S2E18: We test a lean burn system on our Saturn . Will it get better MPG?
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- Season 2 Episode 18 . For today's experiment, we modify the fuel injection system on our 97 Saturn project car with an adjustable lean burn system. Once the system is installed we take the car our for a series of road tests.
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From what I've looked into previously about lean-burn you reportedly have to adjust the ignition timing to see any real advantages.
would make sense that it needs something to offset the wasted energy of wasting energy compressing excess oxygen,
Increasing compression and adjusting ignition timing is what I've understood. The Mazda skyactiv X setup also does the injection timing but I think they are reaching almost 30 to 1 ratios and using a spark induced diesel cycle (compression ignition) when this happens.
This lean burn series is going to be really interesting. In older carburetor cars, if you ran things too lean for extended periods of time you ended up with hot spots that would damage things inside the cylinder. It looks like selective usage might overcome that.
Insight has an offset crankshaft too.
this is due to the high vacuum in the intake, lowering the compression of the air entering the engine. The loss of compression results in a slower traveling flame front. In order to compensate, you need to advance the ignition timing. This creates a more efficient burn and produces much less emissions.
Yes, the Insight will go to around 30° advance in LB.
I love hanging out with friends and family, going to the beach or just being a couch potato and binge watching TV shows or watching a good movie.
I usually watch a lot of ROBOT CANTINA I even binge watch on the weekend.
@@mommapanda5736 CONGRATULATIONS JIMBO..105k subscribers!!👍👍 ROBOT CANTINA is providing the fun and
educational content that viewers enjoy! Let's keep that number rolling on up! THANKS TO YOU JIMBO!~
@@kansasrose2909 Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow..
Aside from the heinous planet vehicles produced by GM in the 90s, this channel is fantastic. Questionable jungle site chicom made stuff too! Fantastically applied sarcasm is great!
Laz and I had Chevy Volts with custom tunes that used lean burn. We no longer drive Volts, but you really should take his comments seriously. He really knows his stuff. We had 4 people using our tune.
A teacher is a person who helps you solve problems you would never have without them.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow..
Yes!! Science is about the results!
Of course, finding something unexpected can and does mean validating your experiment before making a declaration. I love that you're doing it right. (Well as right as possible; you don't have a hundred-million-dollar laboratory after all.)
I come here for the experiments and stay for the fun of these videos.👍👍.. All very entertaining !💥💥💥
I turn 32 at the end of this year, and as much as I love my life and the choices that I have made that have lead me to where I am, it’s hard not to feel “behind” when looking at friends who are engaged/married/have kids/have fancier job titles/bigger pay checks/more prestige. Are these things that I even want? I don’t know, but I feel like I should know by now, and it scares me that I don’t.
For a long time in my work life I’ve been tumbling from one closed door to the next open window, nothing like I planned or dreamed, and feeling like there was so little choice. But I think it’s so true that with time/age and resources we can work on creating the life we wanted, picking up those lost threads when we are finally ready.
I take pride in the slow bloom! I’m a goddamn swan! I take pride in the trust that I have in myself, that I’ll improve with practice. My tenacity is a super power. Do I wish I had the means to be a homeowner? Do I wish I was remotely coordinated? Do I wish I had my own business up and running? Do I wish I had my little sister’s brains and bone structure and my big sister’s social skills and physique? Helllllll yeah
@@ocdman202 HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
Thanks for another amazing video, the hoops you jump through to make this stuff understandable and entertaining is astounding! Questions: Do you think that the lean burn may be causing the engine to run hotter than normal? Hotter than normal can causes more fuel burn? From personal experience with small displacement air cooled scooters. you don't think that the parasitic draw from both the ac compressor, and the power steering pump would help you pick up that ~3 mpg that you saw, from some experience keeping older cars running, dropping an old ac compressor can pick up 1 mpg pretty easily. Thank you again this is so great to watch.
