After a long cold winter of watching people slide around and generally attempt to redefine the laws of physics when it comes to winter,snow and ice we are finally seeing some spring time weather. With any luck the street sweepers will be out in full force cleaning up all the gravel that got put out there for traction. I for one will be replacing my windshield this year. I've been talking to a friend or two about their ideas for a build up or just working on the grocery getter they drive right now. Although we live in Alberta and there is a lot of confidence in our provincial economy there still seams to be some apprehension about spending money on things like headers and dual exhaust,or even small things that make your engine run better.
Now I want to stress something here,I am not just some guy paid to write a blog about something I may or may not know anything about. This fuel economy refresher course comes from a bit of experience. I have been playing with engines for the better part or the last 26 years or so. When I tell you that an engine is just a glorified air pump,that means it is. The more efficient you make you engine pump the air fuel mixture,the better it's going to run. The funny thing is,performance parts make you engine pump air more efficiently. Aluminum intake manifolds
mix the air fuel combination better. When they are port matched to your cylinder heads
it improves flow into the intake runner of the head. Headers improve waste scavenging from the combustion chamber thereby evacuating spend gasses more efficiently. Dual exhuast
allows for more free flowing exhaust gasses to escape.
Now,anyone that understands performance "gets" what I am talking about. For the average guy or girl that doesn't know it means that you vehicle is going to run better all around. Including fuel economy. As long as you drive the vehicle basically the same as you did before. Of course most of us drive our cars and trucks a little harder when we have more power.
A friend of mine asked me about how he could get better gas mileage from his Chevy 4x4. I told him a throttle body spacer plate
,a set of headers with dual exhaust and an electric fan would help. He did all of these things and about a month later he said to me that his economy didn't improve it stayed the same but,he had a lot more power. Ok, let's look at this for a minute. Even if his truck has more power and the same mileage his economy improved! He could pull and haul more weight while maintaining high way speeds better when towing and hauling. See what I'm talking about? It turns out that when he crunched his numbers his fuel economy improved by 3 mpg and his horsepower improved by almost 30%. All for under $600.00! That was just with simple "bolt on" parts without going into the engine and adding a bigger cam or changing any of the operating parameters of the PCM. When combined with other power adders and computer upgrades it's easy to see where fuel economy
can get much better as well as pulling power and torque.
Now I want to stress something here,I am not just some guy paid to write a blog about something I may or may not know anything about. This fuel economy refresher course comes from a bit of experience. I have been playing with engines for the better part or the last 26 years or so. When I tell you that an engine is just a glorified air pump,that means it is. The more efficient you make you engine pump the air fuel mixture,the better it's going to run. The funny thing is,performance parts make you engine pump air more efficiently. Aluminum intake manifolds
mix the air fuel combination better. When they are port matched to your cylinder heads it improves flow into the intake runner of the head. Headers improve waste scavenging from the combustion chamber thereby evacuating spend gasses more efficiently. Dual exhuast allows for more free flowing exhaust gasses to escape. Now,anyone that understands performance "gets" what I am talking about. For the average guy or girl that doesn't know it means that you vehicle is going to run better all around. Including fuel economy. As long as you drive the vehicle basically the same as you did before. Of course most of us drive our cars and trucks a little harder when we have more power.
A friend of mine asked me about how he could get better gas mileage from his Chevy 4x4. I told him a throttle body spacer plate
,a set of headers with dual exhaust and an electric fan would help. He did all of these things and about a month later he said to me that his economy didn't improve it stayed the same but,he had a lot more power. Ok, let's look at this for a minute. Even if his truck has more power and the same mileage his economy improved! He could pull and haul more weight while maintaining high way speeds better when towing and hauling. See what I'm talking about? It turns out that when he crunched his numbers his fuel economy improved by 3 mpg and his horsepower improved by almost 30%. All for under $600.00! That was just with simple "bolt on" parts without going into the engine and adding a bigger cam or changing any of the operating parameters of the PCM. When combined with other power adders and computer upgrades it's easy to see where fuel economy can get much better as well as pulling power and torque. 
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