New V6 for Commodore?

[RB30-POWER]

yeah average figures i have had for rb30 are below,

and i don't drive miss daisy, they are reasonable on the freeway due to the chassis weight, especially if you give them tall gearing, like the vl, r31 revs higher then the vl equivalent due to short diff ratios and eats more fuel in freeway conditions. (needs a 6 speed)

shouldn't be able to compare to todays engines however, they are sohc, low compression ratio, basic engine management and injection modes, no variable cam timing, basic autos etc

honestly, govt fuel figures are mostly bullshit in real world, but good for comparison when new only, i watched the motoring show yesterday, they reviewed a prius with govt figure of 4.6l/100, they then tested the car in the city and showed a figure of 7.0l/100, wtf? they then said look at this awesome figure 7.0l/100, are you kidding, you just said half hour ago it is rated at 4.6l/100. i have a mates swift from 20 years ago that will pull 7l/100, pffft.

combustion engine, your never going to get it using bugger all fuel, they just aren't that efficient, 30% energy into coolant, another 30% out the exhaust, 8% fricitonal losses etc.


rb30e in r31 with extractors, exhaust, extra timing, 5 speed =
12.5-13.5 around town (8.9-10.5 freeway)

rb30et in r31 with exhaust, standard boost, extra timing =
13.5-15.0 around town

rb30det in r31 with exhaust, twin cam, 7psi, 5 speed, =
11.5-13.5 around town (11.0 freeway, needs less revs/different gearing, should be able to do high 7's)

rb30e in r31, bog stock with auto =
14.5-15.0 around town (11.0 freeway)

rb30e in vl with extractors, exhaust, extra timing, 5 speed =
(8.9-10 freeway)

rb30et in vl, exhaust, fmic, timing, 5 speed =
13.5-15.0 around town (freeway, 10.0-10.5 a/c on)

[Captiva Fan]

rb30e in r31, bog stock with auto =
14.5-15.0 around town (11.0 freeway)

This freeway thingy surprises me a little; I'd kinda forgotten the electronics weren't able to "light cruise" so well back then. Our VS Berlina gets more like 7 on the freeway (as low as 6 if I get the shits with changing lanes & knock it down to just under 100km/h).
If you were freeway driving a lot, you'd probably pay for a new aftermerket ECU in 12 to 18 months of fuel savings ...

[RB30-POWER]

i put that particular vehicle case down to the fact that the auto slips when full lockup is engaged, i reckon it should do 10.5-11l/100 on the freeway, it would not better 11.0 no matter how hard i tried.

breathing mods seem to make a significant difference to economy on most cars i have found, unless the factory system is a very low back pressure design.


on a side note, i went with a workmate down to sydney a few months back, in the ba work ute, i was utterly dissapointed when i glanced at the avg fuel usage once we got there (all freeway driving) it read 11.3l/100.

shithouse in my books.

[Euroboost]

Tripcomputers are borked with fuel economy averages. Our old VK would constantly claim 17-18l/100, 3.3EFI+traumatic+low diff+280,000+km =thirsty then a sailor on shore leave. When I worked out it's actual consumption it was closer to 15l/100km, which made sense since it was really only using abit more then our VS wagon. Likewise both the Verada and Voyager's tripcomputers read about 1-2l/100km average then what I calculate it to really be.

[snavy]

I was driving my sisters Fiesta around for a while I was getting 10-11 litres per 100kms! I think they quote 7 litres per 100kms?

I must have a lead foot.

[Sturmovik]

I averaged 8.9L/100km in a ZF 6speed FG, average speed was 65kmh, temp was 35 degrees with A/C on all day.

I reckon a Corolla in a similar scenario wouldnt have been much better.

[Fraud]

i've got to say i've found the trip computer in my BF ute to be pretty damn accurate every time i've done the maths on it..

futhermore i've also found it to be quite reasonable on fuel generally... when i had to go to goulburn for work last year, i reset it when i left, and sydney to goulburn and back it averaged 8.6L/100.. alhtough in a lot of heavy traffic it can blow out pretty easily.

the range mode on the trip computer is questionable - it puts a lot of emphasis on how much fuel it thinks is in the tank.. from full to 2/3 it behaves as i'd expect it to, then between 2/3 and half, the range keeps getting better, then from half to 1/3 it gets worse, then it starts getting normal from there on... although i think its too cautious, i've driven it several times now with the range at 0... that being said, a mate of mine had a BA xr6t ute and that wasnt cautious enough... it ran completely dry and was still telling him he had 15k's to go..