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
He should do Saturn maintenance videos. Great quality
To all the very valued viewers of this fantastic channel and primarily to JIMBO OF ROBOT CANTINA ..It's December and the Holiday season is upon us, with celebrations like Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Mid-winter or Yule, and New Year all approaching. Wishing you a joyous Holiday season and a happy and peaceful New Year. Thank you for a fun ride.
I used to do a lot of ecm tuning in mostly GM. I used hp tuners. Most people don't know this but most GM vehicles from about 97 to 2005 have what they call lean Cruise which is the exact same thing that you're talking about here. This system is not activated or set up but being I learned how to set it up and it was one of my better money makers when I was younger. Every single car or truck I ever did it on had a fairly decent bump in fuel economy.
I didn't realize or would not have thought that the signal would be opposite
Something that's crossed my mind from time to time is hot water. Nearly boiling, so combustion heat quickly and easily turns it to steam pressure.
I too read somewhere that the correcg way to run a leanburn system was with a few more degrees of ignition advancement, because of something like a slower flamefront/burnspeed
Heavy stuff 👍, my head is still spinning.
Jimbo, please keep making these great videos!
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow...
@@ocdman202 HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple..
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow...
@@ocdman202 HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
Really cool video!
GTI driver here: loved the "better than a subaru" crack!
13:35, It's a saturn thing indeed. stay with the copper cheapies folks. I used to own an SL1 with a 5 speed manual, and yeah, you can actually get 38-41 MPG highway regularly with very careful driving.
Took me awhile to get to the latest vid, great content again Jimbo, try pulling up throttle percentage on the scan gauge, I played around a long time ago trying to improve economy on the tow car, I found at lean AFR I was having to use higher throttle opening, I got similar results to you..
It's official, he's insane. A 04 WRX STI is so much fun to drive and such a nice looking car. Sure, every other Subaru, but the WRX sucks, I'll give you that.
HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
Jimbo, you have to factor in that the stock narrowband sensor was likely inaccurate to begin with. They only have an operating lifespan of about 10 years.
When narrowband sensors start to fail, they fail-safe and start to intentionally read lean, tricking the ECU into putting in more fuel as a safety-net. That'll lower your MPG.
Awesome experiment!
Loved the explanation of the code and hardware.
Didn't like seeing how cheap your fuel was.. I'm in the UK 😂
Would have been around $38 of fuel here for your 4.5 US Gallons... and that's on a good day.
One of my biggest concerns is using the gas pump to check how much fuel you used. I have noticed even using the exact same pump to fill up that sometimes it shorts me and I get amazing fuel economy for the last tank, but then the next tank my fuel economy is way back down when I fill up that extra half gallon or so that the pump shorted me the last time. Unfortunately, to get really accurate data you should use a separate fuel cell and use fuel weight, like when Mythbusters tests fuel economy. Even just temperature can affect how much fuel you get at a fill up. If you can use a separate fuel container, it will also let you make shorter trips since the data will be much more accurate.
I love that you are doing this work and that you a sharing it on youtube
You couldn't pay me to jump forward and skip that description
I love my Saturn. Not enough to fix every issue with it but it'll be my daily until it dies. : )
Great job professor, and no I did not jump ahead
I watched the whole video. I am thinking about the
gifts I can send you so that I can have my name up and
my box unpackaged on your video... Something I dream about.
I did not jump ahead either, I like watching the entire video each time.
@@kansasrose2909 I can think of so many gifts I can send this guy.
@@ocdman202 The easiest way to find a lost tool is to buy a
replacement,
@@mommapanda5736 Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow..
@@ocdman202 HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
Technically, burning lean should directly correspond with better MPG, since you're using less fuel for the same number of engine rotations. Your problems are heat and NOx. And it's why manufactueres don't really do it. Cheaper to do cylinder deactivation, hybrid drives and so on.. lean burn is scary cause you can melt pistons pretty easily if you don't have the engine designed for it.
It is not about the car you drive, It is about the way you drive it.
Be Careful!
@@ocdman202 To all the very valued viewers of this fantastic channel and primarily to JIMBO OF ROBOT CANTINA ..It's December and the Holiday season is upon us, with celebrations like Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Mid-winter or Yule, and New Year all approaching. Wishing you a joyous Holiday season and a happy and peaceful New Year. Thank you for a fun ride.
