Making Your Stagea A Fuel Miser

[Duncan]

hey if you want cost effective cubes you can't beat a gen3 v8

[webng]

At the end of the day, 15-16L/100kms is just something i'll live with for the joy of owning these wagons. Was just hoping for better economy when i baby it around town.

[gt86wa]

hey if you want cost effective cubes you can't beat a gen3 v8

I agree, I owned a gen3, cammed , histall, 3.9s etc etc and it was the same if not better than fuel on my near standard stagea!

[ssshonky]

or you could go the 2.6L twin turbo option - though I dare say that would do SFA for the fuel econ debate haha

I've been giving this fuel economy issue a lot of thought since I bought the car....

I'm starting to think that the poor 2.5ltr RB25 just isn't enough motor to pull the S1+2 Stagea's around. Sure when the foots down they go quite well considering its a 2.5 6cyl pulling around that much weight but in normal light to medium throttle it just feels almost laggy until it builds up pace almost forcing you to use more throttle to get it going then easing off which is why the economy is so shit. The thing is I still love Stageas and I still think they are a really great package for a wagon. I mean with the right kit, wheels and suspension setup they look sexy and handle very well too but IMO as far as the powerplant goes it might just be an old school case of more cubes is better.....

Why didn't Nissan come up with the VQ series motors 10 years ago

Speaking in theory I wonder about the difficulties of fitting a 2JZ or even a VH45DE (if I got it right) or the soarer's V8 would go. Forgetting straight away about keeping the AWD or about being a patriot to Nissan just find a cost effective way to get more cubes (and still preferably being turbocharged) into the stagea and maybe ditching some weight along the way. May end up with a lighter car, with more power and HOPEFULLY more economy. And maybe an easier manual conversion too! This is just one of many ideas i've had floating around in my head and is a bit on the extreem side but I haven't ruled it out!

[Lil_Bobby_260]

If you have the cash to throw that sort of money at your engine then fuel economoy probably isnt an issue....?

[Mr_RS4]

^^^^Wasn't actually serious about going ahead with such a conversion. Just pointing out that I think the stagea needed something with more CC's. But you could recoupe some of the cost by selling the gear that comes out of the car. To tell the truth I would probably still do it even if fuel economy didn't improve as I just think that the extra capacity could make it a better car to drive. But I guess you could just build a RB25/30 or RB26/30 combo too for that matter which would probably be a better option. But I just wanna hear a stagea V8 lol

[Lil_Bobby_260]

Dont the Nissan Fuga (or something) come with a nissan 4.5L V8....? Quad cam etc...

[Duncan]

there are vh42, vh45 and vh54 to choose from if you want to go that way None to suit 4wd/front sump of course

[Lil_Bobby_260]

Toyota quad cam. 1UZ i think. They came in the toyota aristo ZiFour's. AWD V8. was an option instead of the 2JZGTE twin turbo 3L RWD.

[Mr_RS4]

Well yeah if you wanted to keep the AWD then your only option for more capacity is to build an RB25/30. Would be the easiest way too I guess. But seeing as this thread is about fuel economy I would like to know wether having the extra low down power and off boost torque would save you on fuel as you shouldn't have to use as much throttle to get the car going. And I'm not talking about hanging huge turbo's off the side with massive injectors and fuel systems etc etc.

Maybe just a similar set up to what a lot of already got. Say full exhaust, highflowed turbo or something sensible (internal gated, bolt on job), fmic, fuel reg, pump, either piggy back or (if you went for a manual conversion at the same time) stand alone ecu and filter. With a good tune and moderate boost. Obviously there is still going to be some difference between those that keep the auto and those that don't.

This would only be worthwhile if you were planning to keep the car for some time (which I am) or if you have a future scope for big mods. As I would imagine building the engine would cost a bit, although if you just built it stock maybe not. Personally I don't plan on the car making that much power to justify internals being done. But I've heard that the adaptor plates for the sump etc are expensive and that apparently its easier to use a RB26 head (again expensive). Don't know how accuate either of those are. And is a 500cc difference going to make that big a difference. I've never driven a RB25 or 26 /30 combo before so I don't know. A 4.5ltr V8 would definately make a difference but don't know about fuel economy

[pixel8r]

hey if you want cost effective cubes you can't beat a gen3 v8

I'm gonna show some of my bias here, but I disagree with this...

I know the factory "claimed" fuel economy figures are like 11L/100km or something ridiculous but most of the car mags that have done "real world" testing have achieved figures like 15-18L/100km or even more in some instances.

Add to that the fact that one of these engines would not perform as well in a stagea and the fact that a mildly modified stagea will be able to keep up with a stock SS commo...and in my case, although my performance wouldn't match a gen3, my fuel economy figures walk all over it. I get 11.5L/100km most weeks, driving to and from work, and remembering the stagea is ~100+kg heavier than gen3-powered cars.

