Archives

Howd...

Uh..

What?

Sorry. I'm on several different forums but I've never seen that many dancing banana smilies in my life. They distracted me for a minute.

Anyhow...

My name is Aaron, and I'm starting to push the mileage of my '03 strat. More out of sheer cheapitude on my part than anything else.

For the last several years, I commuted my 100 mile daily round trip for work on one of my bikes, a 2007 BMW R1200GSA or my 2006 Buell Ulysses. Last September, I screwed up and bounced down the pavement at about 40mph. Broke my collarbone, split my scapula in half and it then punctured my lung. (I ride ATGATT so not having any road rash was nice in any case.) The deal I made with my wife in order to keep any of my bikes was that I no longer would commute on them.

So, I retrieved my Stratus, which I bought new in 2003, from my dad and I'm now commuting in it.

Caging it is boring, so I'm trying to find methods to keep it interesting and keep me from losing my mind in traffic. I started slowing down and noticed that the traffic was all bunched up ahead of me and I was rolling in a big clear spot.

The Strat has always gotten excellent mileage compared to it's EPA rating. I can't remember ever getting less than 27 mpg no matter how I drive it. (Rerated epa average is 24.)

Recently, just driving normally, but keeping the top speed under 70 I've been able to consistently get 33.3ish.

This last tank, I aired up the tires, accelerate as slowly as safe given the conditions and have kept the speed to 65 or less including a lot of neutral coasting when I can and I think this will be the first tank I'll ever see 500 miles total.

I just installed a Kiwi MPG last evening and am getting used to it. It seems pretty close, but given that the strat runs a speed density system I think I will have to calibrate it over then next several tanks to get the most accuracy out of it.

My goal is 40mpg out of this car for my commutes. I think that is a stretch, and that 35 is more realistic, but what's the point of a goal if it's easy, right?


(So, who's going to be the first with the requisite, "Too long, didn't read." post?) :D

:Banane37:

You might want to purchase ScanGauge II, you can see it on the left side of website. It helps tremendously.

read every word. sorry about your crash. sounds like you are doing well with the stratus. and welcome :)

Hi Aaron!

No! You won't get bashed for your excellent intro. Background info is helpful to help a new member get their questions answered.

Sad story about your crash but it is great testament to the value of riding a motorcycle with AGATT (All The Gear All The Time.)

The Kiwi will give you an idea of your mileage, but the preferred tool to achieving great mileage is the ScangaugeII. You can see the "member only" deal on the Home Page bottom right corner.

The link in my sig will point you to a lot of great info here. JusBringIt drives a car similar to yours and I believe has had a "best tank" of around 44 mpg.

Good Luck!

Welcome, Aaron! We are always happy to have a careful driver interested in improving fuel economy join us here on CleanMPG. :)

Your post wasn't too long and included all the right info. Do you have any initial questions?

Thanks for the warm welcomes. I see that SG is a sponsor and I did look into one prior to picking up the mini Kiwi. My decision came down to the fact that I already own an Actron OBD2 Elite that I can use to data log and check codes so at this point in my economy quest I went for the meter that looked like it would give me a decent instantaneous economy readout for under $90.

So far, in my short term test, I like the Mini Kiwi, but it is simplistic and defaults to 100mpg when doing a FAS, so the average accuracy may not be as tight as some would require.

I've got a few questions, but given the size of this forum, I'd wager that if I search I can dig up at least cursory information related to the topics.

Roll on!

Aaron

Welcome.Where is Slaughter?I'm 4 miles W of NOLA proper in River Ridge-about 3 miles E of the airport.

Where do you commute to?
Few years back I used to commute to Houma-50 miles each way for 15 months- it got old-2+ hours of driving everyday!

I am getting ready to sell my old motorcycle-1980 Yamaha SR500-single cylinder street bike. I'm just gettin gold, and cell phones drained most of the fun from riding.

33mpg- pretty good mpg. You have the V-6- very good mpg for a v-6 Dodge

Luck
Charlie

Hi Charlie.

Slaughter is about 5 miles north of Zachary, which is about 15 miles north of Baton Rouge.

Map. (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=graves+street,+slaughter,+la&sll=30.416295,-91.112443&sspn=0.013545,0.019248&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Graves+St,+Slaughter,+East+Feliciana,+Louisiana+70777&ll=30.606004,-91.125412&spn=0.432603,0.615921&z=11)

I work at a plant in Geismar, so it's about 50 miles one way.

As far as selling your bike, we've got a great local forum

http://dualsportridersoflouisiana.com

There are several guys on the board that are always on the lookout for something old and weird to rebuild.

I've always been impressed with the economy of the Mitz plant in my strat. Maybe I got a Wednesday motor for once.

Thanks!

Aaron

Got it- used to date a girl from Zachary/Baker 40 years ago.
Geismar- lived about 25 miles downriver from Geismar-Gramercy- when I was a kid.The big chemical plants in Geismar were kinda new back in the 60's-lotta jobs.

Looks like I sold my bike.Guy came here to photograph the oil spill-photojournalist for a European News Agency-saw the CL ad and looks like he will buy it. I'll miss that bike.