I suspect that the system it runs off is designed to work in the sedans well, and they just bunged it on the ute without any further calibration, other than telling the computer that teh tank is bigger.

[Captain_Slow]

The VE's trip computer simply says "Range Low" when you get down to under 50km, probably to avoid miscalculations/underestimates like the above. Annoying though when you want to know if you can drive 10km to the servo near your house or you need a closer one.

[Captiva Fan]

Tripcomputers are borked with fuel economy averages.

Shouldn't be ... it really should know how much fuel it's using. I guess if it's been fiddled with an interceptor style override to cope with mods it won't be accurate; but it should be very accurate if standard. The VS seems pretty accurate.

the range mode on the trip computer is questionable - it puts a lot of emphasis on how much fuel it thinks is in the tank.. from full to 2/3 it behaves as i'd expect it to, then between 2/3 and half, the range keeps getting better, then from half to 1/3 it gets worse, then it starts getting normal from there on

The VS doesn't do any of that; I guess it might always be underestimating the amount of fuel in the tank, as I've never let it run dry. But it has always behaved in a very predictable way; the distance it thinks you've got to empty seems to have been calculated over the last 'X' samples, whatever 'X' might be. As long as you're doing the same type of driving it's very very accurate; so it's fine if you're on a long highway drive, or you're doing around-town stuff the whole time. The only time it doesn't quite understand is when you move from one style of driving to another; eg. do half a tank on hte highway, then do the rest in heavy traffic, it does take quite a few minutes to adjust 'cos it hasn't yet had enough samples at the higher consumption rate.

Hasn't got any 'range low' stuff either, it keeps on predicting long past the stage where the car's all concerned about not having enough fuel & it's beeping & the low-fuel light's on etc ...

[Fraud]

one thing that annoyed me about a VZ hire car i had once was that the fuel guage itself wasn't a fixed indication of how much fuel was in the tank, but was a "how much you should consider putting more fuel in" guage... bloody annoying..

i remember i was going along the highway and it got down to a few roadworks sections where i slowed down and got held up or whatever and the needle dropped from half to a quarter, and then as soon as i got back to cruising at 100 it'd go back up to half... real fucking annoying...

[RB30-POWER]

i always found the r31 trip computer deadly accurate within 0.1l of actual averages.

best feature was pulling up actual fuel remaining in digital form, easy to see how many litres remaining rather then relying on the distance to empty which always seemed a little optimistic in my books. analogue gauges are a little hard to read, unless it's a bmw that has figures identified at each increment which are close to actual.

[paule11]

I still remember working for a company that got quite a few EA 3.2L as fleet cars. Oh my were they dogs (and the company stopped getting EAs after that)

You can imagine the anger of these guys who got EA 3.2s when people started getting 3.8L 4 speed auto VNs (a rocketship in comparison)

I remember them well getting the ea replaced by a vn in the ea you would have your foot to the floor to get going in the vn the first time I drove it put the foot down the same as the vn and it smoked it up. The vn seemed to go harder than the vp vr vs vt

[SCH]

lol - I once drove from home, to Willowbank, did 35 flat-out laps of QR at a driver training day, and home again in my M3, and it averaged 11.5l/100km for the day... and that was a 3.2 litre six

[Captiva Fan]

The vn seemed to go harder than the vp vr vs vt

The VN made more noise, plus the way they had the throttle set-up meant it took barely any foot movement to open the throttle a lot. It made them feel really responsive, & like they had heaps of go; you obviously ran out of go sooner, but in normal driving (and even when driving just a little aggressively) you generally never get there.
They were a bit of a PITA if trying to not look like a tool & it'd been raining & the roads were slippery.

[oioioioioi]

Not too much highway driving. Sydney traffic kills the urge to floor it for me. I see no point in gunning it the ~200m in between red lights and spend most of my time changing gears at ~2000rpm.

Oh, since I couldn't be fucked going and and buying a new air filter for it when I was having a look at the intake I just took the paper panel inside and vacuumed it. That, combined with removing one of the screens from the AFM and giving it a new lot of oil dropped my consumption by 0.5-1L/100km. My RB30 is probalby alot younger than most too, only ~180km on the clock.