Just curious as to how damaging it would be to the engine to run on only 3 cylinders (one bank) in the various ways you can go about it, e.g. simply cut the injector pulses, or go further and run 2 TB's with a custom intake, etc, etc.
The background behind this: I've been throwing the idea around for a while now about a custom PCM (I have the time and knowledge/ability to gain the knowledge, as well as know others that are experts in the necessary fields whom I can gain knowledge from) and was thinking about how someone said that you could build a 30mpg city 3800 if you really put your mind to it (I know it was a generic theoretical statement, but it's still probably true). Anyways I'm not shooting for anything super ridiculous like 50 or 60mpgs city, but I figured since these engines are pretty simplistic in design, it would be easier to modify them than other engines (plus I'm already familiar with them). So...basically the idea is to have 3 modes of driving -- eco, auto, and performance. Eco will force the engine to run on 3 cylinders instead of 6, auto will switch to 3 cylinders at cruising speed in OD, and performance will force 6 cylinders all the time. Other modifications to support this kind of system is a custom twin turbo setup to dump boost separately if needed, or single turbo setup.
Other random details about this PCM are that it would be open source and would offer free open source tuning software (obviously you will still need to buy the necessary hardware though).
So, I'm ready for the flame and the "JUST GO BUY A DIFFERENT CAR"s. Bring it on bishes. I would like to get some legit input on this though, as 97-03s can be had for cheapsies, and microprocessors are rather inexpensive nowadays as well (plus, well, I'm a programmer so the OS and software are cake :P).