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I'm really confused on how I should be accelerating. Should it be slow with minimal throttle and shifting low, fast with a lot of throttle and shifting low, or am I missing a whole other way?

My Wrangler has the 4.0L straight 6 if that helps.

See the link in my signature. In general, you want low rpm (lower than you'd think) and highish throttle.

I think I recall that straight 6 being a low rpm torque beast. That makes the recommendation that much more compelling.

So, I can gas it as long as I stay in the low RPM's? I usually shift before 1.8K since I have lot of low end torque.

Can anyone else voice in on this? It just seems counterproductive to me to give it so much skinny pedal.

Can anyone else voice in on this? It just seems counterproductive to me to give it so much skinny pedal.

Yep. Listen to Andrew, he knows whereof he speaks!

Larry

....202% of epa.....Andrew you are a BEAST!!!

If you're just accelerating to get up to speed, slow is the way to go.

If you're doing the "pulse" part of pulse and glide, then you want ~half throttle, or maybe a little more.

I still haven't figured out why those are different, but that's what people with SGII have told us.

-soD

half acceleration, it's a bit tricky, my car gets 19-20mpg while accelerating in top gear, so just stick to "as quick of an acceleration as possible without going up to the next gear or where your engine begins to lag.

Thanks, guys.

Think of it this way - each piston cycle can only pump so much air. At low rpm, even if the throttle is fully open, there's only so much air going through the engine. The control system will adjust the fuel to match. Even if you stomp it, it's not going to burn very much fuel.

But don't quite stomp it. 3/4 throttle is better.

edit for more answers:
If you watch a scangauge LOD reading, you'll see better why light is good at low speeds. In 2nd gear at 10mph, 75% load is somewhere less than 50% throttle. At 50mph and 5th gear, it's closer to 75% throttle. So start out light and gradually increase the throttle as you move up through the gears.

Ok, so my old way of barely touching the gas is wrong? Sweet, I can accelerate faster than a granny. Actually, one was tailgating me yesterday :)

Ok, so my old way of barely touching the gas is wrong? Sweet, I can accelerate faster than a granny. Actually, one was tailgating me yesterday :)


heh, it may have been her husband following me, who wizzed by after realizing i wasnt going to go above the speed limit.

Hehehe, unless you live in Texas I doubt it.

Ok, I finally got back from vacation and tried using high throttle, but I quickly stopped because I was accelerating faster than everyone around me. Doesn't feel like I am saving fuel to me! Are my RPM's too high or something?

Most likely, yes, your rpms are too high. Think of it this way: pick your throttle point, and use the gears and rpm to control the acceleration. It feels like a backwards approach, but it works.