318 MAX fuel economy builds?

gagembassett said

So I'm looking into buying a long-distance capable daily driver. I have my eyes on a Dodge Diplomat and Chrysler 5th Avenue. Both have 318s and I thought it may be of my own interest to buy one as a daily as they are things I can work on instead of things I would need to take to a shop. In the case that I buy one or the other I would like to build the 318 for high fuel economy, I'm talking like 20+ mpg if possible. Anyone done this? Any input? Etc. Let's coffee-table talk daily stuff instead of high horsepower for once.

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Other than basic tuning it's hard to recoup money spent on mpg gain's, for one it's takes a certain amount of horsepower to move your car down the road which takes a narrow amount if fuel. It's hard to make gain's on a well tuned and setup car. A 10% improvement on a 15-20 mpg car is only 1.5-2 mpg gain. You'd have to burn a lot of fuel a year and keep cost of upgrades to a minimum generally to be economical. If you start spending $1000's and don't drive much could take a decade to recoup. Not saying not to but figure it out first could be just cheaper to dump it in the tank.