Just completed a 3600 mile road trip to sunny southeren Kalifornia. Towed an 18 ft car trailer out there for my son to use in moving home when he musters out of the USMC in two weeks. Trailer was basically empty save for 7 wheels and tires (two spares for the trailer, four to put on his 83 Bronco to lower it for trailering, one spare for my utility trailer he's had out there, for the trip home) I went thru the 1996 Explorer conversion van in the three months prior to leaving, doing suspension upgrades and a GT40 head swap, plus a new 3" single exhaust from the new Pacesetter shorty headers all the way out the back. The suspension upgrades included new HD front coils, new shocks all around (Gas Magnums up front, load levelers out back) and a new Addco 1-1/4" front swaybar. The stock E7TE heads were replaced with a worked over set of GT40 iron heads off a Lighting motor, fitted with a set of 1.7 Cobra roller rockers. Nothing else in the engine was changed. The engine runs like a swiss watch, zero problems the whole trip. The bottomend has 100K miles on it now. Fuel mileage wasn't as good as I'd hoped, on the trip out it averaged about 10 mpg running I-10 at speeds up to 80 mph in west Texas (yea, that's the limit out there now ) I fought a bad 20-30 mph crosswind for the first 400 miles almost til we got to San Antone. Past there it's up and downhill in the Texas hill country till you get to Junction Tx, then there are long stretches of easy grades and a few long pulls and drops. Ran into black ice 6-7 miles before the 10-20 split where we ended up in a traffic jam for 8 hours (idling to run the heater), then had to backtrack to Balmorhea and then run up to I-20 at Pecos to get around the wrecks on I-10. Once past the ice at the split, it was smooth sailing all the way out to 29 Palms Ca. The trip back was towing my small utility trailer (600 lbs) with a detour to take the grandkids to see Carlsbad Caverns and then back across the back roads from there to I-20 at Big Spring Tx. The van rides good and handles like it's on rails with the suspension upgrades, stable at up to 80+ mph, although you have to be on your toes at those speeds with the P/S it has (very sensitive steering) We averaged 12-13 mpg on the trip back running mostly at 75 mph. The engine's sweet spot starts at about 70 mph, runs effortless at 70-80. You can't hear it pulling unless you hit an uphill stretch. At 60-65, there is some intake noise indicating it working harder at those speeds in OD. I had to run the 235/75/15's it came with due to problems with the replacement set of shorter, wider tires I had bought for it. Once I go back to the shorter tires I think that'll move the spwet spot down to 65, allowing it to cruise at that lower speed and move the mpg up a little with the reduced wind drag. The engine has plenty of power, accellerating the big trailer with ease. The mileage may not be what I'd hoped for, but with the bed in the back, we saved three night's worth of $$$$ that countered the fuel mileage, that and the fact that it's paid for (no notes ) further makes up for the mileage.