Horrible Gas Mileage Need Help!!!!!!
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 41
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Horrible Gas Mileage Need Help!!!!!! i have a 97 trans am 6 speed with full exhaust, cold air intake, pro 5.0 shifter and centerforce clutch and i just figured out my gas mileage. i got 190 miles on a full tank which equals about 12.5 mpg. all of my driving was city driving but even so i didnt think it would be that bad. what do you guys suggest i do as far as tuning or changing things goes to get better mpg seeing as this is my daily driver?
yea around town thats not super bad but not great for a 6 speed. i personally have a baby cammed A4 that gets about 15-18 around town and 18-21 on the highway. 3.23 gears.
my buddy with a pretty stout 6 speed LT1 gets about those exact miles per gallon but he has a CC305 so yea that might be some of the reason.
how longs it been since you cleaned your filter? or ran some injector cleaner?
my buddy with a pretty stout 6 speed LT1 gets about those exact miles per gallon but he has a CC305 so yea that might be some of the reason.
how longs it been since you cleaned your filter? or ran some injector cleaner?
TECH Fanatic
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 1,162
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From: St. Augustine, FL
check for exhaust leaks, bad O2's, vacuum leaks, tire pressure.... When did you last check your plugs and wires? A tune might help some but, I'd suspect you've got something wrong to be getting that kinda milage on a stock motor. How many miles are on it?... it might have lousy compression if its an old used and abused motor. So many things could be affecting your MPG. We need more info about your ride.
To get your true gas mileage try this:
1. Fill your car up like normal but dont top it off, just let it shut off by itself
2. Reset your trip odometer
3. Drive around untill your pretty much out of gas
4. Fill it back up until it shuts off by itself
5. Look at your receipt. It will tell you exactly how many gallons you just bought/used up during your week.
Look at your trip odometer and get the exact mileage you drove.
6. Take your miles (200 for example) then divide that by the number of gallons you just put in (lets say 10g) and there you have your miles per gallon for that week.
I like to do it this way that way I'm not trying to go by what my fuel gauge says (we all know these things aren't accurate on our cars) and I also dont like relying on me trying to remember exactly how many mile I drove that week.
So try it again and let us know how it turns out.
1. Fill your car up like normal but dont top it off, just let it shut off by itself
2. Reset your trip odometer
3. Drive around untill your pretty much out of gas
4. Fill it back up until it shuts off by itself
5. Look at your receipt. It will tell you exactly how many gallons you just bought/used up during your week.
Look at your trip odometer and get the exact mileage you drove.
6. Take your miles (200 for example) then divide that by the number of gallons you just put in (lets say 10g) and there you have your miles per gallon for that week.
I like to do it this way that way I'm not trying to go by what my fuel gauge says (we all know these things aren't accurate on our cars) and I also dont like relying on me trying to remember exactly how many mile I drove that week.
So try it again and let us know how it turns out.
Thread Starter
Teching In
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 41
Likes: 0
my driving habits are i step on it every once in a while and i keep it under 3500 rpms when shifting and try to stay at around 2000 rpm when im driving a constant speed. i bought the car about 2 months ago and the filter is a couple months old. i have never ran injector cleaner i dont know about the previous owner and the motor has 103,000 miles on it.
It sounds like you are just running too many rpms. There are only two instances where I will exceed 2000 rpms in regular driving. A: 2500 rpms in first gear from a stop to defeat the skip-shift. B. fifth gear. These cars have so much torque that you can accelerate from about 1500 rpms and lower in almost any gear.
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On The Tree
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 167
Likes: 0
Damn, I shift at 2300RPM or so, except first which is probably at around 3k. I still pull at least 16 MPG around town, and I've been abusing the crap out of it this tank (switched from Flowmaster to Magnaflow and felt an unbelieveable difference in power, so I've been beating the crap out of it). I've pulled 24MPG mainly highway mileage, but I didn't really baby it either. I try to keep it at 1500RPM or so while I'm driving. Around town, I generally do 50 and keep it in 5th.
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