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Pugs & MPG


Guest Mac
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(A really good question for my 100th post on the USMB)

 

Does anyone know if adding larger wheels on a vehicle results in increased fuel mileage? The same, or if it takes more fuel to turn a larger wheel, decreased mpg?

 

I know that putting on the larger wheels will skew the speedometer and odometer readings, which would also skew the mpg readings.

 

Wondering if anyone adjusted the odo/speedo and checked, or if any of our engineers used some of that college Calc and Analytical Geometry when they were bored silly to find an answer for this already.

 

DX/DY/DIdon'tknowthat'sDYI'masking.

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Guest Chairotsu

If you do the measurement on the new bigger tire and can find the % of difference between it and the stock 185/70/13. You can apply that same % to mileage and rpms.

 

For example. A 28 inch tire would make the odometer about 12% off as far as I can figure. After that it's easy to figure gas and rpms.

 

Add a Weber, and you should get about 25 or 26 mpg with those 28s. Really. I also get about 25-26 mpg with my 26 inch tires and a Weber.

 

So, no, maybe the tire <em>size</em> might not make much of a difference in you mpg.

 

EZ

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Guest calebz

i upgraded to 14 inchers with 185/75/14 tires.

 

this put my speedometer off by 10.1% according to the tire size chart that someone(skip?) used to have .. I have lost it again.

 

So when I check mileage, I fill up the tank, drive, fill up again.. check how many miles I have gone add ten percent, then divide that number by the number of gallons it took to fill up.

 

The only really big ding in the mileage that these larger tires have made, is due to the fact that they weigh a Whole lot more than the factory alloys I had before.

 

PS. could someone post the tire size calculator again?

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Guest x silvershad0w x

If you look at tire size as a function of the gear ratio alone, that taller ratio of larger tires decreases your RPM's through all the ranges. Of course we all know this. Now, at a lower RPM, the engine would burn less fuel all the time if it is operated within its load range. The ammount of fuel usage is determined w/ physics via the Ideal Gas Law. The law states:

 

PV = nRT

 

where:

P = pressure,

V = volume,

n = number of moles (which is related to the mass of the gas, i.e. 1 mol = 6.023x1023 molecules of the gas, and n = mass (in grams)/molar mass(MM)),

R = the ideal gas constant,

and T = the absolute temperature.

 

Now, the Ideal gas law allows us to find the "perfect" mixture, which is called the stochiometric micture. Using this data, we can determine how much fuel is needed per volume of air. We know the volume of air in each cylinder, and so the fuel required is proportional to how much air we cram in the cylinder. This is also where Volumetric Efficiency (VE)comes into play. The volumetric efficiency (VE) is a percentage that tells us the pressure inside the cylinder versus the pressure in the manifold. We know the volume (V) from the displacement of the engine. Thus we can calculate the mass of air (M) in the cylinder (proportional to n) from:

 

n = PV/RT

=> M = n x MM = PV/RT x MM

= (VE * MAP * CYL_DISP) / (R * (IAT-32) * 5/9 + 273)) x MMair

 

All this garbage is how fuel injection is measured at the microprocessor level. Now, all of this science goes to pot in the real world, because of enrichment. The more you "lug" your engine, the further you press the pedal, which in turns tells either the carb or the injection computer (via the TPS) to dump a higher percentage of fuel than stoich+normal adjustments.

 

So, if you have injection, and you can access the computer data in real time, you could see just how bad you are "lugging" that poor engine and how much fuel is being "wasted" by the excess enrichment. The larger tires can cause the engine to be out of its powerband, which in turn causes more lugging. So you dump extra fuel down teh pipes, which will counteract the benefit of lower RPMs to some extent. This is largely affected by you engine tune up, and driving style of course.

 

Well, all the other guys explained how to get your MPG calculated, by using a ratio of tire circumference, and applying that to your actual odo readings, easy as pie. But now, with all this information, you can truly see what benefit or negative effect the tires would have on MPG, by collecting real world data! Simple design and build a precision datalogger for your vehicle (provided you have injection), or install and calibrate a precison flow meter, along with the dataloggin equipment, and you can get down to how many ounces of fuel per minute the tires are changing your actual MPG. Or, you could just put the old tires on, make a few good odo calulations, and then using the aformentioned conversion factor for larger tires, make the same odo reading and compare the two. I kinda like my idea better thou, it'd be pretty accurate.

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