[Padgett]

Helps me to refine my thinking and may help others. Point being that while diesel is great, unless you already have one, it may not make sense economically. Secondly that with direct injection (like in the EcoBoost) & boost, 87 PON may approach (but doubt that it will reach) diesel efficiency.

The correlary being why have Fords with Ecoboost V6s reported such poor MPG ? Do they need a good tune ? First though being at what PLA (throttle position) does the engine go into PE (power enrichment) and could that be raised ? (mine occurs at about 53% and I can see the pulse width of the injectors increase (need the Torque Pro app and a $12 OBD-II dongle).

If anyone is interested we could get really deep into maximising MPG when towing a TM on the flats. With particular attention on when to dowshift if it will keep you out of PE.

So to answer your question, it was a lead-in to see if anyone was interested in a deep discussion including why you need to know precisely how your engine is running.

Also I have found (small sample but high probability) that just by having average drivers know what is happening (proper instrumentation) their driving habits change and mpg improves. Back in the first fuel crisis the EPA (then the FEA) found that just adding a vaccuum gauge resulted in improved MPG.