Posted Thursday, February 9/06 in General

In late January, I made a trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and put roughly 1000 kilometers / 600 miles on the Blackfly. The driving was clear and windy.

This was the first long hwy trip I've done since adding or modifying a number of items on the car, and since learning about the pulse & glide driving technique.

For a mid-winter trip (though admittedly a mild one), my mileage was really encouraging.

Full MPG details after the jump - plus: how a good tailwind helped me along to an astonishing 73 mpg (US) on one leg of the journey.

Niagara-on-the-cheap

This is the first long hwy trip I've done since adding or modifying these items:

• full grille block
  
• cardboard wheel skirts
  
• slightly thinner engine oil (went from 5w/30 to 3.3w/26.7)
  
• warm air intake (I left it on even though my test results showed negligible gains in steady speed mpg)
  
• adapting more pulsing/gliding/porpoising/coasting into my driving when possible

The results:

• 52.5 mpg US (4.5 L/100 km / 63 mpg Imp): round-trip average, broken down as follows...
  
• 50.1 mpg US (4.7 L/100 km / 60.2 mpg Imp): on the way there (into a 25-40 km/h headwind)
  
• 54.9 mpg US (4.3 / 65.9): on the return leg (similar strength tailwind)
  
• 50.3 mpg US (5.0 / 60.4): prior to this trip this was my average mileage over 3700 km of exclusively hwy driving. I beat that figure by 4.4%.
  

Compare these results to the car's EPA hwy rating of 49 mpg US.

The mileage seen on this trip is significant for a couple of reasons:

• Considering the time of year (avg temps were around 3C / 37F during the driving) - and the fact that my previous hwy average was weighted to warmer weather (because I started tracking in April 2005).

• Because it was a long trip, I drove slightly faster than normal - I set the cruise at 95 km/h (59 mph) most of the time, though I varied my speed to suit the traffic conditions (ie. going faster to avoid being a nuisance) and topped out at 70+ mph (113 km/h) a few times.

10 kilometers of glory: 73 mpg US

The 73 mpg 10 km / 6 mi. stretch between St. Catharine's Ontario and Niagara-on-the-Lake.

This was a windy drive. The first leg started off going west along the north shore of Lake Ontario into a strong s/w wind (gusting 25-40 km/h). Driving at 95 km/h (59 mph) the ScanGauge was showing high 40's (US mpg).

The path to Niagara-on-the-Lake took me around the western tip of Lake Ontario, and as the direction of the highway slowly arced through the eye of the wind and continued turning east and away from it, the mileage dropped, and then started climbing again.

Now on the south shore of the lake, I exited the freeway and joined a secondary highway for the last section of the drive: about 10 km / 6 mi of dead level road (80 km/h / 50 mph limit) with a handful of traffic lights scattered along the way.

With the wind now squarely at my back, I hit "reset" on the ScanGauge's average fuel economy function and watched as it bounced around briefly and then began to settle down somewhere in the high 60's mpg (US).

In addition to the benefit gained from the tailwind, I was able to get in a few long glides around a couple of the stop lights, boosting my mileage even further.

By the time I reached my destination, the ScanGauge was resting steady around 73 mpg US (3.2 L/100 km / 87.7 mpg Imp). Amazing.