bad fuel comsumption fixed, battery or intake/exhaust?

[prodigy 07]

Hi guys, I have previously wondered why my car returned high 13 l/100km to mid 14 l/100km when other members here seemed to get much better. 12 months or so ago I replaced the factory intake with a cold air intake that places a pod directly behind the passenger fog light. No real difference was noted in fuel consumption. 2 weeks ago I had a cat back exhaust (2 3/4" pipe from resonator to rear axle into 2 1/2" dual pipes with sports mufflers). Only a small improvement was noted.

A week ago my mechanic told me to be aware that my battery had tested low and he thought it was on the way out. This morning it failed to start, so I replaced the battery. Car probably only covered 10 kms to get home from battery shop.

This afternoon, I pulled the foglight surround out and removed the "flat" sections above and below the horizontal "rib" in order to supply a proper cold air feed to the pod. (The cold air induction, while providing less restriction did away with the factory cold air feed below the bonnet, and I believe was ingesting warmer air from beside the radiator).

Took it for a drive tonight and within 10kms from home, my readout was in the mid 10's. Was it the new battery or the cutting out of the foglight surround? Was it a combination of all these thing's?

Just thought is share my experience for others and look forward to hearing others opinions.

[quasar]

it has to learn how you drive ... 10 k's aint enough

[prodigy 07]

Ok, car covered around 20 kms today and dash readout has returned to its usual 14ish l/100kms . Looks like you were on the money quasar. Guess I was just hoping for something that wasn't there. Still like the idea of my car ingesting "cold" air instead of "coldish" air though.

[quasar]

yeah these cars have an adaptive system, meaning if you disconnect the battery looses it's memory, you then have to re-train the system, i.e. if give it heaps after you do this for about 50 K's then the system learns the way you drive and reacts accordingly, but 14L/100 km's is a little high, are you thrashing it / idling for long periods

Some pics would be nice of wut you have done with the intake and exhaust

I am thinking of inter cooling my TRD with a truck air dam ;), I'll post some pics when I decide to do this, my illustrious mech is going to do this ...

[prodigy 07]

Cheers David. My car doesn't get thrashed at all really. It does wife/kid duty 90% of the time. Usual suburban stuff, stop lights, roundabouts etc. Even when I drive it, I really only give it the occasional squirt to satisfy my cravings. Haha. Anyway, you asked for some photos.

[prodigy 07]

Oops, looks like I doubled up on one. I meant to load this one.

[quasar]

nice, wut wus the cost of the exhaust sys if you don't mind me asking and where did you get it done?, prob do sumfing like that when I inter cool mine

wut I meant by the thrashing / idling was that when u disconnect the battery and then drive ... were you with in the learning period of a) driving hard B) idling for a period of time ..... cause this would give you a false reading

wut I was interested in seeing wus the actual intake area ... is it taking too much hot air into the system from being too close to the radiator, but wut you have done is wut most have done, if too much hot air is being taken in then it could cause the system to either run rich OR lean and resulting in the high fuel consumption

[prodigy 07]

Got the exhaust done at enterprise st exhaust in bundaberg for change out of $700. On the thrashing/idling point, I probably babied it more than usual. ( I have got into the habit of driving it in sequential mode most of the time. Casually shift up from 1 to 3, get to 60k's shift to 4, roll on. I do also, use a little compression braking the same way.)

I decided to cut the foglight surround out to provide a fresh/cool air feed to the pod filter because I figured the same thing. All good and well to reduce the restriction in the factory inlet setup, but kinda don't make sense if I'm sucking warmer air from around the radiator and front engine bay. I tried to keep it as unnoticable as I could and with a can if satin black to disguise the white parts behind the cutout, I'm pretty happy. You'd have to know what you were looking for to see it.

[prodigy 07]

Just realised I have lost a pic of the front part of the tailpipe in the phone to laptop upload stage.(haha, I hate computers). Post it up tomorrow.

[Roughasguts]

Read outs are pretty dodgy at the best of time. How many K's to a tank do you get might be a better average.

I get easily 770 Km and top up with 55 litres, I would be looking at Air flow sensor being dirty to start with.

Cheers

[Mclarry]

Read outs are pretty dodgy at the best of time. How many K's to a tank do you get might be a better average.

I get easily 770 Km and top up with 55 litres, I would be looking at Air flow sensor being dirty to start with.

Cheers

You get 770km ?? i only get 500km on a full tank of 98 premium. I drive a ZR6, thought all aurions wouldve been then same.

[prodigy 07]

Mclarry, roughasguts, there seems to be quite a noticable difference between aurions. I feed mine 98 octane bp fuel religiously as I read some other members saying they preferred bp fuel. I do think the car runs "smoother" but not getting any better consumption figures when compared to caltex which I ran previously. I haven't actually worked out the figures for myself (re. Set the trip meter) but mine has always registered around the 14 mark. Had my mechanic check it out, he reckons everything is where its supposed to be with the computer. I'm still trying to figure it out myself.

[Roughasguts]

Yes I beleve there is better economy after 2009 update model and even better with the 2012 model as the chip or ECU or something was improved. Might want to try and find out exactly what was improved and see if it can be bought and replaced easily.

My daily drive is 220 Km round trip. say 160 Km freeway or the F3 90-110 KPH hilly and 60Km of stop start Sydney traffic stuff from Sydney to lake Maq and back! if I fill the next day after one trip I would put in approx 17-18 litres for the 220KM round trip with the fuel usage at best so far 7.36 litres to the hundred and 8.3 LP /100 so far being me worst.

Driving like a Grandpa of course, I don't woof it unless required, or my 5 year old want's daddy to play with a FPV or similar,

Oh I have only been using the ULP never E10 from the 711 servo's as I prefer there $2.00 coffee, not the service.

Cheers.

[prodigy 07]

Agreed, never run e10. My car does daily wife/ kid duty. Short runs, traffic lights, roundabouts, etc. Probably gets to see open road (ie. Above 70kmh)once a month if its lucky. Just for the record, took it for a 100 k round trip out of town last night. Came home reading high 11's.