Greetings from Odesa, Ukraine! Love your videos ! I own grand Cherokee zj 1993 4.0, and i really want to add another oxy wideband sensor) just to see what happens in all modes of driving
Not sure why the leanburn results were lower, but 47mpg on a car with ac and power steering pumps removed is possible. New plugs could have made some difference depending on how old the other ones were.
Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow...
@@ocdman202 HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
Insight runs at 22:1 in lean burn. Ignition timing needs to be advanced in lean burn.
14.7:1 is slightly lean with E10 fuel, which should be at about 14.1:1 AFR, hence the improved MPG without "lean burn" enabled.
17.3:1 AFR is not lean enough to save fuel with lean burn, and actually puts you in a "more fuel use" valley. It needs to be closer to 19:1 to begin to make an improvement.
Another long awaited dose of entertainment!
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Would enjoy seeing you do a hot vapor system next.
A maf reading would be nice and maybe tps. Could not tell you why but maybe the ecu was letting more air in rather than the expected lowering of ipw.
this is an interesting channel. Subbed!
Sucks, I got notified 3 days after the drop. Thought I had subscribed. I am now
I guess adding a bung and running it with the factory o2 sensor and see if the numbers match but you got a better wide band now
Always leaving me needing more. Why?
Why?
Why?
🤣😂🤣😂
Would you be interested in a free wideband gauge with digital and analog outputs, all you need is a new wideband O2 sensor for it. It was a few hundred dollars new I just upgraded recently and it's laying around.
Most likely it is seeing knock and pulling timing. Try some 93 octane or richer it up some. Maybe even run a scan tool on it to monitor knock.
Would be interesting to see what would happen if you were able to advance the timing quite a bit. I'm sure there is tables out there to show flame speed for different ratios of fuel mixtures. The fuel mixture is quite lean at that point and would need to be advanced quite further.
If you want to improve your accuracy and reduce your drive time, you should switch to a smaller, removable gas tank and weigh the tank before and after the run.
Gas station pumps aren't always the most consistent.
Getting the fuel pump to work would be a challenge for sure.
A good way around the fuel pump inaccuracy is to use the same gas station and the same exact pump every time.
@@Dappersworth You are right there. But I think the Saturn ECU will be looking for a factory fuel pump? I dunno 90s stuff is weird. Or would it be ok as long as it had a regulator?
@@MrEricErwin i meant the gas station pump inaccuracy
I kind of wish that microelectronics were around when I was a kid, on a farm, abusing cars just because I could. Arduino wasn't even a thing until almost 20 years later. Computers were still a pretty new thing in most houses, and it wasn't really realistic to just drop a spare 286/12 and CRT in the passenger seat, for stuff like this. :) I hadn't even been introduced to the fledgling world of microcontrollers. That came a few years ago.
I'm thinking of re-computerizing parts of my truck. The computer was misbehaving, and the airflow of the intake manifold absolutely sucked. I switched it to having a carburetor and HEI ignition, and it has driven great. I was thinking of putting a wideband O2 sensor in each header, and solenoids/motors on each carb mixture screw. It'd still count well enough towards de-computerized. If the computer entirely stopped working, it'd be a screwdriver and a couple minutes to replace the manual mixture screws. Really, you just showed that it would work perfectly. It would just be rather than tweaking the fake O2 output, it'd tweak a couple screws. If it works really well, I might have to get a dual plane intake manifold, so it can really adjust mixture by bank.
I don' that the patience to record the whole process like you've done. I have a few videos that I want to post, and they haven't gone past recording the raw footage to eventually edit and post.
