The EPA just announced.....
 

That they are going to waive the clean air act until Sept. 15th for the affected 4 states. He's also sending letters to the other 46 states to do the same as well. This will mean they will be able to get fuel to us faster. I think what they said is that they won't add any sulphur or anything of the other environmental things that could slow the process.

If you read the newest headlines... $4/gallon is coming VERY soon. Already at $3 as of yesterday about 4pm here. That would mean about $68 to fill my daily car! Wow! Just south of here not too far i heard it was $3.34 already. I'm in no hurry to even run my Eclipse anymore after i get the turbo back. There's more important things to worry about like what winter heating is gonna be like.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Yeah I've been waiting on pistons since like May, if gas was as cheap where driving was a fun way to waste time I'd be really pissed about it but right now I'm cool and patient with taking my time.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Its just gas, budget it in.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Only can budget so much though. I mean people only have so much money in their pot. Every gallon of gas i pump is completely paid for. I do not use credit cards whatsoever like some people. I didn't say i was going to stop driving but i am going to drive much less than i ever did and racing Eclipse is definately not a priority. Using that wasted money would better benefit the victims of the hurricane.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Gas prices do hurt, but it still only costs me about $6 for my round trip to work. Only my long leisure trips are affected. Things like driving all the way up to Maple Grove or Plymouth just to hang out.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Why can't automakers make transmissions that have more gears? The average automatic tranny has 3 gears right? Why can't they have like 7 or 8 gears? Sure you wouldn't have any power at pass time, but that's what computers are for, downshift/upshift. I think of it like a mountain bike having 24 speeds. When you're in that 24th gear you can go for miles upon miles but if you stop and start out again in that gear, you wouldn't have much power. Why wouldn't this idea work? It would be like multiple overdrives.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

because there are only soo many gears one can cram in a tranny like that? If you try to make the gears ubber small, they will break super easily. Also, that would only go into production for new cars..not dsm's..not a bad idea though.

-A. Swift

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Just get an AEM, run your A/Fs at 16.0-17.0 and use 87 octane. :)

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

At some point your revs drop low enough that your car simply does not have the torque to fight wind resistance.
My VR4 has a very long 6th gear. So long that its really not worth using it unless I'm sustaining speeds of over 65mph(as in, no gas mileage benefit). Even then I still only get 25mpg.
Its not about more gears, its about having the right gear for your speed. Do you think you can save gas mileage by using 5th gear when you are only going 20mph?
It works with bycicles becuase it is easier for us to push harder (torque) than pedal faster (horsepower). Cars are the opposite, especially 4 cylinders. Semis on the other hand, already have nutty amounts of gears because they have nutty amounts of torque.
Now, which would you rather drive to work? A fuel efficient 4cyl revving to 4k, or a diesel truck with lots of gears. All of this is probably why 4cyl turbo diesels are so fuel efficient.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Even if you had 7 gears, it makes no sense. Every engine has its peak efficiency point, any rpm below or above gets worse gas milage. And I can garuntee you that a DSMs peak efficiency point is NOT 1000 rpm. Lower RPM does NOT mean better gas milage.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Yeah, you all bring up good points. I'm just thinking of engineering ways to get better gas mileage. This is what i need below. Dam this thing looks sweet. It's in Euro dollars. I don't know what they would cost U.S. I live in a small town and could get away with driving that to work. The high school technology dept here built something as a project. It was a bike-car. I never got to see it but a friend told me about it. It got 100mpg. He said it was a motorcycle engine and they just geared it different or something. It was high school so it couldn't have been real rocket science. I think it was more of a grocery getter than anything, but still.

http://www.go-one.de/ukindex.shtml

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

now, you must be talking about fuel efficiency. because engines are most efficient at full throttle, probably a specific rpm also, but WOT, nonetheless.

and for my reply to the topic: it's easy for you to get great gas milage. get a light, aerodynamic car, and put a small, advanced engine without a turbo in it that uses cheap gas (like e85). you could also slap an electric motor to the engine and have more power, and not run it when cruising. (hybrid).

see how easy that is?

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

I don’t even know why we still use gas engines, they are so inefficient as we all know. Even if we could get a gas engine to run at 5000 degrees, it would only be 50% efficient. that’s a lot of gas wasted. I’m use to a way of life with cheep gas, now I have adjusted. I have no cable T.V. I have 56k dial up and I eat out allot less. My car still gets BP 92.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Yeah its 3.45 for premium here in chicago. I'd assume more expensive farther in the city.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Mercedes has a 7 speed auto in a couple of their new cars. But the highest and lowest gear ratios are probably pretty close to a 4 speed. Like DSM10sec said even if you geared a car to do 65mph at 1000rpm, it wouldn't be able to (unless it was a really powerful engine). I had a 94 Bronco with 32" tires and a 4 speed auto. It couldn't hold 65mph in overdrive unless it had no headwind and was on a flat road.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

I'm not enjoying it but I've accepted it. I plan out all the trips I need to make in a week and go at once, no more sparatic here and there stops. I also call stores a lot more to check prices/availability on stuff.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

I hate these gas prices. I use to complain about paying $2.70 per gallon. Now I'd be more than happy to pay that much! Good thing I filled up with it was still $2.80. I hope it drops back down by the time I need to get gas again.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

Yeah, i only drive about 3/4 of a mile to work so it's not that bad. I just think about food prices and heating fuel going sky high.

My boss however fills up his vehicle twice a work cuz he drives about 45-50 min to work(nuts). Gas a little bit south here, i'm told went to 3.34 today. So i think $5/gall is just on the horizon and not far fetched. Now it sounds like up to 90% of the oil platforms are shut down and the damage isn't even assessed on all of them. Anyway, He'd be spending $650/month in gas! That's crazy.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

You guys that think you need to run 92 octane because you got a turbo could save yourselves a decent amount of money right now. You only need 87 octane if you're not under boost or you turn the boost down pretty low. I think most DSM'rs are under the impression that you need high octane all the time, even if you're just loafing along on the freeway. Higher octane slows down preigntion(detonation), but if you're running a stock ECU, the ECU pulls your timing back a few degrees if it detects any knock. It will keep it there until it doesn't see any more knock and then only adds a bit at a time. So you can actually run the cheap stuff until gas prices go down to save on some coin, just don't be racing every fool that comes up at the light.

Re: The EPA just announced.....
 

You hit the nail on the head with your statement. Before i tore the turbo out of the Eclipse I had a tank of 87 octane in her. I have alky injection and had it on just over 16psi of boost. Absolutely no knock whatsoever. I could probably turn the w.i. off and run same boost & drive responsibly and still be fine. 92 octane is not mandatory in our cars, however it's mandatory if the conditions are there to mandate the need of it, if that makes sense.