I have a 96 F250 4X4 with the 460 in it. The truck has 355 gears and i have put on a full exhaust and taken off the air pump. What are other things i can do to get a little better gas milage.


I will be putting a K&N on it soon



Any help!!!! I dont mind paying for the gas I love the truck just wanting to see if i can save a few bucks.

 

keeping the RPM'S Below 2500 helps on my 93, 4.10 gears. I average about 12mpg and 14mpg on the highway empty. I can pretty much watch my gas gauge move if I am winding out in every gear. I also just idle thru town in 5th gear, 30mph.

 

What c_rossman said, keep the rpm's down and be easy on the gas pedal. I managed 14.5 on the highway one time but usually it gets 13 to 14 on the highway and 12 around town and then down to 6 when towing alot.

 

It break's my heart to see you guys getting 14 with those new Sixes. My old 300's out of the late 60's and early 70's were all 4x4's and they all got 13 Mpg in the winter. Sometims a little higher in the summer.
I've been wanting to swap my 460 for someone's 300 so I can get back to those good Mpg's. I hope I'm not contemplating a mistake!

 

My 1990 F250 with 300-6 only gets 10-12 mpg. It is an automatic (C6) with 4.56 gears.

 

I would kill for 14 mpg. I get 9ish, no matter how easy I take it.

 

Hmmmmm My 460/C-6 will get 11 Mpg. When the Mpg's go down into the 9's I have been fuelish with the gas pedal or I've been pulling a load on uneven ground.

That 4Bbl is a good carb. The problem with poor milage on my 460 has been the auto choke chimney.
The chimney was rotted, and the engine vacuam wasn't opening the choke all the way.

You "NEED" the Chimney from the Exhaust manifold to the front of the air cleaner. Most of the Mpg's lost are when the engine is cold. Keep that Carb warm.
The thermal/vacuam valve to open the hot air dam in the nose of the air cleaner is important.

The Thermostat should be working good. It can be a 160-190. Any of those will work. If you dont run the engine hot enough you wont get good milage.

The cold or hot range plugs are a choice, but the plugs should be pretty new. I dont know how many thousand miles a plug will last, but it dont seem to hurt the engine if you put new plugs in every 3000-5000 miles.

Change the oil every 3000 miles. That will keep those lifters and valve train in good shape.

Good shocks, good tires, and 35Lbs of air in the tires will help out a lot.

There you have all my experiences in a nutshell. That's about all you can do to get the optimum Mpg for a good 460.

 

Barring any issues that will cause a plug to foul up a platinum plug should last 60,000 miles. if you want to spend that much on plugs buy the splitfire plug or the Bosch with the 4 arc points. My uncle swears by the splitfire; he says he gets more power and mileage. I will be putting them in next change.

 

The split fire is close onto an old Idea in plugs.
If you had an ignition circuit that would fire your plugs twice in that flash of time you actually get to start the flame, you would actually get a little better burning in each firing. So you'd be getting more power. In a high speed motor you might not notice anything, but in these old slow turning stock Sixes and such you might actually feel the difference, and should see that your getting longer miles for each gallon of fuel.
In the Split fire the fire is jumping to one electrode or the other. But not likely to both electrode nodules in a consecutive order.
Split fire is a Sheep in Wolf's clothing.

 

I agree with Thudpucker about the splitfire plugs. I tried a set in my snowmobile and they did no better than the NGK's that I usually ran. Here is some iteresting info of spark plugs. http://performanceunlimited.com/illu...parkplugs.html If the link doesn't work just copy and paste it.

 

THat was a good site Kelvin. You can tell it was a young guy that wrote up the text though.
The Outboard motor industry came up with the 'Side Gapping' to help combustion of the oil in the Two cycle out board motors.
In later years the oils got better and it wasn't necessary.

In my little old mind, I'd like to see the Dyno numbers of Side gapping as opposed to standard before I'd believe what the kid is saying about better combustion.
That air/fuel mix is almost ready to flash by itself in a normal engine. High combustion pressure would make that even more prefelent. So it dont matter which way that plug is facing, or how the arc is directed, any arc is good enough to make the whole mess light up.
GM experiemented with a Lazer in place of the plug. It was a great Idea, but they didn't make it work. I dont know why they quit on the project.
The lazer fired across the combustion chamber. It would be an arc about 2-1/2" Long with plenty of wattage. You could probably run old motor oil for fuel with an arc like that!
Till the next big deal comes along, for stock and racing up to 500 Hp, In my opinion, buy em' gap em' and install em' and enjoy!

 

Actually the guy how did the research about the plugs on that site is a very knowlegeble person Look around the website a little more there is a lot of good infromation.

 

Yes Kevin, I can see that he is knowlegable. And careful with his details too.
Someday I'm gonna get on a pit crew for some Dirt Racing dude and learn a little more about some of this new stuff.

In the 50's I helped out with a Drag racer. There I learned that the Dyno will tell you the truth. Everything else is hearsay!

When I raced a 250 CC bike, I learned that Lodge plugs would work after the engine warmed up. We could warm up on Champions, but couldn't ever finish a race with them. NGK's were OK for one race usually. The lodge plugs woluld hold up under the racing stress, but you couldn't hardly ever start a cold engine with them. If you let the engine cool down with the Champions still screwed down tight, you took a chance on pulling the Threads out of the Head.
Who know's the why of all that? It just was!
I miss the racing, but I dont miss falling down!

 

I was under the impression that side gapping was an old hot rodders trick for when piston to sparkplug tolerences were so tight that an end gapped electrode would contact the piston

 

Drunkenmonk (interesting handle) I dont know. Not enough to argue the point. I learned all I know from reading Tech books and experiences.
After the War, someone gave us a motor, and Dad side gapped the plugs. Actually he cut half the electrode off. Making the Anode firing at 1/2 the cathode. Telling me it was to help fire the gas with the oil mixed into it.
All those old guys had to 'cut' gas with Kerosine during the War, and probably adopted that odd gapping to help burn that Gooey mixture of Gas and Kerosine in those low compression cars.
I didn't try to tell him it wouldn't work either.