FWIW, on my truck (Chevy L31) switching the intake manifold and above to an Edelbrock performer hi rise manifold and 750 carb, with headers and dual 2.5" exhaust has increased performance without impacting fuel economy. It's usually running rich, which is why I'd like to auto-tweak the carb while driving. I'd probably need to add my own MAP sensor. The transmission computer has a TPS and tach sensor, that I should be able to splice into. Part of the goal of that truck was just to keep it running as stupid-simple as possible. If the electronics go out, it can still drive. The TCU can be removed, and it will still have 2nd and 3rd gears. It was a lot of fun to do, and now I can re-computerize whatever I want, with some sort of safe failure mode.
cant wait till you turbo the diesel
I’m curious if the evap or charcoal canister are malfunctioning. Possibly consider the 2 click fueling method. Wait 30 seconds after pump clicks and see how much fuel it takes. As a side note I had 95 SL 5 speed no power steering did pay for AC. This car always got 45mpg, and 2 quarts of oil every 1,500 miles. At 130k miles engine was weak and couldn’t go 75mph with AC in 5th gear….
Good point, the only real unknown is when the fuel tank is filled. I curently fill on lowest setting and when the pump clicks off, that's it. I think we will try it your way next time.
@@robotcantina8957 HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
Beware of the LC-2, they cook the sensors very quickly due to having a poor heater control circuit. 14point7 systems are far more reliable.
The parasitic loss from the ac and ps pump would have a impact.
You will burn your engine's head valves over time with too lean - adjusted fuel/air mixture.
So the lean burn system used a lot more gas. Typical. When discussing mpg my pentastar engine with variable valve timing really gets good mileage and power. At 80 mph it burns about 30 mpg. Thus power and speed with narrow band oxygen sensors. About the only way for me to beat this is to turbo charge the inlet pressure and not raise the fuel consumption thus ruining the engine. If I altered the engine controls and stayed at the 14 to one ratio at a steady speed of 80 mph it probably would get about 55 mpg. Thus not worth the effort. If it would do the Volkswagon thing of 1 liter per 100 kilometers I would definitely try it. But I am not Smokey Yunic.
Hey! What do you have against Subarus?!
My friend drove a Saturn s series in high-school 5 speed 250k miles and it got 45mpg average pretty much anywhere he went
have you used the lm2 standalone controller one, that one works very well
I ran my carbed V8 at a 16.2:1 (steady state cruise) for a few years using an Innovate wide band to set it. One thing to take into consideration is lean mixes burn slower, so you'll need a few more degrees of spark advance to keep the thermal efficiency up
@8D Soundz There is. But with diesel, you don't have control over how much air gets into the engine as the air side is usually wide open. You could change the injector setup so it injects less diesel or put on a turbo to offset the af ratio that way. Diesels usually handle more air pretty well but don't overdo it. It will get very hot.
@@bv3078 excess air in a diesel cools it off, that’s why old diesels had a hard time warming up at idle where the AFR is probably 40/1
@@bv3078 That's called your right foot ...
@8D Soundz Yes, a turbo
any issues running lean? like engine damage?
What happened to S2E17?
There used to be a magazine website from Australia that would mod that car for better economy that had a lot of great information but I can't find it now
autospeed? my first comment was removed
@@southerndiy1 yeah that's it, thank you
Hey Jimbo,
the Arduino has an integrated map() function which should easily map the signal from wideband to narrowband :)
Just approximate values after ADC wit 0V=0 and 5V as 1024:
Narrowband signal is ~0.95V or 194 ADC for
Honda had an engine back in the 90´s with the code D15Z6 that ran lean when the "Econo" light showed up on the dash, then, when you put your foot to the floor, the "Econo" light would turn off and the engine would run rich.
When running lean, the ECU would disable one intake valve per cylinder creating a vortex in the intake into the cylinder (running on 12 valves), when running rich, the ECU would tell the E-VTEC solenoid to open up the oil passage and the other intake valve would also open (running on 16 valves).
There were another Honda engine capable of doing that, the B15B 3 stage VTEC.
It worked the same way as the D15Z6 but at higher rpm's, the bigger cams pushed the intake valves further to get more air into the cylinders.
