Optimal second van is ~20 seconds faster than the other van and ~45 seconds faster than third van.

The quickest possible kill will save about 5 seconds over blowing the car up with an SMG. The micro-SMG saves about .5 seconds over the regular SMG, but you have to be very careful or the car will run into the optimal cab and blow it up. The quick kill is pretty difficult to do and you risk having the car roll through the fence and down the hill.

Backup knife:

Saves 4 seconds, and it's not a bit more dangerous, unless you're slow.

Some minor things I looked into today. These may be known already but I don't recall anyone ever telling me about these or seeing someone do them in runs.

Pest Control 2 strategy I will do in runs from now on. Very safe and can be extremely fast. Equip your weapon of choice before entering the car and kill the escort car 2-3s after you fire at Ray's car.

Armour pick up for Tunnel of Death. Should cost no to barely any time.

There is also a health pack one block south and west from where you kill the dudes in Payback. Would've been useful for me to know yesterday. :<

Throwing a grenade (not the explosion) will scare Gracie, causing the yellow marker to immediately appear at the entrance of the back alley. Simply throw the grenade when you're inches from the marker's spawn location, touch the marker (the grenade despawns), and continue to the next yellow marker. (this video also shows what I believe to be the optimal route)

Jump just to the left of center of that section of the railing that sticks out. Make sure you're facing a bit to the left. You'll bounce off of some odd hit-box, sending you into the tail. It should work every time, if you do it exactly as described.

Easy Fare- Time the drive so that you're getting the first tutorial message just as you're about to pass the large pillar on the left, just after making the turn to the left. If you hit an NPC between the first large pillar (identical to the previous pillar) and where I turned, you're able to make the turn and make your way under the train station and save a little bit of time on the drive. It shouldn't matter if you hit another NPC on the next couple sidewalks you'll cross. The wanted area will move back to where you hit the NPC, as always.

Between- Block the call. This next section requires you to play extremely well to not lose any time. Push the cop car to the end of the save spot as quickly as possible. Entering the diner causes the diner blip to spawn. You'll be using this blip later.

Bull In a China Shop- Place the marker exactly where you see me place it. The green line should end underneath the green marker, not on the roads to the left or right: The cab should always end up blocked by the pillar. If you have a pistol, shoot the window before getting out (as seen in the video). If you've done this, skip the cut scene when it changes to the close-up shot of the shop owner. If you fail to shoot the window from the cab, re-hail the cab and then proceed to shoot the window from the curb/drain. If you plan to push the window, there's no need to re-hail the cab as long as it's blocked by the pillar. Cab to the diner, which is one above the yellow marker. Make sure you block the cab after re-hailing it. It should never pull away from the diner as you finish the mission.

Powdinet mentioned that there might be a way to kill him without getting a wanted level, so I thought about it and the first thing that came to my mind was shooting him at a distance. I don't think there's a faster way to do this. Saves about 20 seconds.

This is about 1 second faster, if you don't take long to get the shot off, and will almost always allow you to cab before the end of mission call comes in, which can end up being about 5 seconds faster than what's possible with the old strat. Make sure to climb to the right of the thin support beam, which can be seen to my left just as I climb. Climbing further down will not spawn him in.

About 5 seconds faster than what's possible with SMGs/ARs. Reference for 2nd car: Run out from between the two cars, aim between the two polls and fire just after the front of the car becomes visible. Reference for 3rd car: Aim just to the right of the car and fire as quickly as you can. Pretty easy to see in the video

~3 seconds faster

Delays the dialogue just long enough to get a dialogue skip

Confirmed that you don't need to knock him over, but this will leave you with a little less time to spare on average. The upside is that the chance of Roman falling over is massively decreased if you're body-checking him. What's happening with this strat is, you're delaying the "Take Roman to the hardware store." text.

Maybe this will help with figuring out why the clip capture strat works for me (the mission begins at 0:53):

Make sure the guy with the shotgun on the stairs (he's on the final staircase before going into the room) dies from an explosion. If he lives, you might find him waiting for you in the hall, and this can be deadly.

Watch for when I prime and drop each grenade. Watch and learn.

If you are low on health during Escuela of the Streets you can grab the health pack at the hospital you pass rather than at the start of the shoot out. It doesn't cost any time this way.

Cops cannot re-spot you while you're using the police computer, so this can be used as a safety strat on missions such as Tunnel Of Death (police stockades have computers). Leave the wanted area, access the computer, wait until the wanted level goes away.

Bumping into Phil allows you to get into the cab just before Phil does, which in turn allows you to warp right away, instead of waiting for him to get out and get back in. This saves about 7 seconds. You're going to want to sprint out of the cutscene, so hold your sprint key, W and D throughout the scene. The rocket strats save about 12 seconds over SMGs. Every rocket shot is worth taking. You should be able to work in a trip to the gun shop before and after Trespass, without any time loss if you're waiting for messages between missions.

Here are a couple risks I managed to record. Others include running into fire, entire paths blocked by fire, enemies running in front of your rocket at the perfect moment.

If you steal a cab with at least one passenger before Call and Collect and hit the Call and Collect marker with the passenger(s) still in the cab, the cab driver will then respawn in the cab and will wait just like a hailed cab. It saves about 20 seconds.

This does not seem to work for Lure. It worked for Flatline, but most likely will cost you time (plus it's nearly impossible to quickly find a cab near Peg's house with a passenger, which makes it just as useless for Payback [if it even works for that mission, I never tried]).