I have a ba xt ute, any ideas how I can improve the fuel econ. and performance?

i've heard of people gotting 800km + out of a tank from a ba ute highway, thats some prety good ecconomy as it is.

Improving economy and performance.. to a fair extent they are mutually exclusive

yeah it's one or the other, but some people claim better economy with a big cold air intake and a freer exhaust system.

800km!!!!!!!!!! I dream of getting that good economy, 500km is a good run I average 13.6 l/100km and thats not driving it hard.

Nothing wrong with 13.6!! I average 20/100....

Yeh but you havent got that beast of yours tuned right Martin.

Accelerate gently - mess this up and you'll ruin all your economy. Once you're up to speed, try not to slow down if you can help it - coast around corners fairly fast, change lanes instead of stopping behind turning cars etc. Try and predict the traffic ahead of you so you'll be using both the brake and accelerator as little as possible.

Also try and predict traffic lights, if need be speed up slightly to get through a green/yellow (assuming it's safe of course, don't do anything silly), but if it's red, get off the power and coast up to the lights, don't apply your brakes until the last minute in case the lights go green, that way you'll have to accelerate as little as possible. Don't accelerate up hills and try and build up speed going down them.

If you drive on a freeway, get behind a truck and slipstream it (don't tailgate, that's being a d**k). Remove all unnecessary weight from the car and check all your tyres are inflated to the correct preassures, if anything slightly higher then correct. Don't use your aircon and leave your window up if possible. Also because you'll be driving like a grandpa most of the time have the decency to at least stay in the left hand lane where possible.

Can't think of much else.. using all of the above I got my EL to average 8.5L/100km city driving.. that was really taking it to the extremes though, I couldn't possibly drive like that everyday. It was really just an experiment to see just how much I could eke from a tank. It's useful to save a bit of fuel if you're doing a lot of driving in one day though.

Perth aint city driving!! try melbourne for city driving, the best i got was 10.4 lt/100km. Best thing to do is be a feather foot , service and tune car regulary.

if it's a manual falcon around the city, there is no such thing as economy.