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"70% might be the optimal throttle plate opening for many ICE’s but factor in wind resistance and friction as RPM’s rise and it cancels out any gain"
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Xcel, Sometimes I wonder if we are even speaking the same language. I mentioned in my previous post that I keep the RPM below 2000 when driving "boost and coast". I also drive at legal speeds except during the ocast phase when I'll allow the speed to go up to 15MPH over legal if the grade and conditions permit.
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"Basjoos, I had that kind of mileage of an Avis owned Mercury Mountaineer w/ Auto earlier this spring (27.9 mpg off its rudimentary game gauge) that wasn’t even close to setup for > 100 miles before my daughter took over for the rest of the drive home. She works for Avis so that is why we had this car for a weekend drive down to the U of I."
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That 26MPG in the Ford F15 4WD was made under a regime of mostly short trips. This truck is my farm truck and as such is being used for what pickup trucks were originally designed for (and has a beat up truck bed to prove it). Most of the driving was local; a 3 mile drive to the county dump to haul off a load of garbage, 12 miles into town to the Tractor Supply to pick up bags of animal feed, rolls of field fencing, or T-posts. It took me over 2 months to use up that tank of gas and the longest trip on that tank was 40 miles when I made two trips to pick up loads of hay. I'm sure if I had cruised on several long trips with a empty truck bed I could have easily have gotten higher MPG's. On trips while towing the stock trailer (loaded with stock for half of the trip) I managed 16MPG.
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"The last time I drove the 03 Corolla LE back and forth to work for a week, I had a nice 51.8 mpg average over 751 miles. It is only rated for 38."
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On all of the tanks that I've so far have added to this database, I've had to travel into the mountains of NC. On these trips, I climb a steep grade on US25/Gap Creek Road up into the NC mountains and have to do a lot of braking on the way back down, which takes a toll on the MPG's. On tanks that I have driven entirely within the rural Piedmont of SC I've gotten over 60MPG, but since I started adding my tanks to this database, I haven't had any tanks where I been able to stay entirely in SC.
In comparing the two methods of driving, I find DWL somewhat boring as I drive over hill and dale with the accelerator held in a fixed position. I'm sure if I had a game gauge it would become easier as the gauge would keep me mesmorized in tracking fuel consumption. On the other hand, driving "boost and coast" is far more interesting as I accelerate relatively quickly, take the hillclimbs at fairly open throttle and then take the roller coaster ride down the other side. In my normal driving I usually mix both methods, using DWL on the flat and slightly undulating roads, then switching to "boost and coast" on the hillier sections and for urban driving.
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