I know that cars can have some good horsepower and good mileage. I've had some experience with cars like Mercedes and Porsche. I driven some that get 30+ miles per gallon at 80 miles an hour. These cars are fast also if you put the throttle to the floor.

How do they do it?
What can I do to mine?

I've always enjoyed and owned older carbureted vehicles and always done all the work myself...many 2 and 4 carb bikes, 4-carb VWs.

I've had various ideas of what I could do to my '90 Integra, but I'm convinced at this point that don't don't know enough about the newer type ECU/PGM-FI systems in this Acura.

I thought I'd like to get some input on this, but I'm not sure tuning for mpg will give me both HP and MPGs.


Really, these were my last two:



...had them both for a decade, and could do anything on them, but I have no experience with ECU based vehicles.


.

 

Is tuning lean the only way?

 

A buddy of mine just finished up his gas sipper a few weeks ago. Its SICK! Turbo d15 totally tuned. He wouldn't tell me his secrets but some of the stiff he was talking about makes sense.... Fluting the crank And smoothing out edges allows for smoother rotation, self port and polish the head custom cut valves and seats. Also, some sort of "restrictor plate" concept almost like a choke. No intercooler just runs his take from the turbo... Some weird stuff.. Pushes 250hp in his eg and rolls with 50mpg city...

 

Turbo is the most efficient way to make more power and retain the ability to have high MPG. That's probably why you see so many manufacturers going to them in the newer vehicles.

 

As you've mentioned a restricter plate........

I have wondered if tuning the intake and exhaust might have some effect. I noticed when I went to 2" exhaust from the original (a bit smaller) and high-flow Cat and muffler, the car didn't really perform the way I'd hoped and it was too loud anyway. So I had them add a resenator between the muffler and Cat. It worked much better and sounds great.

That really leads me to believe the intake and exhaust needs to set up right, or finely tuned. That is however, a big guess on my part.