just sitting there using gas with no benefit... except for the air conditioning, ah, the glorious air conditioning. Of course, true hypermilers never use the AC, and they'll shut the engine off if they have to idle for more than 10 seconds, anyway.

Drove my Spitfire last night. Very refreshing. Odometer is broken. No miles. No mpg. Just drive. Only thing I have to worry about is not letting it stall when I come to a stop when it's cold.

[TIM TIM TIM]

:lol:. Thats how I am when I drive the rx8.. Every time we have had an issue they tell us that we need to drive it hard, itll run longer if you do.. Everyone I know with one that babies it has so many issues, the ones that beat the shit out of it have no issues.... I just got the new motor so i beat the shit out of it. Rather pay for gas then a new motor :lol: its a little more fun to waste gas then get a new motor also

[P057]

damn zate, shoulda got a dashhawk. It's a little expensive @ nearly 300 bucks, but i love this thing soooo much!

[P057]

What I noticed with me, instead of accelerating semi-lightly, it's a little better to just give it some juice and go. (from stops)


From slower than normal speed (cruising to a red light, gearing down and then light turns green):
Light accel - 22-24mpg
med accel - 17-22mpg
hard accel - 7-9mpg

From Stop:
Light accel - 12-20mpg, hard to really gauge with foot.
med accel - 7-12mpg
harder aceel - 6-8mpg

Mind you, light accel takes for-fucking-ever to get to speed, where everyone gets impatient and flies by you.

I might as well just hard accel, jump to 40mph quickly in 2nd, and be done with it.
no?


Cruising about 28-31 mpg at that point at PSL.
Obviously, downhill grades I get 99MPG in high gear or neutral. 50-70 in lower gears going considerably fast. Inclines I get about 4MPG less than above rated.

[chi town brat]

Zate/Loren where did you pick yours up at? My friend David is obsessed with the sohc he built for gas mileage in his EF Civic and can't figure out why it isn't putting out the mpg he has hoped for. Though it is close and AC rips down the mileage.


I would say that I would get this as his wedding gift but I don't think the soon to be wifey would understand it ... :lol:

[Loren]

I picked mine up used from a seller on Amazon.com, a one-time deal. Got it for $130 instead of the typical $170.

P057, Accelerating "somewhat normally" and dropping to highest gear ASAP for a gentle cruise at or below the speed limit is far better than just "romping on it" and ripping through traffic, constantly accelerating and decelerating from 10 mph under the speed limit to 10 mph over the speed limit as so many people do.

But... there's a solid 5-10% increase in fuel economy to be had by accelerating gently.

What I find in my Yaris is that it will cruise reliably and get pretty constant gas mileage. 40 mpg at 70, 42 at 65, 44 at 60... 45+ at 55, and about 47 at a constant 40-45. It will do that all day long. Where my daily average drops is ALWAYS on acceleration. If I'm not keeping myself in check, my daily average will go from as much as 47 (but more typically 42-44) down to 38... just from one or two "brisk" accelerations! But, if I baby it, I can keep the loss from acceleration down to about .3 to .5 mpg on my average.

Just got home from a drive out to East Bay Raceway. That was a mix of slow suburban (35-40 mph), stoplights (6 or 8 of them... coming and going), slow highway (60 mph on the Causeway) and fast highway (70 mph on I-4). I was able to eek out 44.4 mpg on the way there, and 45.2 on the way home for a total average for the day of 44.8 mpg. Sitting on 42.5 mpg for this tank so far... and with no autocrosses or anything this month to mess it up, I just might be able to pull a 43 mpg average overall.

I feel like such an uber-geek. But, I'm still not turning off my AC!

[redinjuns]

I saw the latest group buy, tempting as hell...I know the wifes still enjoying the hell out of the car, and the roads here are steep as fuck but I love the real time data those things offer.

Any chance you could buy 1 and use it in 2 vehicles (vw & chevy)

[Loren]

It's plug & play on the OBDII port, you can put it in any OBDII car.

[P057]

I picked mine up used from a seller on Amazon.com, a one-time deal. Got it for $130 instead of the typical $170.

P057, Accelerating "somewhat normally" and dropping to highest gear ASAP for a gentle cruise at or below the speed limit is far better than just "romping on it" and ripping through traffic, constantly accelerating and decelerating from 10 mph under the speed limit to 10 mph over the speed limit as so many people do.


Woah, woah, woah...!


I'm not talking about "ripping through traffic".


I'm talking about a medium accel in 1st to about 20mph into 2nd, then blast up to 40MPH(PSL) in one go and just keep it there. I'm not talking about constant accel and racing myself.

Just a quick burst up to speed and maintain.

[Loren]

Woah, woah, woah...!

I'm not talking about "ripping through traffic".

I was just trying to point out that there are different levels of street driving and adopting at least "some" conservative habits is better than not. But, there's still benefit to adpoting "more" conservative habits... if you have the patience to do it.

My inner hippie says "conservation is good", do what you can.

[Zate]

i found an awesome cruising speed this morning .. about 44 MPH, 25 LOD, 70 MPG !.. i maintained it for about 1.5 miles before traffic got congested... it was interesting to see that just the slightest pedal pressure to go to say 30 LOD took me down to about 40 MPG. I really found the sweet spot.

[Loren]

Remember, the Scangauge doesn't respond instantly. Sometimes readings like that can be misleading. Good stuff, no doubt, and will result in a nice improvement to your average. But, you need to be watching your "Current" or "Today" average to see what's really going on. Once you learn what tricks work (by watching the things that you're watching now), then use one of those displays to help you constantly drive that overall average up.

Funny, the Yaris has a sweet spot in about the same place. Mid-40's in 5th, it's just stellar.