Some BMW cars have a vacuum gauge already built into the instrument panel—but it's cleverly calibrated not in inches of vacuum, but in miles per gallon. A lot of heavy equipment, trucks and most piston-engined aircraft have a vacuum gauge on the dash.
Sorry, it won't work on diesels, which have no throttle blades and consequently have no manifold vacuum. The hardest part of the installation will be finding a hole through the firewall to route the hose. You can usually just sneak the hose through the grommet that the wiring harness already uses.
I'd also wire the gauge's internal lighting into the same circuit as the panel lights, so it dims along with the dash. You might need a small adapter or tee to splice into an existing vacuum line underhood. All thumbs? Any decent mechanic should be able to install one in an hour.
Again, driving for the best mileage will come intuitively. Just maintain a high manifold vacuum as you drive. OBD is short for On-Board Diagnostics, and it's an industry standard for the interface to diagnostic equipment used by mechanics to repair and maintain the emissions control system. The OBD port, by regulation, is under the dash somewhere near the driver's kneecaps.
A mechanic plugs his scanner tool into this port to check the trouble codes that make the Check Engine light come on. He can also monitor hundreds of engine parameters while the car is driven, giving him insight as to what a problem might be. You don't need a scanner to do this, though. You can use the ScanGauge, which plugs into the same connector and is designed to be mounted on the dash.
The ScanGauge works like a scan tool, giving you trouble codes and letting you turn off the CE light. More important for the purposes of this story, it also has a number of trip-computer functions—including a real-time mileage monitor.
There are plenty of other things you can monitor, too, such as manifold vacuum and fuel-injector opening. The ScanGauge is even hackable, so you can customize the readout and monitor virtually anything that's available on the vehicle's data bus. I like to drive along with the display reading out four things concurrently: instant mileage, distance to empty, percent of engine load and my favorite—the amount of money I've burned in the engine today. Using the ScanGauge, I've reduced the fuel consumed in my customary morning commute by a whopping 40 percent.
I suggest mounting the display on top of the dash, near your line of sight. There are even some mounts available for attaching it to the rearview mirror. The Kiwi is somewhat more consumer-oriented than the ScanGauge. This user-friendly device has most of the same scan-tool and trip-computer functions but uses a color organic LED display instead of a simple alphanumeric readout.
It also does frilly stuff like letting you upload images to watch while in the car. More important, it uses its display to give you real-time readouts on fuel economy.
But unlike the ScanGauge, it keeps track of things such as the smoothness of your acceleration, how much you use the brakes and even whether you're accelerating too slowly which can waste gas by keeping you in lower, less efficient gears longer.
Carrying excess weight wastes gas. Choose the right octane gas for your car. Check the owner's manual to find out what octane your engine needs. Octane ratings measure gasoline's ability to resist engine knock. But the higher the octane, the higher the price. Only about 6 per cent of cars sold need premium gas. Still, premium gas accounts for about 10 per cent of all gas sold. Resist the urge to buy higher octane gas for "premium" performance. Combining errands into one trip saves you time and money.
Several short trips taken from a cold start can use twice as much fuel as a longer multipurpose trip covering the same distance when the engine is warm. Trip planning ensures that travelling is done when the engine is warmed-up and efficient. You can improve your gas mileage by one to two per cent by using the manufacturer's recommended grade of motor oil. For example, using 10W motor oil in an engine designed to use 5W can lower your gas mileage by one to two per cent.
Thicker oil is harder to pump. This adds to parasitic horsepower loses. Avoid "revving" the engine, especially just before you switch the engine off; this wastes fuel needlessly and washes oil down from inside the cylinder walls. This is really bad thing for the next start up, as the cylinder walls will be dry. Drive steadily. Slowing down or speeding up wastes fuel. Also avoid tailgating.
Not only is it unsafe, but if affects your economy if the other driver slows down unexpectedly. Do not rest your left foot on the brake pedal while driving. The slightest pressure puts "mechanical drag" on components, wearing them down prematurely. This "dragging" also demands additional fuel usage to overcome the drag. Avoid rough roads whenever possible, because dirt or gravel can rob you of up to 30 per cent of your gas mileage.
Every time the wheels bounce up and down, forward motion energy is removed from the vehicle. The best way I can describe this is to experience driving on a "washboard" road. Not only is it very uncomfortable, the vehicle will actually slow down from the transfer of energy - and you thought physics classes would have no application later in life! This causes the driver to apply more throttle - wasted fuel.
Inspect suspension and chassis parts for misalignment. Your engine would be fine. So What Can Destroy an Engine? Nitat Termmee Getty Images. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below.
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