Available as an individual application for most Common Rail Diesel vehicles to provide a genuine 14.5% – 18% increase in MPG across your fleet or used in conjunction with AMI livetrack commercial fleet management solution to further boost these savings up to 30%.

Fuel & Co2 Application Features & Benefits

Original Development Concept
In response to the way the government is seeking to link vehicle emissions to vehicle taxation, congestion charging and road toll charging, we investigated ways of reducing vehicle Co2 emissions without compromising the power output of the vehicle or its day to day usability. What was quickly established was the emissions could not be looked at or treated in isolation, but the whole combustion and fuel management process needed to be examined in order to make the improvements being sought.

The Issues

Motor manufacturers operate in a global market and are therefore constrained by the need for all their products to unilaterally operate successfully in all these markets in relation to:

• Differing Fuel Quality

• Multiple Global Operating Temperatures

• Multiple Operating Altitudes

• Extremely Diverse Global Operating Conditions

The Solution

Our Specialist Technicians first make two complete system backups of the manufacturer’s standard program from the vehicles ECU , this enables the vehicle to be returned to its original and standard factory configuration at point of sale, end of lease contract term or anytime when so required. The ECU program is then completely replaced by a totally revised and optimized program that takes into account ALL variables suited to the UK fuel market, weather conditions, temperatures and standard altitude. From this point on, the vehicle runs fully optimized not compromised which is how we attain our improved fuel economy and also lower the vehicles Co2 emission. All of this is achieved without ever exceeding any of the safe tolerances of the engine therefore no adverse affect on engine life will be experienced. In addition our system is completely warranted and is reversible at any time if required.

Additional Features
Additionally we can include specified parameters within the new ECU program to limit both maximum vehicle speed and engine revs. These additional parameters have proven to further enhance and maximize the fuel saving figures by ensuring the vehicle always operates within the engines recommended torque band and therefore ensures the best use of the fuel , whilst also making sure that excessive and unnecessary wear and tear to the vehicle through poor driving habits is kept to a minimum.

Fuelsaver Technical Overview & Questions Answered

How Fuelsaver Works
As explained earlier our Fuelsaver system works by optimising the programming within the vehicles ECU, this is effectively the onboard computer contained within the vehicle that controls all the electronic engine settings relating to fuel injection pressures, ignition timing, air mixtures and flow rates etc. The vehicles ECU that controls the engine constantly evaluates and determines the actual conditions and loads that the vehicle is under, it then attempts to control various aspects of the internal combustion process whilst making constant electronic adjustments.

One main variant and condition that is taken into account by the ECU is the weather conditions, if the ambient temperature is hot or cold is of importance and has a considerable varying effect on both the performance and consumption of the engine. Other equally important factors that is required to be taken into account is the vehicles load, driver style, current altitude and the quality of the fuel being used. The ECU constantly monitors all of these variables and more besides and then constantly tries to optimise the efficiency of the engine based on a standard rule set and calculations installed across a range of engines that are distributed throughout many countries.

This optimisation however is often usually just a compromise due to each vehicle manufacturer trying to balance the needs of the Global Markets that they are supplying into rather than addressing specific factors that affects each country or continent.

Optimal programming of the ECU that actually takes into account the specific variables unique to the UK ensures complete optimisation of the engine and fuel usage for the UK. Additionally the re programming can include specific characteristics that ensures a lowering of the CO2 produced by the vehicle. Therefore having the vehicles ECU re programmed with Fuelsaver can change all the parameters from the manufacturers compromise to being fully optimised, this ultimately provides improved fuel consumption figures, more engine torque, lower CO2 emissions and most importantly considerable reductions in fuel bills.

Why the MPG reduces in Winter ! There are two major reasons why cold has a dramatic and negative effect on vehicles fuel consumption, the first is simple and straightforward due to the fact that engines are made of materials that are severely affected by cold temperatures with contracting components and cold thickened lubricants means the engine encounters greater loads and requires richer fuel mixtures until the engine reaches its optimal operating temperatures. The second is due to how a modern direct injection engine functions and how the ECU operates in order to produce the best combustion model that suits both the requirements for the engine to perform its required task whilst also meeting modern environmental emission controls.

In winter vehicles take considerably longer to reach their full operating temperature, this happens every time the engine is started and stopped even if the engine has not fully cooled down, this is commonly known as the warm up cycle. Not surprisingly during this “Warm up Cycle” the engine usually uses significantly more fuel than during the same cycle in summer months. All engine related fluids, gearbox oils and steering oils are all cold, sludgy and do not reach their actual efficiency and protection until fully warmed adding to greater loads being placed on the engine, this naturally transposes into greater fuel consumption. Motor manufacturers operate on a global scale and within strict economies of scale, therefore it makes sound economical sense to have all their engines and ECU’s able to operate globally. Whilst vehicles that are supplied to different countries might look different and carry different names or identities essentially they are all the same under the skin.

