Ignition upgrade, midpipe, and tuning.

Fuel economy is poor in large part because the engine runs rich to keep exhaust gas temperatures down and thus keep the catalytic converter from failing prematurely.

Remove the cat and lean out the mixture, that will give you a few mpg and some power. Search for more info.

 

Yes, put a civic engine in it lol , not sure man , find away to decrease engine load that erl increase fuel economy , at cruising speed (65mph) engine load is 48%, bring that down to 40% some how and youl"re good

 

you know, yet you ask

"It is better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt"

good luck

 

wasnt sure if that stuff actually works. everyone claims their product will improve mpg and increase horsepower. I was wondering what is legit and what is worth it. I mean im not going to put in a mid pipe for two hundred bucks if im only gunna save fifty a year in gas

 

Strip your car, buy lighter rims and 2 piece brake discs with aluminium calipers. Midpipe, coils, and tune.

That's all you can do without chaning the gearing... wonder how many miles it will take to recover the thousands of dollars you're going to invest

 

My 07 6spd auto gets 23mpg @ 80 mph.

I even got 27mpg @ 70-80mph on a full tank once!

What's not to love.

 

there is a lot you can spend on for very little gain. What amount per year are you looking to save? But, if you're that worried, sell and purchase another vehicle

 

wouldnt say im worried but you know everyone wants to save a few bucks dont they?
anything that would potentally save more than it costs over then next couple of years would be nice.

 

i hear you, but just stop man you are going to get raped lol ( 9krpm is lurking around )
and then..... lol

 

Trade you car
Get a hybrid
You'll save, you'll see.

 

Unless you can get a 1:1 trade or close to it then trading your car for something with better mileage is generally a loss on your part.

Lets say you drive 15k miles a year and get 18 mpg average in the rx8. That is about $3166 in gas if premium is at $3.80 a gallon. Now lets say you sold your rx8 for 11k and went and bought a car that is 18k used and it gets 30 mpg average. Just for the sake of argument lets say your still using premium gas in this car, now that 15k miles a year costs you $1900. So in 5.5 years time you will have saved enough in gas to pay for the extra 7k your new car cost you, minus the interest so maybe 6 years. That is if you can manage to find a used car that gets 30 mpg in good shape for 18k.

 

Yeah, mine too. The automatics can do this because they are so much higher geared in 5th and 6th, so the engine is turning much slower when cruising.

 

is anyone with a standard actually getting 18 mpg?

 

I'd suggest an accessport for two reasons. The first is the obvious optimizing of the tune (since they are only available new from Mazdamaniac, you get the tuning service as part of the deal). The second is monitoring your real time fuel economy to give you feed back to let you pick the best cruise speed and gear for your circumstances (if traffic is slow and hilly, I've found that I sometimes get better gas mileage by going down a gear). If you only find out your average fuel economy when you refuel, then it's already too late.

 

according to fuelly my ave last year was 17.9 so far this year 17.2. i usually get about 17 in the winter and 18.5-19 in the summer so it averages out

 

I guess you just hear about the pople who get bad mileage, I keep reading things about getting 12-13 miles to the galon. If I can get 18 then I have nothing to complain about, I thought it was worse than that

 

Optimizing the tune, adding mods, driving like a granny, etc. The fuel mileage will still suck. Even if you got 25MPG, how much money do you think that would save you?

122,345 miles and I average about 15.0MPG, and my best is 20MPG. My average has stayed the same, despite the Cobb, several different exhaust setups, etc.

 

at 18mpg I pay $0.17 per km I drive
at 25mpg I would pay $0.12 per Km

if this could be done I would save five cents per km or 500-600 dollars a year. Your right not worth it, any decent mod would cost more than that. Maybe it would be if I drove more

 

Life's too short to drive slow.

 

Last time I filled up, the only other car at the station was a Honda CR-Z. Made me feel much better about mileage. Made sure to leave the station sideways.

 

I get anywhere between 17 and high 18. Doesn't seem like it's changed much from premix, midpipe, 10w40... I usually get a redline in at least once a day or so. I do some spirited runs maybe once a week? Depends really. I definitely put it through it's paces, but a lot of my driving is highway too.

Not quite sure how my wife drives it though. I'm sure she runs it up, but probably not past 7 or 8.


Niiiiiiiice. Haha!!

 

The measurable changes I made were tune-up (almost 1 mpg), grounds (almost 1 mpg), and springs (H-Tech) (slightly over 1 mpg, lowered front 1"). I calculated ROI on the springs at less than 2 years. Tune up is longer, grounds is a lot less.

I think you can work grounds with what you have, just add a star washer and conductive grease from lows to each connection. I used the $20 EBAY Kit.

I was working with an 04 I picked up with 63K on it.

Check out the $100 thread.

 

Im lost?? what is that stuff and where is this thread???

 

I observed improvement from:
- getting new tires replacing the worn-out factory rubber (about 1 MPG)
- BHR ignition (don't remember the exact number but it's in the neighborhood of about 0.5 mpg max.)
- AccessPort tuning (about the same or a bit less improvement like from the BHR ignition)

So there are a few things that can be done, but not much. As it was mentioned, it is also not cost-effective if the only thing you have in mind is improving fuel economy.

I'd LOVE to get the gearing from the auto tranny cars (if that's even possible) so that 6th (and maybe even 5th) would be higher, reducing the revs when driving on the highway. I'm sure that would yield a nice improvement.