Since my ZX2 is an auto with no plans of swapping. I am thinking of just seeing how good of gas mileage I can get out of it. Who would be interested in seeing mod by mod differences in gas mileage on my ZX2? I would post it up for all the tuners to check out.

my input:
chip
intake
udp
good highway tires
lighten it anyway you can]
hallow cat

with my mods I'm still getting about 33 constant mpg, even with hard driving I hardly ever see under 30 mpg, which is amazing me.

I also wanna do things like see if lowering car or changing tires pressures helps. Immediate goal will be a constant 35 mpg long term would be 40 plus mpg

one thing you could do is for the tranny B&M makes transkits that improve the shifting and time of the shift and everything for auto trannies. you would just have to see if they made them for the Z's tranny.

lowering helps...I commute and threw eibachs on. It deffinetly helped with the wind issues and resistance.

udp, intake, exhaust, header, ported intake mani and tb, then get some tuning to lean it out a bit.

Youll be set

I would like to know what would get better gas milage because my escort sucks gas

Matt

Hollowing out the cat is no better than having the mesh in there. Instead of backpressure against the motor, the exhaust instead loses all of its velocity expanding to fill the hollow chamber every stroke of the motor. Neither is good for performance.

You're 10x better off welding a pipe in there, and putting the skin of a catalytic converter over it to look like you have one.

well I noticed both performance and gas mileage when I did mine. Theories dont always go with reality.

Keeping stock exhaust keeps the back pressure, its not like I have 0 back pressure.

I'm getting 30+ mpg easily.

No complaints here, and my car doesn't even run right.

why is it by the way that your doesn't run right?
just curious

needs new plugs then dyno tuned to get the correct a/f, with the intake mani and fuel rail its all messed up.

i saw difference in gas mileage when i put in iridium spark plugs and ford racing wires. headers should help with gas mileage as well.

See thats what I am talking about everyone has an opinion on what gets better gas mileage. I am gonna document it and post it up for all to see what works and what doesnt

I never said it would be worse, I said you're no better off. What I forgot to add was that it was under typical conditions, and I concede that. However, your car is anything but typical ... and it was very likely your cat was plugged, especially with how you treat your motor (no filter for a long time, long time between oil changes, drive the flying piss out of it, etc). Somewhere in that combination, it's very likely you got dirty oil into your exhaust stream. We both know your cat was getting plugged, it was easy to smell it. Your car doesn't defy physics or fluid dynamics, there are just more parts to the story at work.

It's likely that someone will notice gains by hollowing it out. It's also likely that someone with a well-functioning converter will notice performance losses, especially in the top of the revs, by hollowing it out. Each car performs differently, and it shouldn't be a blanket suggestion to hollow the thing.

Hollowing the cat is something Paul can test, and we can get some graphed numbers behind it.


(As an aside: A good swap for the 03 guys is a clean converter from an older year, since the 03 has a much finer honeycomb (and it clogs very easily ) ... but only in states where removal or relocation of the cat isn't an option.)

actaully mine wasn't clogged. When I removed it, it looked mint. Only smelled when I drove hard, just like any other car does..when it gets some extra fuel in the exhaust.

I did notice a gain, I didn't stay the same, and I didn't lose any performance.

think what ya want. I really dont care. I know you dont like the idea to start with.