Help me see 55 mpg!

[Loren]

My groove. I wasn't on it.

Worse yet, my ScanGauge was lying to me. Was in a rush this morning and didn't check MPG when I filled up or I might have caught that it was off and reset it. So, I wasn't trying overly hard today (just wasn't in the mood), just did my usual DFCO coasting and gentle acceleration, similar to what I did to net 49.9 mpg before, but with about 10psi more air pressure in the tires, lower grille and foglight holes taped, right-side mirror folded and antenna removed. I did a little bit of FAS, and I did kill the engine at stop lights... figured that would have been good for a little, but it just wasn't happening.

The ScanGauge was telling me that I was getting close to 56 mpg. It peaked at 56.2 at one point, but couldn't hold it. Ended up with a 54.8 average on the first leg, 55.8 on the second leg, and 55.7 on the third leg. I thought I was doing okay... well enough to at least claim 1.5x EPA (54 mpg). Boy was I disappointed when I filled up, did the math and saw 49.92 mpg!

But, my buddy (the only other person who showed up!) had a better day in his Sentra. He's got the bad boy Sentra SE-R Spec V, 2.5 with a 6-speed. He wasn't planning to compete, but we talked last night and after he complained of never getting more than about 32 mpg out of the car, I assured him that based on the EPA figures, I was sure he could get at least 38 mpg on this trip. We talked about hypermiling techniques, and he tried a few on his drive home and found that they do indeed work... very well. He was inspired, went to bed thinking about it, and was STOKED in the morning, ready to run!

He attacked the event in his typical style. He's "all or nothing" when it comes to competition. So, he removed his back seat and some other weight (he's got the stuff unbolted already for racing), taped his grille, and proceeded to hypermile the hell out of the Sentra! He was trying WAY harder than I was, and he deserved the "win" in today's event. He returned 41.7 mpg out of a car rated at 27 mpg highway. Over 1.5x the EPA. Impressive, indeed.

He did it mostly by using FAS and extreme pulse and glide. His car has enough torque to accelerate pretty easily from 30 mph in 6th gear. So, what he did after some experimenting was accelerate up to 60-70 mph (depending on the road), kill the ignition and neutral-coast down to 30 mph (traffic permitting). He put my 10-15 mph pulse & glides to shame!

So, I guess I need to master FAS before I try another economy run.

Coolest thing today... I pretty much drove for 6 hours straight with a couple little breaks and only used 3.6 gallons of gas that I paid $2.01/gallon for. Where else can you get 6 hours of entertainment for under $10?