Whether to help prevent climate change or to reduce the strain on your budget, it makes sense to do whatever you can to improve the fuel economy of your vehicle. Proper maintenance will help to make sure that your car is running the way it should, but to really boost the performance of your vehicle, you need to add aftermarket parts. Knowing which parts will help you to get the most for your money. 

Turbocharger

A stock engine will use the suction created by the piston withdrawing from the combustion chamber to pull air into the chamber. While this is effective in getting some air into the engine, you will not get enough air to completely combust the fuel pushed into the chamber by your injectors. A turbocharger has a turbine powered by the exhaust escaping your engine. This turbine forces more air into your vehicle's combustion chamber. By more fully combusting the air in your chamber, you will burn more of the fuel. By utilizing more of the potential energy in the fuel, you will get better fuel economy than you otherwise would. You just have to resist the urge to stomp on the gas because a turbocharger will also provide more power. 

A Performance CPU

Modern vehicles will have a computer that governs various functions of the engine. The factory CPU may not be designed to give you the most performance for you money. Especially if you add aftermarket parts such as a turbine, you will want to upgrade your CPU.

Headers

When you increase the flow of gases into your engine, you also have to optimize the flow of gases out of your engine. If you stick with your stock exhaust, the volume of gases trying to escape your engine can create eddies, which slow down the flow of fuel out of your engine and create a bottleneck. Headers and a high-performance exhaust will help to optimize the flow of gases out of your engine so that you get better fuel economy and power.

The upgrades described above are often used to increase the top-end speed of a vehicle, but you can use the same upgrades to boost fuel economy as long as you adjust your driving habits. If you race your car from stoplight to stoplight, you will likely burn more fuel after these upgrades rather than less. On the other hand, if you avoid stomping on the gas, you can reduce your need to visit a gas pump, and thus save money. 

For more information and options, talk with a company that supplies car parts, such as Four-Twenty-Two Auto Wrecking.