33mpg is waaay better than pretty good for a 3500 lb Dodge. Funny many Dodges got worst in class FE, but not the Stratus.

Good on the sale.

I'm a MOPAR fan but there is one thing about them; you don't buy them if you are expecting even reasonable economy. (Although, when I was driving my wife's Hemi Durango after my accident, I did manage to squeak out 25.4 mpg for a full tank going back and forth to work. She usually gets about 15.)

The Stratus coupe is basically a Mitsubishi Eclipse that is stretched about 6", so the motor is a Mitsubishi 3.0L like in the older Galants or Eclipses. I'm very happy with it. I just filled up last evening and I had averaged 36.62mpg for 491.5 miles. (The idiot light had just come on so I had an easy 70 miles left, but for some reason my local gas station was $0.15/gallon cheaper than anywhere else last night.)

When I've drag raced the car, (15.179 in the 1/4) I weighed it. It's actually right about 3200# with me in it.

The main issue with the Mitz motors is the engine controls. It's still old-school Speed Density like Ford stopped using in 1988. That makes it extremely difficult to modify for either power, or economy.

25.4!! With one of those no cylinder shutdown Hemi's- or is it more recent vintage and have cyl shutdown???? Wow that is more impressive either way, since the Hemi is a world class guzzler usually.

Yeah, I never head of any pickup Hemi getting 20 mpg- usually they brag if they hit 18mpg!

My 98 Suburban gets 21 mpg at 60-65 mpg on long 3000 mile trips to Flagstaff AZ(All hy), but I would have to hold maybe 50 mph to get 25mpg.

I was a MOPAR fan=still cheer for them. I had a 1971 383 Cuda' back in 1975(bought it from my brother) loved that car! 1980 D100 long bed-318 -not a bad truck. We had a 1978 or so Colt-Mitsubishi really-great little car. Yeah,I like Mopar, but I had such a good experience with this ancient used Suburban,I've become a GM convert.
I got 19.4 mpg on a pure 15 mile city run to UNO a few weeks back-didn't even shut the motor off at lights( don't trust the starter-213,000 miles).

Speed/density not sure what that means? So the motor doesn't have a mass air sensor to tell the ECU how much air is coming in, so it knows how much fuel to add after checking the O2 sensors etc?
Not sure what speed density means- reading the air speed somehow- or the density and air speed rather than how much the conductivity of a wire changes when air of know temperature is pulled across it(I think that is how a MAI works-not 100% sure)
Charlie

Her Hemi is an '06 so it does have the cylinder drop. That can help alot if you can go easy enough on the gas to keep the cylinders shut down. Driving it "normally" I get about 19 out of it. My '04 D2500 Hemi generally gets about 17 without the cylinder drop.

I'm not sure why it's called speed density, but yes, there is no Mass Air Sensor. There is some sort of sensor in the intake that has a honeycomb flow straightener and a resistor in the airstream and then it has a pressure sensor on the actual manifold. Those two do something in concert with the rest of the silly sensors (of which there are a bunch) to control the fuel/air mix.

The fuel programming doesn't work if the MAP sensor sees positive pressure, so unlike most MAF systems, you can't just bolt on a blower to this car and expect it to run.

Re: Speed density fuel injection
The Speed density setup is also called a MAP system, because it uses a Manifold Absolute Pressure sensor to measure manifold vacuum. Using the vacuum and engine speed as variables, it guesses at the volume of air entering the engine. Then it runs an equation and compares it to a table of predefined values for "how much gas to squirt in the cylinders", and tweaks the amount of fuel based on the O2 reading of too rich or too lean or just right. The disadvantage is that the fuel map is based on the stock engine's volumetric efficiency, so changing the intake manifold or any other mod that makes the engine breathe much easier can run you off one end of the fuel map and cause rich/lean errors.

The other system is the MAF - or Mass Air Flow setup. It has the sensor just behind the air cleaner that measures how much air is flowing into the engine. This value is used along with engine speed and other variables to determine fuel injector pulse width. Making the engine breathe much easier just means the MAF sensor will read "more air" and the computer will send in "more fuel" to keep the mixture on target.

So the speed density system works fine as long as the owner doesn't do any major mods on the engine. And as noted above, adding a turbo will confuse the heck out of it.

That's a great description. Thanks.

So, If someone were considering reducing airflow through the motor to reduce power/improve economy, With a MAP system it would probably be better to restrict the intake in order to create additional vacuum in the mainfold rather than restrict the exhaust which would reduce the manifold vacuum.

Interesting.

Maxx-double thanks.
Hotroders hated early electronic pollution controls, but they certainly love current ones. They can do almost anything and the current ones will just adj by adding more fuel or changing the throttle plate opening, and all is well-certainly no problem keeping up with the usual hot rod mods.

I could bolt in a 6.2 (383) stroker-made by GM as a drop in replacement for my 1998 5.7 and just plug in all the stock sensors and FI-no problem(other than having to pay for the extra fuel and beef up the drivetrain etc).