Having experimented with lean burn I can tell you that you will need to add quite a bit of spark advance because the lean mixture takes a while to get lit off and burn. Without doing so engine response will be extremely soft and you just won't get the efficiency gains that are possible. Also, finding the optimal AFR can be tricky but you probably want to be in the 17-18 range. Exhaust gas temps drop as you move past the ~16 range. Finally, I suspect that lean burn works best at lighter engine loads. So this could work well with a lawn mower carb (which can't load the engine fully) but would NOT really be compatible with cylinder deactivation.
What I also recall is that I gave up fooling around with switching O2 offsets and just ended up in open loop mode so I could directly command an AFR. With the engine all tuned in (i.e. VE) this works well but you lose feedback control obviously.
It is possible that HP Tuners (for example) offers a way to tune the stock Saturn ECM which would allow this experiment to be a little easier I think, plus you can control spark advance at the lighter loads where you intend to do lean burn. With the lawn mower carb you already have an air bleed solution from Thunderhead289. That is a standalone solution with WB feedback control, but you would still need to play with ignition timing.
Looks like both HP Tuners and EFI Live do NOT support Saturns earlier than 2000.
Other fun fact: GM had some factory lean burn applications in the 80s/90s on certain vehicle applications.
Totally agree. Timing is a big part of combustion efficiency.
@@tkmad7470 With his skills I bet he could intercept the ignition module and add a spark advance offset (engine RPM is a required input), but simply dialing a knob for a constant offset is not really the best approach. BUT it could help gather valuable data which we like.
I agree that adding timing should help. I'm not sure how to trick the computer into adding timing, however.
I'm using the stock fuel injection system in my 1992 Chevrolet C1500 pickup to get pretty good mileage. I got a modified ecm so that I can tune the engine's computer with my laptop. I added anywhere between 4⁰-22⁰ of timing throughout the spark advance tables. I spent a lot of time tuning the spark tables to ensure that the knock sensor stays quiet and happy. The changes in the tables don't take much time, and it only takes a few seconds to flash the changes to the ecm. If I see knock, I'd pull over and pull timing and reflash the ecm. I'm using 87 octane gas.
I'm also running an Innovate Motorsports LC-2 wideband O2 sensor like the one he unboxes in the video. The only modifications I've made to the physical engine is the exhaust. I also installed an aftermarket 2000rpm torque converter. I should have paid a little more and gotten a stock replacement converter. It is too loose for in-town driving and my gas mileage suffers.
When the torque converter clutch is locked and I've got the cruise control set to 55, the instantaneous mileage is in the 28-30mpg range. I have the clutch set to lock at 45mph but you need to pass 45mph until it locks and then slow down a couple mph to consistently lock the TCC with cruise on.
The truck has 267k miles and is a great daily driver. It enters Lean Burn mode when the engine coolant is up to around 190⁰F. I had previously installed a 180⁰ thermostat and the computer would never trigger lean burn. So I installed a 195⁰ thermostat with a 1/16" hole drilled in it. The hole allows air bubbles to pass through and a small amount of coolant. Certainly not enough to overcool the 5.7L 350cid engine.
@@EricErnst Cool stuff. I started almost 20 years ago tuning my 93 Caprice 9C1. That car did have a factory lean burn mode. The strategy was that it required pretty steady highway driving and would still bump out of lean burn to check fuel trims. That car lost a cat (disintegrated and clogged the exhaust flow) and research revealed that lean burn may not be too friendly to cats. So I never really fooled with it again on the Caprice. But I did try some lean burn on my 95 Cadillac Fleetwood w/ LT1. That was the car that required open loop and ultimately I put it all back to stock but the experiment was cool.
I would say my big tuning resume item was on my father in law's 1983 C10. Originally shipped with the 250 I6 and 3 on the tree. He slowly evolved it. There was a point where it had a 292 and a 4 speed floor shift. He converted to TBI (from a 1992 G20) and I tuned it for him. Then he put the 700R4 from the van in and I tuned again. Finally, he added a turbo/intercooler and I tuned that with EBL. EBL is amazing btw. Take a look (unless you are already using it).
Would've just use the speeduino to control fuel & spark, make it easier
I wonder if there was any mpg gains from removing the power steering pump that may have skewed the data.
on my 92 Civic Si removing the PS belt is good for 1 to 2 mpg easily, and a seat of the pants boost in power.
