I there any option to put a 6 speed manual transmission on the 3S-FE?

[nogard]

I would want to do this for better fuel economy.

[white90dx]

No.

And besides, the Camry S51 manual trans runs a very tall 5th gear and final drive. I could easily get over 35mpg on the highway all day long, even going over 70mph.

-Charlie

[270+Camry]

getting bigger wheels also stretches out your gears doesn't it? that's just another excuse to go with bigger rims though. My stock gear/tire setup ain't too bad it just doesn't make up for the lack of balls my car suffers from. I also don't have a tach so I usually only get to about 45mph in second and roughly 70 in 3rd when pulling. I know 5th is good for upto 110 without too much screaming but I havent had any good stretches of road to further investigate that theory. I do have a hole in my exhaust that might make me think im running higher RPMS than I actually am at. 1st feels sort of short on me though, good upto about 20 IMO. where do you guys shift your cars at while trying to get the most out of the 3sfe's?

[nogard]

I've been trying to go for better gas mileage. I put this in recently, and it works great!
http://opengauge.org/mpguino/

Also check out http://ecomodder.com/

Here is how it looks in my car, I bought the $55 preassembled unit, well worth it. You still have to put it in an enclosure. I used my Ipod nano case.



I did notice that 1st seems very short, there is quite a jump to 2nd. It is a little strange sometimes starting at certain speeds. Because 1st is too low and 2nd is too high. So I either dog it with 2nd, or give the throttle a blip to rev match to get it to 1st, so the car doesn't jerk.

I've gotten 38 mpg on a whole tank, only once, I took the same route every day and had it down, this was highway and city.

Now is mostly city, and I can get around 35 mpg in the summer in the city. I've been meaning to look a few things over on my engine. I think I might have a bad EGR and this might be affecting gas mileage. Once the temperature is below 50°F in the morning the car takes longer to warm and uses more fuel. This will drop my mpg to 30-33. In the winter I get 27 to 30 mpg not matter how hard I try.

There are the hypermilers out there, they do some crazy stuff. They might be saving gas, but they are wearing other things out that cost money. That extreme isn't worth it to me. I try to optimize my accelerating, coasting, idle time, and timing traffic lights. It just makes a boring drive more exciting.

A few tips I've noticed. I thought super slow starts and very little throttle was the best way to accelerate. Turns out since I put the MPGuino in I noticed that medium throttle and low RPMs is the trick.

For shifting I use the highest gear I can, on a flat stretch in town at 25 or 30 mph I will be in 5th sometimes only at 1000 RPM. I try to shift at 2000-2500 RPM out of 1st. Same for 2nd, and 3rd. Fourth I shift a little shorter 1500-2000 RPM. I usually always drive around in 5th gear, unless there is a hill, I drop to 3rd. I did notice if climbing a short hill say 20° pitch getting on it in 3rd uses less gas then down shifting to 2nd. The reason is about the same RPM, but the car is moving faster (further in the same amount of time.) This is also why accelerating from a stop a little harder saves gas. You spend less time putting, and get to the cruising speed/gear sooner.

I've realized saving gas is about coasting! And spending the least amount of time accelerating, and the most time cruising at a steady speed in the highest gear possible. There are more extreme things a person can do, but I don't get into that.

[270+Camry]

what octane you run? also have you tried cleaning/treating injectors or even just running some sea foam through your engine? I figure that is a badass little computer you got, will definitely let you know if Lucas or seafoam or what have you actually helps. Good tips on the shifting too btw. Some times I got a habit of skipping gears, but that is more out of own personal amusement than anything else. tend to go 1-3-5 or 2-4 but there is no scientific theory there other than it amuses me, and im easily amused.

[nogard]

The computer is called the MPGuino. Yes it is great, takes a little time to set up and calibrate, but now I get instant gas mileage so I know what kind of driving habit work.

I did run some Sea Foam in the last oil change. I'm afraid if I clean things out too good it will burn a lot of oil. I had a tercel that had the head off, so I dumped a little Sea Foam on top of all the pistons and let it seep through to the oil pan. After I had everything back together, and with new oil it seemed to smoke a lot, blow by.

On the camry I put some Sea Foam in the oil for a few days. Smoked like a mother! I also ran some through the vacuum line on the intake

I use 93 octane from BP, I go to the same station, same pump, same direction. I fill to one click. I run the premium because it is the only thing around my area that doesn't have ethanol in it. There is not as much power (BTUs) in ethanol compared to gasoline. Around here it is around 10%. Sure it is cheaper, but you get less MPG. I've done the math for what it costs for me to drive per mile. It is basically the same, higher priced gas cost more, but I get better gas mileage.

I would be careful with some of the Lucas products. Some of it is good if it is mixed with the right stuff. But you get it mixed with the wrong stuff and it turns to this slimy sludge. Also watch out with what you are putting in you fuel and cleaning your throttle body with, make sure it is oxygen sensor safe. The Sea Foam cleaner is, but their Deep Creep product does not say it is! You just have to make sure you read up and use the right stuff for you car. And make sure you are using the product per the instructions.

[270+Camry]

When I had my jeep, me and some guys we hung out with at meets used to add things to our gas tanks in order to get better MPGs since we all kind of averaged 12-15. One of the things we did was add acetone to our tanks. 1oz for every 10 gallons. I know guys that ran 2-3 oz for 10 gallons but that seemed excessive to me. some guys also used to run xylene in their tanks and that stuff worked great, only problem is that you also use xylene in meth labs so some stores write your names down and hand that over to the police. if you have no priors, probably not an issue. But if you end up gettin into the tendency if buying a couple gallons of xylene here and there, you can bet you getting a knock on your door. a way around that is to buy Goof Off, i believe that stuff is half xylene and half tulone (probably spelled that wrong) but since it is only a paint remover you get alot of less dirty looks. i know some guys running 2 oz acetone 1 oz tulone to simulate premium gas in a 20 gallon tank, but i sort of steered away from tulone cause this old fart of an ASE cert i used to drink with gave me a half hour sermon about that stuff destroying fuel pumps or something. i have heard that formula 1 back in the day (like 80s i think) used to run high percentages of tulone but there was some issue due to tulone activation temperature being so high or something. then again, those are really high percentages, im talkin about only a couple ounces, in that case you probably don't have to run that hot for it to work right. BTW get an old fart ASE cert man drunk one time, good times.

anyway though, not sure if that is helpful or not, just what we used to run in our jeeps cause 11mpg stock sucks. granted our cherokees had the aerodynamicy of bill boards, it was still hell runnin that bad especially when gas was 4 bucks a gallon.