Uprev Tune
 

For those of you who had the Uprev tune, what did it do to your MPG? My stock tune was a little too rich and I assumed the MPG would go up a little after leaning the A/F ratio. But I lost about 2 MPG with the tune. I can switch back between stock and tune so I have been able to verify the loss in MPG.

How did you arrive to the conclusion that you lost 2 MPG? Maybe your driving style changed. A tune is meant to make your car more aggressive, I've never heard of anyone who got tuned to save 2 bux with every gas up.

he could be correct. When i changed my tune/parts to my old car i got better gas mileage...seems like everything i did i got better mileage as long as i wasnt stomping on the gas all the time.

I can change from tune to stock with a touch of a button. Over the past few weeks I have switched back and forth driving the same routes, with the same driving style and am getting 2 mpg better with the stock tune. I didn't get the tune to save money but to increase performance. However, I assumed that when leaning a mixture (with all other conditions the same) you will get better gas mileage.

That is not necessarily correct.

To achieve the highest MPG, you need to be running at the most optimum AFR, not too rich nor too lean. It is at the point that your engine is running at it's maximum efficiency. Once you're running at the highest efficiency, you will also be getting the maximum MPG.

How?

Let's say you want to cruise on the highway at 80mph, let's also assume for that to be achieved, you'd have to be doing 2.5k rpm in 6th (gearing designed like that). Let's also assume that you're current AFR (before tune) is at AFR 14:1. Now at 2.5k rpm, the throttle needs to be open at say 30% to let in X amount of air which will combust with X/14 amount of fuel to produce the 100bhp needed to overcome road friction and aerodynamic resistance, just enough bhp to keep that car going at a constant speed (zero acceleration). Now let's say, our engine are most efficient at an AFR of 12.0:1 and you got a tune to get you do 12.0:1 @ 2.5k rpm. In this case, to generate that same 100bhp to do 80mph, you won't need the throttle to be open at 30%, you can now get it to open at 25% only since you're getting a more efficient combustion now. You automatically will be burning less fuel per same distance traveled @ 80mph which is what yields the higher MPG number.

Hope that makes any sense

PS: the numbers I used were completely random just for the sake of comparison

Unless you're tuning for economy reasons, you can throw all math out of the window. There are thousands of adjustments than can be made to the fuel maps, at any level of throttle position, whether or not its in open or closed loop, knock retard maps, etc etc etc

Every variable is potentially tunable if it's worked on, but it all needs to be considered for the final goal..

So, you're saying that a richer mixture yields better gas mileage because you use less throttle? :icon14: And who tunes a car to cruise at 12:1 anyway?

The numbers I gave were out of my azz just for the sake of demonstration, but yes, the best gas mileage will be achieved when the engine is operating at it's maximum Thermal Efficiency, regardless of whether you had to go richer or leaner.

I disagree. The best gas mileage occurs when the least amount of fuel necessary for healthy combustion is injected into the cylinders :) That's why we shoot for mixtures of 14.7:1 for idle/cruise (if the cams permit this lean of an idle), and sometimes even leaner if we're really trying to go for maximum fuel economy under cruise conditions.

Have you asked UpRev for an explanation? They would be more likely to know why your results are different than your expectations. Perhaps a tune could be created using the stock profile up to 80% throttle, then phase in to the performance tune up to full throttle to get the best of both tunes. Let us know what UpRev has to say.

What is it you mean by healthy combustion? Sure you can get a healthy combustion, but that won't necessarily be your optimum or most efficient point. Theoretically speaking, it is only at that efficient point that you get the most HP out of Fuel burned or in other words, the least amount of fuel required to achieve a certain HP which is what you're looking at to keep you cruising at the highest MPG