I too suspect that is part of his discrepancy. When the weather cools a bit I am absolutely deleting the power steering on my SL1
I didn't bother putting my power steering and ac belt back on after turbocharging my Miata 20 some years ago. The state inspection guy told me I had to put it back to pass inspection since it came with power steering.
@@vinnieluther6589 that’s sucks, I’d install a false pulley just to pass and drive it the way I want to
my SC1 gets 56 MPG (city/hwy combined) and all i've done is seal off the front grille, and utilize hypermiling techniques.
seal the grille? why? aerodinamics?
@@omegarugal9283 the grille is the #1 single entity responsible for drag... most cars its about ~15% of the drag-coefficient
@@orthodoxNPC HEY JIMBO..... congratulations on reaching 100k subscribers.. ROBOT CANTINA is providing the
entertainment and fun that viewers enjoy..
This is the type of stuff I think about while drifting off to sleep. As a mechanic turned coder, I'd love to do this type of stuff for a living.
To all the very valued viewers of this fantastic channel and primarily to JIMBO OF ROBOT CANTINA ..It's December and the Holiday season is upon us, with celebrations like Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Mid-winter or Yule, and New Year all approaching. Wishing you a joyous Holiday season and a happy and peaceful New Year. Thank you for a fun ride.
The scangauge pulls MAF and MAP data and assumes 14.7. It does NOT use injector pulse widths - this is not possible as injector pulse widths are constantly adjusted to maintain proper AFR due to fouling and other issues. Vehicles have no metering device for fuel and just make assumptions based on history of fuel tank fuel levels and MAF/MAP using LT trim levels. I have used scanguages for nearly 2 decades and they are great tools but are limited in their abilities.
As a few others have pointed out, using the gas station pump as a way to measure the volume of fuel consumed, isn't accurate enough. The auto-shut-off isn't a precision device and will not fill your tank to a consistent total volume. Like you did in past videos, I think measuring total fuel consumption by weight is your best option.
It gives a good on-road average result if repeated 3 times.
I think over on LegitStreetCars, he remapped the ecu on a manual Corvette so when it was in 6th gear going 65 mpg, it was running lean and getting 40 mpg. Like everyone has said, maybe more advance in timing could be the trick to better numbers. Keep up the great work!
His lean burn kicks in at low load 6th gear 55-70 mph and avg 40-42 mpg hwy and when he mashes the go pedal he still has 420+ RWHP on tap for Corvette reasons lol
Yeah but you need to run 91 or higher other wise you will run the risk of blowing the engine
A SOHC Saturn without a blown headgasket!?! Thats a rare beast right there
To all the very valued viewers of this fantastic channel and primarily to JIMBO OF ROBOT CANTINA ..It's December and the Holiday season is upon us, with celebrations like Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Mid-winter or Yule, and New Year all approaching. Wishing you a joyous Holiday season and a happy and peaceful New Year. Thank you for a fun ride.
"I guess it could be worse. I could be driving a Subaru." 😆
There are plenty of reasons just leaning out the car like this won’t increase mpg. The flame front length of burn is too short to create downward force on the piston, complete fuel burn and good torque efficiency. Being lean can create unburned pockets of fuel because certain areas within the cylinder don’t fully ignite. The combustion chamber needs to be designed for lean burning. The change in air velocity due to more throttle input has an effect on fuel mixture inside the combustion chamber.
Running lean requires more throttle input which means a different map sensor reading. Less vacuum puts the car in a different spot in the ignition tables which is always going to be less ignition timing cause the ecu sees it as higher load. Running leaner could also require different ignition timing in order to get a complete burn.
You have would have to recalibrate the ignition timing tables to be the same in order to actually verify a lean burn would even work in the first place.
I’ve been a diagnostic tech a lot of years and I’m also a high performance tuner. I’ve had plenty of cars actually get better mpg on a slightly richer mixture after tuning. Some better than stock mpg.
You have to take into account all these variables during a test like this.
