So I wanna lift my legacy, but as a high school student in search of a job, I want to get OK gas mileage. I was thinking a 4in lift would be best, perhaps a 6. With a 4in lift, what kind I mpg am I looking at, same with a 6? My definition of OK is greater than 15mpg. I'm assuming tires play a big role in it as well. I was thinking some 28's...

the biggest drop in mpg will be from the tires. I have roughly a 3.5 inch lift on my legacy and 26" tires from an outback until my general grabber at2s get here. on my last fill up traditional calculations showed I got 25.x mpg, but this is not accurate because the speedometer is also off by 6% with the different tires. To get a true mpg calculation you need to figure out what percentage your speedometer will be off, multiply the miles on the tank by that, and then divide by gallons to full. Even this data should be repeated at every fill up over a period of time and them averaged to get a true feel for what your car is actually getting.

25.x??? Is that 25 mpg +? Or so math formula? Lol

Or use a GPS to do the math.   ON a 3 inch lift No change but I stayed with stock tire sizes.

26" Tires will make almost no difference. 28"s may cause you a 2-3 mpg drop but that can be countered with better gearring. 4.11 diffs will make a huge difference in bottom end power with the bigger tires.

25.some decimal that I couldn't remember

I get 18-20 mpg with 215/75/15 BFG MT KM2's.  That's with a 3.9 D/R and 4.11 rear diff.

I get 18-20 mpg with 215/75/15 BFG MT KM2's.  That's with a 3.9 D/R and 4.11 rear diff.

How the hell does that work? Your rear tires are driving harder than the fronts when you're in 4wd. The different final drive ratios make it bind constantly. Hope you only use that off-road.

Edited April 24, 201312 yr by Fairtax4me

It's magic!

 

 

 

 

Yes I only put it in 4WD when off-road. 4WD on pavement is a big no-no in that car.

Ahh, gotcha! I figured you must have it set up that way for a good reason.

LOL... not really.  I just never saw a reason to swap out the stock diff until I got a welded one. The ratio's aren't that far off anyway.