how did they do it?
the car was featured in this years ultimate streetcar challenge on sortcompact car magazine and it placed second in over all competition. does anybody know anything about this i need to know. specs, parts, tuning???

 

bullsh!t....ALL claims made by Crawford need to be taken w/ a grain of salt.

 

It was achieved through tuning a map specifically designed for fuel economy for the magazine's 70-mile test run. All of the contestants filled up at the same gas station and ran the same course. Sure, cheating is a possibility but more likely the tuning was set at the very edge of safety for a course where boost was to be avoided like the plague. The magazine notes that during the downhill section, some contestants shut off their engines, as well as employing other tricks like overinflated tires. Also noted was Crawford's exhaust tip at the end of the run - it was whiter than any of the others, indicating a very, very lean tune. Great for being stingy on fuel consumption but death to an engine used for everyday driving.

Tuning for that extreme type of fuel economy means that they had to closely monitor exhaust gas temps during tuning and probably fine-tuned the map during a road tune. Part-throttle light-load ignition advance was probably bumped as high as they dared go without causing a meltdown of the spark plug electrodes, piston tops or piston rings.

It's a lot of time and trouble to work out a tune like this and no doubt the other tuners felt that they could score points for the magazine shootout in the performance tests.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I've gotten a best of just over 30 miles per gallon on the open road with an off-the-shelf Vishnu reflash on a mildly modded 2.0 liter WRX. Other tuners have devised maps geared for greater fuel economy that might best my mileage but I don't yet have an AccessPORT to try them out. For maximum economy, you'd probably have to shell out for a custom tune, with final tuning done on real roads for the type of driving you normally do (flat terrain, hilly terrain, high altitude, stop-and-go traffic with heat soak, etc.).

Driving habits has a LOT to do with any car's fuel economy, as evidenced by the disparity in economy numbers posted by i-Club members in various threads with both stock and modded cars.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

370 miles on one tank in the wrx

 

how do you guys do that, the most I've ever gotten is maybe 220 or so. I drive like a grandma most of the time too, maybe that little bit of fun I do have really adds up in fuel consumption.

Did scc have a rule that a car can only use one map?

It's super easy to switch maps on the ap, and I think even ecutek has a map switching feature controlled by the rear defogger or something. Have you guys tried cobbs ots fuel economy map?

 

I don't know what SCC's rules read for their contest regarding maps but apparently they allow multiple maps.

In my daily commute, I average 23 miles per gallon. It's rare for me not to get at least 300 miles to the tankful with a mix of rush hour freeway driving and city driving. It's not easy to get 30 mpg in a WRX but I do it by maintaining a steady speed, with or without using the cruise control. If the speed limit is 65 mph, I do 65 mph. The power required to go faster is exponential rather than linear, so going twice as fast may require 4x as much power (and fuel). To get 30 mpg, I travelled Hwy 5 north of Sacramento to Red Bluff and back. At times, I actually went slower than the posted limit of 70 mph by following behind a big rig doing 60 mph. No, I didn't 'draft' him since I didn't want to pick up rock chips on my hood but I just found a trucker who maintained a steady speed and followed 2 to 3 seconds distance behind. If I drove further, I could have easily gotten over 400 miles to a tankful of gas.

Rule of thumb is to maintain a steady speed because every single sudden acceleration requires a big shot of fuel from the injectors from the sudden throttle opening.

--
0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

I drove from Eureka to San jose (320 miles) on 13.5 gallons of CA 91 octane.
I stayed at an average speed of 65MPH with the cruise control set. The entire way down there were a bunch of CHP. I watched literally 4 cars pass me and a CHP come out of no where and pull them over.

This was with an uppipe/TBE and a road protune by Ed @ EQ Tuning making 205WHP/TRQ.