Am I saving gas by doing the following?

Question

I have a ford laser sport '91. It's 1500cc

When the car is warmed up I can travel at 60km whilst doing 1500revs. I usually stick to this speed when I'm on a backroad. Am i saving gas, would I be saving more gas if i went 100km?

Also I usually travel 80km-90km on the highway (slow I know) Will i be saving more gas?

Please give me some speed tips on saving gas.

Also; say I'm on an open road and I'm going 30km at 1500revs and put my foot down to hit 2500revs till i get to 60km then just stay at that speed or will I save more gas just letting it gradually pick up. Mainly because if it revs for longer at a slower speed I figure I'm waster gas

I get about 2550revs - 2600revs at 100km. It's just about the 2 1/2 rev mark.

Driving Automatic

Answer 1

The first thing to understand is the co-efficient of drag. The faster you go, the harder the air is that your car is pushing through. In America, they set the speed limit to 55mph in the 1970's energy crisis to save energy. As a result of keeping people in the softer air of slower speeds, there was a tremendous savings of fuel overall.

The RPM of the engine doesn't really tell you how much fuel you're using. Think about this: When you are going downhill, you're using very little gas pedal to produce 1500RPM, but going uphill would require you to push the pedal most of the way down to accomplish the same rev.

You will save gas by avoiding heavy acceleration, for sure. Fuel consumption is directly related to the position of the throttle, so the further down you're pusing it, the more fuel you're gonna use. Gentle acceleration is definitely more economical.

Best rule of thumb, find the level of acceleration that allows the gears to shift without feeling much of a jerk in the car.

Answer 2

One of the best ways to determine the peak efficiency of your cars engine is to get a vacuum gauge. Don't let them talk you into getting a boost gauge because that will only help if your car is supercharged or turbocharged. What a vacuum gauge does is measure the amount of vacuum created by the engine. An engine is essentially an air pump, and it is working most efficiently when it is using the vacuum effects of the pistons to its advantages. When you can cruise with the gauge at the highest (which may be even closer to 2000-3000rpm) that is when your cars engine has enough energy and enough momentum to keep the car at that speed. While at lower speeds, you are going to use more fuel rather than less because the torque curve peak (an engine power measurement) is higher than that. In other words the motor will be working harder to move the weight of the car at those low rpms. An easy demonstration with a standard shift is to shift into each gear earlier than you normally would. The car has sluggish response because the motor has a very low amount of torque at low rpms.

Answer 3

Forget about the revs. If you go 80 km/h you will definitely save gas then by going 100 km/h. At 100 km/h, you will be using nearly double the gas then at 80. To save gas, use a slow acceleration. However, do not accelerate so slow that you are a menace on the road.

Answer 4

I'm pretty sure you will need to know the amount of gas used at each rpm measurement to figure that out.
MPG = Speed divided by gas usage per rpms for that speed. That is, if you ignore gas usage to get to that speed.
New cars have the optimum rpms for gas usage in the manual. Not sure if that's the case for older cars. Maybe some website has it?

Answer 5

The best idea is to try and go fast enough to get the transmission into the top gear and try and hold the speed steady. Usually, that's where your car will run most efficiently

Answer 6

basicly the lower the revs in the highest gear the less fuel used, move the accelerator slowly for less fuel