Dont get me wrong, the gen3 and later v8's (and ford v8's) are great engines. I'm only talking about their fuel economy vs performance.

And speaking of cost effective, a modified RB25/26 would probably still be cheaper than a stock gen3 - yes?

In terms of which gives _better_ performance, well that is a debate all on its own. There is no doubt these v8's would be more reliable (and last longer) than our RB's as the power is increased.

[pure_methamphetamachine]

I have to be honest, I only read a few posts, so I aplogose if this has been said. The answer is:

GRID TS DANCER

The torque split controller. They are about $600. Turn it on, you get a 0.5 / 99.5 split front to back. You do not need the 4wd all the time (yes, I know it is variable anyway). The GRID one enables you to turn the 4wd on and off whilest driving. You do not have to stop.

I use 16.7 litres / 100km TS off.

11.7 TS on.

You also get better acceleration etc as you lose less power due to friction when only the rears are working.

[gt86wa]

Dont get me wrong, the gen3 and later v8's (and ford v8's) are great engines. I'm only talking about their fuel economy vs performance.

And speaking of cost effective, a modified RB25/26 would probably still be cheaper than a stock gen3 - yes?

Im going to disagree here, Stock LS1 commodore auto i got a little over 500km to a tank, these tanks are around 5L more than a stagea tank.

Now add a bunch of performance parts to turn it into an 11 second daily street car and i got 400-450km to a tank... so for fuel economy vs performance... gen3 wins hands down IMO

[jippa]

I have to be honest, I only read a few posts, so I aplogose if this has been said. The answer is:

GRID TS DANCER

The torque split controller. They are about $600. Turn it on, you get a 0.5 / 99.5 split front to back. You do not need the 4wd all the time (yes, I know it is variable anyway). The GRID one enables you to turn the 4wd on and off whilest driving. You do not have to stop.

I use 16.7 litres / 100km TS off.

11.7 TS on.

You also get better acceleration etc as you lose less power due to friction when only the rears are working.

i thought you werent able to use TS on standard s1 and s2 stageas . is this true?

[Scratch]

just a thought after reading the posts stating that a tune didnt solve the fuel economy problem. Most tuners usually tune for high end HP so they can give you a pretty dyno chart saying look at that HP gain! I've read that it is possible to tune your car to be fuel economy focused but you run into issues when your decide to drag someone and trash the car. Maybe the solution could be piggy back ECU's that have dual tunings (street and race) like a gready emanage, where you can switch it from save-fuel-hug-a-tree mode to burn-baby-burn-mode when you want to push it. This is just focusing on the tune part, and assuming everything else is running well (coil packs, plugs, etc).

Edited October 19, 2007 by Scratch

[ssshonky]

can someone please confirm if e_methamphetamachine meant that when he had it on 100RWD he got better fuel econ? cause i just read that website for the TS dancer and it lead me to beleive that it was the other way

[Lil_Bobby_260]

He stated that with the TS controller on, set to run 99.5% torque to the rears, he got better fuel economy.

[Duncan]

lol even better would be buying a rwd one then....

[ssshonky]

ok I read that the other way. as in 99.5 went to the front wheels - I thought - damned I dont want no FWD again !

can anyone else back this up? it seems that discussions on here have not shown the RWD only model to be much cheaper on fuel

He stated that with the TS controller on, set to run 99.5% torque to the rears, he got better fuel economy.

[pure_methamphetamachine]

If you get a GRID TS Dancer you MUST get the R33 gtr one. R32 one different. When you put it on the 0 / 100 split (RWD) you still get a slight amopunt to the front as you can not turn off the front on the33 setup. You lose 10% due to friction etc thru the front, so by dropping it out the engine requires less power to achieve the same at the rears as it does in 4WD. I drive with RWD all the time unless at the track.

Easiest way to look at it:

Lets say for a given rate of acceleration or maintaining of a certain speed eg 100km/h, the vehicle needs a driving force / power of 100kW @ wheels.

In 4WD mode 100kw @ 4 wheels = 136HP @ wheels = 173HP at fly

In RWD mode 100kW @ 2 wheels = 136HP @ wheels = 156HP at fly

Power is the result of energy discipated.

Energy is the result of combustion of fuel.

The efficiency of the engine is the same for an engine regardess of whether it is running 2wd or 4wd as this has no effect on the engine itself.

173 / 156 ==> 10% less fuel.

Acceleration requires overcoming inertia. As you have friction, wind resistance etc, maintaining speed requires overcoming forces too. The less forces you need to overcome the easier it is, the less energy required at any point in time, and especially over a period of time ie less fuel. So although there is a 10% immediate saving, the total saving increaes in RWD mode as there is far less work the engine has to do at any point in time to overcome additional forces.

I know of a few people who have now bought TS Dancers for this reason after seeing the savings I got. They got them too.