Operating within a global market creates its own set of problems for the manufacturer as they need to ensure that their products operate acceptably in all the global markets they supply, therefore the software within the vehicles ECU must allow for a vast range of varying ambient temperatures, altitudes and differing fuel qualities. Combine these factors with strict emission levels leads you to understand why the manufacturers ECU software is running compromised by allowing for such a wide scale of these variables. Additionally most manufacturers plan and operate on an average of 5 year cycles which means that all components, parts and systems are manufactured in advance and thus prevents quick reactions and changes to market conditions. The enormous development cost of engines and drive trains demands that they must use the current generation of units for as long as possible before trying to replace them with better versions.

Today’s modern Direct Fuel Injection Management Systems are extremely efficient at optimizing the air/fuel ratios that are entering the engine. The oxygen sensor or lambda sensor monitors the percentage of oxygen in the exhaust and compares this with the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere, it generates a low voltage pulse that communicates with the vehicles ECU which then electronically adjust the pulse width of the fuel injectors. This adjustment alters the length of time that each injector is open in each injector cycle, this fine tunes the amount of fuel that actually reaches each cylinder and ensures that all the fuel and oxygen is precisely burnt. The system makes these fine adjustments hundreds of times each second working constantly to reach an optimal air/fuel ratio for each given situation, the system is tuned to try and maintain a perfect ratio of 14.7 1 (petrol) and 15-16 to 1 (diesel) this is called the stoichiometric ratio. The engine is said to be running in a “closed loop” state when using this system, relying upon the oxygen or lambda sensor signal to fine tune the engine operation.

This works extremely well however the engine management system can only seek to produce this optimal air/fuel ratio when the engine has reached its full operating temperature and NOT during its “warm up cycle”. During this “warm up cycle” the ECU does not look for a signal from the oxygen sensor until it approaches its full operating temperature. During the “warm up cycle” the ECU solely operates on its inbuilt program which combines data including coolant temperature, airflow mass or MAP sensor input of combined air volume and temperature, throttle positions and actual engine rpm. This running state is known as “open loop” operation, which means the ECU is not operating utilising the feedback from the oxygen sensor. In “open loop” operation during the warm up period the engine requires and is provided with a richer air/fuel mixture to ensure optimal combustion so therefore requires and uses more fuel. This extra fuel is also required during any re warm up cycle due to a percentage of the vaporised fuel injected actually re condensing back into liquid upon contact with colder engine parts such as the intake manifold, intake valves, pistons and cylinders. This re condensed liquid fuel just passes through the engine as it is only the vaporised fuel only that is burnt upon combustion.

The main contributory factor in reduced winter MPG figures is air density. Air density is defined as the number of air molecules per cubic foot of air that is entering the engine. The optimum calculation of 14.7 to 1 or 15-16 to 1 previously mentioned means 14.7 parts of air are mixed with one part fuel for the optimal air/fuel mixture. However colder air is considerably denser which translates into more molecules per cubic foot, so regardless of how the vehicle is being driven the same cubic feet of air enters the vehicle only this time it contains more air molecules therefore more oxygen, to maintain the balance the ECU has to provide more fuel to maintain the target air/fuel ratio for the whole time the engine is running. Ambient air temperatures, altitude and differing fuel quality are global regional issues, this is where our fuelsaver technology works. The UK has EU standard fuel our standard diesel is a minimum cetane level of 51, a temperate climate without the extremes of heat or cold experienced by other countries and no high altitude driving to encounter, therefore we can actually tailor ECU programming to take these into account and work totally optimised here in the UK. So by creating and programming totally new software for the ECU we allow the engine to operate under a new set of rules to deliver more MPG and reduce its CO2 output.

Why the manufacturers do not do this as standard 

Your Carbon Footprint is Important

The amount of CO2 produced is inextricably linked to the amount of fuel that you burn. To get a better understanding of this you just have to look at how the test houses conduct the EU Drive Cycle test which is used to produce the official MPG figures per vehicle.

This test is conducted in the following manner, a vehicle is put on a rolling road and driven around a computerised course, the driver is prompted to change gear, break and accelerate at specific points within the program whilst at the same time the computer makes the rolling road intermittently apply varying loads to the wheels being driven to mimic driving up inclines and hills.

For the duration of the test the exhaust gases are collected and via a complicated filter system the various component gases are separated. Once the test is completed the filtered CO2 is weighed, this figure has a direct correlation to the fuel used during the test. This information is then processed and from the direct measurement of fuel used determines the calculated and published MPG figures for that vehicle. It is very clear that by using less fuel you produce less CO2 .