Your 47 mpg isn’t unrealistic at 55mph because they are rated at a high speed for their mpg and seeing 40mph on manual single cam Saturns with power steering and ac are common. You removed power steering and ac. Regardless of the fact ac free spins it’s still going to improve mpg removing it.
Thank you for this well articulated and well thought through response... There so many smart
comments on this channel.
Good morning everyone are afternoon/night depending where you are.
Hope everyone is having a blessed Sunday
🌞🌞🌞🌞⭐⭐⭐⭐
NOx strategies in gasoline engines took two different paths........emissions strangled, poor performance camshaft profiles or EGR. Whereas EGR can be blocked off or deactivated, emissions cams need to swapped out for something better. I have done this to a few cars and they can drop fuel consumption by 20%. Leaner mixtures produce a hotter combustion process, which makes more NOx, and thats why its "bad". While lean is safe at light throttle and low rpms........higher throttle settings and rpms need richer mixtures or very bad things will happen......like melted pistons,detonation etc.
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Possibly when filling up at the pump the auto shutoff might be clicking off at an unreliable point a more accurate fuel consumption system would help alleviate possible fluctuations between tests
I think the comments about ignition timing are also valid, but this is the first thing I would try to correct.
Based on AFR, I would expect about 10% better fuel economy. If the pump auto-shutoff was a quarter gallon short on the control fillup, but correct on the lean burn fillup, that would make up the difference in economy. One channel I watch occasionally makes sure to use the same pump at the same station, fills to first auto-shutoff, waits 30 seconds, then fills again to auto-shutoff. It might be a good set of rules to explore.
He could use a portable gas can and an inline fuel pump, then weigh the gas can before and after.
I think that's a good suggestion.
Yeah, it should be the same pump at the same station at a minimum.
As others have noted, you'd likely need more timing for improved efficiency (leaner mixture needs more time to combust properly) and at lean burn point there might have been loss of power, so you needed more throttle and as such more fuel was wasted.
With good wideband you got supplied and a speeduino 4 cylinder board (hopefully that can be adapted to saturn wiring/sensors) you could control everything properly, without tricking stock ecm. This way, an economy fuel/ignition map with lean burn could be made and perhaps this way some more fuel economy would be possible.
I think your previous NO2C could also be used for saturn, but you'd lose sequential ignition/injection (probably not that big of a deal).
Perhaps exploring other options like injectors with better spray pattern and hot air intake might also benefit for MPGs.
Obviously this would take some time to properly implement, but it's an idea to explore nonetheless, before diesel swap that is.
I have used lean burn with megasquirt on all my street cars. NEVER had an issue and they are both 9 sec turbo street cars. on a 6.0 I run it till it coughs and then creep up on the timing 18:1 and about 44deg. you should monitor timing when making a run because you are at different MAP areas when in lean burn VS stoic.
You cut the fuel only so u had to press the gas more to keep it going hence the MPG drop. I've have a few Sohc Saturn's and 45mpg is normal
and here I thought you were going to do the simple dirty trick of just "raising" the intake temp.
Do an LS swap with the technology out of a Hyundai with mechanical variable valve duration!!!
This one is certainly a head scratcher. If I understand the setup correctly, the lean burn box is sending a fibby O2 sensor signal to the ECU that the engine is running rich, it should have leaned the engine to compensate and gotten more MPG. I'm confused why the MPG was better without the lean burn signal? Maybe the ECU has been in a dishonest relationship before?
It's possible your cheapo o2 sensor already as an offset built into it.
I had a bad o2 sensor and if too lean you clearly get very bad MPG.
It awesome someone got you a better kit.
A bad 02 sensor makes it run extra rich and use more fuel.
@@1magnit Depends on the o2 sensor failure.
Mine made the car run extra lean.
I had to crank up the fuel pressure every 100 km to keep my engine working to go home...
I would have preferred the o2 sensor to fail the other way.
Couldn't you just add another bung for the wideband, leave the narrow band alone, and not have to deal with most of that mess?
