Better Mpg

[twistedsymphony]

The best place to get a new driveshaft is from these guys: http://shaftmasters.com/

They're known to make really high quality well balanced drive shafts.

DO NOT get one from Drive Shaft Shop... they don't balance their shafts

[SYNTHETICDARKNESS]

thanks for the info, called and they said about 300, but with the way our driveshafts are they can't do them in aluminum, dang it. crv still running great, with the high mpgs, and did my usual checks to make sure there are no computer errors.

[So-CalVX]

How are ours different?
I'll bet if u called on a SWB trooper they'd say, "no problem"

[Thmstec]

This post is just in relation to getting good MPG, thought this would be a good place to put the post.

I just got to doing calculations about all the traveling I was doing over the past 3 weeks. So here are the results with all sorts of fun details:
Stock 99 VX, 87 octane only, roof rack, loaded trunk (seats folded, stuff stacked to ceiling loaded)

1st Trip: Leesburg, Virginia to Huntsville, AL. 5:30 PM EST till 5:15 AM EST. Mobile 1 (I switched it to Mobile 1 when I got it, so this was sorta the "clean up" oil cycle from whatever the old owner used). Average speed 70mph. No cruise control. All freeway. Drafting off an overloaded mazda b4000 pickup (ford ranger). AND a guesstimate 3 ounces of acetone per 10 gallons of gas. 22 MPG AVERAGE

2nd/3rd Trip: Huntsville, AL to Auburn, AL and then back again two days later. During normal hours. Same as above except- not all freeway, average 65mph with about 20 min of stop and go traffic mixed in. 20 MPG AVERAGE

4th trip: Huntville, AL to O'Fallon, IL. 6:00 PM CST till 2:00 AM CST. This time no acetone. 45mph cruise w/draft for 1 hour (darn contruction and traffic that slows for it). rest with 70mph cruise w/out drafting. Cruise control the whole time. >85% freeway. 21 MPG AVERAGE

in-between 4th and 5th I do an oil change- mobile 1 and 12 ounces marvel mystery oil in the oil, 4 ounces mmo thrown in the next fill-up.

5th trip: O'Fallon to Huntville. Noon CST till 6:30 PM CST. No acetone. Marvel Mystery Oil has was a fill-up ago. 70mph cruise w/out draft (no contruction prob this time). same >85% freeway route. Cruise control the whole time. 24 MPG AVERAGE

6th trip: Huntsville to Auburn. Late afternoon trip. Not all freeway, cruise average 65 with about 20 min stop and go mixed in. Drafting off truck again. No cruise control. No acetone. 22 MPG AVERAGE


Thoughts/conclusions and other tidbits:

Acetone did smooth out idle, but then when I stopped putting it in, it was still smoother than it use to be . I believe it did improve milage, but I can't say for certain it is because of optimized vaporization.

Before this 3 week period of heavy traveling this VX was mostly city driven. I normally got anywhere between 13mpg and 16mpg. Never tried acetone before the trips.

Drafting helped when the roads were flat and the lead car was in cruise control. But hills revealed that the cruise control in the VX was quicker to speed up than the Mazda, which was problematic enough for me to stop using cruise control. So it felt like cruise control was better for MPG than drafting. Not enough tests to say definitively though.

Marvel Mystery Oil seems to REALLY help- even more than acetone.

I never ran the tank below 1/8th, most of the time I filled up around 1/4th just to eliminate any variables a close to empty tank can result in. Although a pic of OVER 400 miles on the trip-o-meter was quite tempting.

Wish I had the chance to try MMO and Acetone together to see what the combined effects would be and further verify acetone's effectiveness. But I can say with certainty trying either one of these things will improve your milage.


WOW that ended up being a long post. Sorry to threadjack SYNTHETICDARKNESS- But I hope this multitude of info proves useful to my fellow VXers. If I get the chance I'll follow up with some city mpg tests I will. But I think there are just too many variables in driving around town (not to mind how much self discipline it would take to drive consistently around town) for anything <35% changes in mpg to be definitive, and I doubt that I'm getting that much.

[JHarris1385]

Real quick - I agree with the above....I ran about 10 tanks with acetone and gained about 3-4mpg.... I switched to my 20 rims and 31 tires which are heavier than my 265/75-16 and now without any acetone I get 17.1-17.4 mpg (compared to the last time I ran this setup I was getting 13.6-14.1) The VX just runs cleaner now.

[SYNTHETICDARKNESS]

no problem, love when people are very detailed, I thought that's what these threads are for, especially people like me and the others that love the detail that explains how people do things a certain way to get the results. I took mine down to pittsburgh friday and I filled up here I'd say half was highway, then rest city going through pittsburgh made me bald, but anyways I had about 34 psi in all tires, oil was good, everything fine, drove around home for a while and I got 495 then I ran out of gas a mile away from the station oops, but it is so hilly over here up down up down and on the straights my scangauge said 29 to 30 at 70 mph until I had to give it a wee bit of gas then it went down around 22-25 mpg. I wanted to use the acetone, but afraid it might eat away seals, think I will buy some and put it in a container then put some gaskets and seals and let it sit over time to see what happens, I've heard of people getting 2 to 3 mpg extra running it, but I can't seem to find big sources on the internet with info, lots of people though, but I need more, gee sound like a woman (no offense to any ladies). , but in our honda we are getting around 50 to 70 and we are around 500 miles at little under half a tank. if this works I'm getting me my own. I have no idea about the tire thing though maybe your getting better because the throttle response might be touchier, you'll have to let us know. As for our shaft he seen a picture of one and said he couldn't, but he could make one just not aluminum.