A buck 18 a litre! Talk about poor oil companies!

Now I have been hearing a lot about people boycotting the purchase of fuel on the 15th of April. Any wonder fuel is going up to a $1.18/litre ($5.37/CND gallon) today? The oil companies are not going to loose a penny on April 15. They simply took advantage of the fact that the it's the weekend and people are more than likely going to be heading out for the weekend. And basically,the oil companies won't loose a penny. As a matter of fact,they've probably figured out how to make more money. So when it comes to the price of gas going up it's only natural that people are going to start researching how they can improve their gas mileage. Bullydog has an excellent unit called a "Watchdog" that monitors your driving habits and fuel consumption. It basically acts as your driving coach. And you can put away any doubts as to it's accuracy because it plugs right into your vehilces PCM through the on board diagnostic terminal.

  Now,a few other things that you can to to save some cash at the pump is to not go for the "gimmicks" that flyby night guys are coming out with. Magnets on the fuel line do not work. Other so called products that whirl the air around do not work. Sure they may use so called solid research and information that may actually sound like what ever product they are trying to get you to part with your cash for works however,if they worked why is it you can't get your money back? The technology that is required to get the results they are talking about costs many thousands of dollars and there's no way that vehicle manufacturers are going to implement this research on individual cars and trucks because they know that we still need vehicles we can afford.

  The solid tried and true methods of maintaining your vehicle work. Switch to synthetic oil in your engine,transmission and differential. Sure synthetic oil is one and a half times the cost of conventional oils but,it lasts twice as long and virtually eliminates wear and doesn't breakdown nearly as fast in stop and go traffic. Make sure your tires are properly inflated and are all matching.  And now that winter is finally departed,get rid of any un-necessary weight, use your fan without air-conditioning just to name a few. Here's a good one,drive the speed limit!..lol. I know that may be hard on the Auto Buans we seam to have in Alberta between Calgary and Edmonton or even Calgary and Medicine Hat but,you'll be saving wear and tear on your vehicle as well as being as economical as you can when it comes to your fuel economy.
I have a lot of car info posted on AJGeneral to go with this.

Fuel Economy Refresher course

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.