Speaking as one of the people who writes software for a living, let me assure you... we're not paying attention.
my CRX HF would regularly avg 47-53 mpg and it was just an 8 valve 1.5l 4 banger and the only magic was MPFI
That thing only weighed like 1200#s
1836 from the factory and 2000 and change with me in it
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Now all you have to do is dream up some aftertreatment to take care of the elevated NOx. OEMs are playing with SCR on lean burn gasoline engines. Perhaps get a junkyard SCR, DEF tank, pump and NOx sensors...? 🤣 When aftertreatment is at operating temp, DEF dosing rate is nearly proportional to fuel rate, and probably wouldn't be hard to figure out. 🤔
Run it on HHO (hydrogen gas).
Like Aidan I have owned many many Saturn's. I got 41 MPG on a long ( 2000 mile ) Hiway trip in an SL2 with an auto trans. I had a SL1 with an auto that would get 43 Hiway MPG. So yeah, I believe 47 with a SC1 5-speed. My current Saturn is an 2001 SC2 auto.
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Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow..
The Honda Civic VX was fuel injected and made use of lean-burn technology in the '90s, it was also very reliable and fairly inexpensive.
Civic hatch and coupe, VX and CX. Used factory wideband O2 and got 45+ in the early 90s. And my Prius gets the same mileage in 2022.
lmao xD Japan in the 90s were way over doing it.
@@1987FX16 This was discontinued because of the high amounts of NOx that lean burn produces, if I remember right?
Still, it seems like a definitive way of raising MPG.
@@1987FX16 Over doing it? Like, being excessively innovative? I can't imagine anyone ever being too innovative.
@@markusfalk9459 Yes, it's THE definitive way to raise mpg, because we should destroy our health and have acid rain destroying everything, just to save a few bucks on gas... /s
It’s common to run aircraft piston engines “lean of peak (EGT)”. usually about 40 degrees LOP or about 16:1 afr is generally considered the sweet spot where there is fuel to be saved without loosing too much power. Although some can be regained with ignition timing the lean side of the power curve drops off more quickly than the rich side. For some comparison, my airplane burns 10gph at 165 knots at 12:5 AFR(16 mpg), or 7.5 GPH lean of peak, but will slow down by 10 knots. (20mpg)
What is the fuel consumption when you maintain the same speed?
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Very high MPG on first run can be caused by not ideal gasoline pump "stop" trigger.
Sometimes will stop pouring petrol with a lot o air still in tank.
Ideal solution: to ignore "stop" and slowly fill it up rest of tank to the level when You can see fuel level (through cap hole). Car should be on same pump as well - to eliminate any inperfection of terrain or pump gauge (calibration)
Or use separate tank and measure weight before/after as You done in one of previous tests.
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Removing the AC compressor reminds me of an argument I got into on the internet. I know those are dangerous but I had an epiphany.
Could you experiment with somehow disabling the alternator during high engine load to see if that makes a car better in any way? My logic is that if you're looking to get the best acceleration at WOT, the battery could run the electronics instead of drawing engine power to do it.
The downfall with a normal electrical system would be that you would drop the voltage a bit from charging voltage(13.5-14.5) down to battery voltage. Loaded battery voltage at that. You can make up for it with changes to the system but with a factory car you'd probably lose more to the lower voltage than you'd gain from the slightly less parasitic drag. But I'd be curious to see that tested
PS, with that said.... I'm thinking back. An old low buck trick on 5.0 mustangs was to take the serpentine belt off right before you ran the quarter. That definitely made a difference but then you're also deleting water pump, power steering, etc
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Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow...
“Kaboota Diesel engine” is that the Amazon equivalent of a Kubota?
I ran lean burn experiments on my 2002 Subaru WRX (that I would much rather be in than a Saturn LoL!) for about a year and can confirm the other comments. I was stock ECU limited to running 16.2 AFR and without alternate timing advance, you just end up in the throttle more to compensate for the drop in power and response. My best results, the ~10% theoretically achievable savings, were therefore during lean idle (saving fuel at drive thrus) and steady flat cruise on interstates.
More than 30 years ago I had a Toyota that used “ lean burn” technology.