I put over 5K miles during July 4th week doing cross country driving to LA and coming back to Indiana. Some factoids about the car (MZ3 6spd) from the trip:
- when passing in single lane highway, must downshift to 3rd, hit redline, then shift up to 4th while still passing
- long term high speed driving with stock setup/tires => OK. Since the stock tire is H-rated (130 mph) , I kept it under 110 mph to leave some safety buffer.
- cruse control in 6th gear can handle some inclines when doing 80-85mph ( engine load at about 70% according to UltraGuage), but for steep hills, it's better to leave the gear in 5th and let cruse control take care of maintaining the constant speed.
- 4th gear is best for accelerating on incline highway. Forget 6th. Sometimes 5th works if the rpm is already higher than 3.5K.
- going downhill on I-70 while in CO, had to keep in 4th or even 3rd gear sometimes to keep the speed under 10 mph over the speed limit.
- climbing a mountain road in 2nd gear for long time pushes the coolant temp to over 212 F (per UltragGuage) but the car did not overheat.
- A/C works! I had it on all the time on auto at 72F with fresh air coming in while the outside temp was around 90 to 110 F.
- I get about 33 mpg when driving at 80-85 mph with A/C on in hilly roads while 36 mpg on relatively flat roads doing around 75 mph.
- I think I know why SoCal highway MPG isn't too great. I rarely had chance to keep in 6th gear but had to keep in lower gears to just catch up and keep up with the traffic flow that constantly sped up and slowed down
Why is the lane width seem narrower in/around LA compared to other states?
- when passing in single lane highway, must downshift to 3rd, hit redline, then shift up to 4th while still passing
- long term high speed driving with stock setup/tires => OK. Since the stock tire is H-rated (130 mph) , I kept it under 110 mph to leave some safety buffer.
- cruse control in 6th gear can handle some inclines when doing 80-85mph ( engine load at about 70% according to UltraGuage), but for steep hills, it's better to leave the gear in 5th and let cruse control take care of maintaining the constant speed.
- 4th gear is best for accelerating on incline highway. Forget 6th. Sometimes 5th works if the rpm is already higher than 3.5K.
- going downhill on I-70 while in CO, had to keep in 4th or even 3rd gear sometimes to keep the speed under 10 mph over the speed limit.
- climbing a mountain road in 2nd gear for long time pushes the coolant temp to over 212 F (per UltragGuage) but the car did not overheat.
- A/C works! I had it on all the time on auto at 72F with fresh air coming in while the outside temp was around 90 to 110 F.
- I get about 33 mpg when driving at 80-85 mph with A/C on in hilly roads while 36 mpg on relatively flat roads doing around 75 mph.
- I think I know why SoCal highway MPG isn't too great. I rarely had chance to keep in 6th gear but had to keep in lower gears to just catch up and keep up with the traffic flow that constantly sped up and slowed down
Why is the lane width seem narrower in/around LA compared to other states?