Keep in mind its past midnight when I started this thread, so please bear with me if I seem to go off the deep end.



I thought we could bounce some ideas on how to get through the latest spikes in fuel and other energy prices that have been seen. Heres what I've got so far. Its not all practical, but this is a discussion.


Fuel additives have been mentioned to get better MPG, but its so far not so clear if they are cost effective. Although it still a good idea to run some sort of lubrication supplement for the sake of the injection system.

Using waste ATF and even filtered motor oil has been tried (both of which have higher BTUs than the crappy ULSD).
Water injection might be considered a fuel additive, but again I haven't been able confirm how well it would work.
Hydrogen injection has been tried and according to an FTE member on the 7.3L powerstroke forum works quite well. I intend to try this as soon as I have some time.
Biodiesel or SVO might be an option for some of you, but fuel system mods are recommended before trying biofuel (including blends).

Powertrain mods,

3.08 gears helped me on the freeway, but will do little for city driving, and may even hurt in some cases (4wd need not apply).
Swapping in an overdrive transmission to get another top gear will always help. With fuel prices rising, and the cost of used parts slowly falling, a tranny swap is cost effective for those who rack up high miles every year, and keep their trucks for many years.

Free flowing intake and exhaust (cut out that stupid soup bowl out!) with a light foot to take advantage of the lower restriction. Has anyone made a dual ram intake for their IDI diesel?

Turbocharging made no effect on the MPG of my truck, but I do have more fun driving it, and I can run it harder for the same economy. Loading the truck up shows a bigger difference in fuel economy, so for heavy towing a turbo should help.

Synthetic oil

Is it worth it? I never used it myself, but if any of you have, please share your impressions (engine, tranny, differential oil).

Chassis mods

At higher speeds aerodynamic drag is usually the biggest loss. Its so bad that I noticed similar MPGs towing a flatbed trailer as hauling a light load on the canopy rack of my truck.
This is an extreme example of what is possible with aero modding as its called:
http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=870

Its not all practical, but the belly pan mod has me interested, and I may try that some day.

Lowering kits would also help, but since most of the trucks on this forum are TTB, thats not going to go over very well. But it might be possible with air bags on the D60 front that some of these trucks are equipped with.

My feeling is that 235/85/16 tires are the best overall compromise for load handling and efficiency. They can take the heavy loads, but are nice and tall with a narrow frontal cross section, reducing drag. Mag wheels look cool, and improve handling, but increase drag as well.


Long term

You are not going to like this, but there are fuel shortages coming. The crisis of the 70s was largely staged, but right now the world is within 2% of maxing out oil production.

http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/0...n-seven-years/

This also raises CO2 emissions as an issue, but frankly, there are bigger problems right now. Maybe there are other oil reserves out there, chance are that there is still some left to be found, but with china and india wanting the same standard of living as the developed world (you and me), I have my doubts that it will be enough.

If I had my way I would drive one of these powered by solar panels on my house roof,



but since I the car and the OEM electric ranger were canceled, I am stuck with my diesel for now. The newest ranger has some potential, but I can't recommend them yet because they are fairly new. They do claim a 400 mile electric range though (top of the line), can't wait to see the first objective reviews.

Government policy

Lots to be said, but since it might violate forum rules, I'll hold off until I'm sure its safe start such a discussion.

Your turn......

 

Hi all I am living in the uk we are paying over $10 a gallon FEEL OUR PAIN!, so tempting to get political I know, but lets not let them get us down. Give them the finger and enjoy your truck !!! sadly your grand children will never know what it was like to burn so much gas just for fun, Jon.

 

Hello David85 and list. Better fuel mileage is a combination of a lot of factors. The most over looked are some times the biggest factors. I start with the tires (rolling resistance), I inflate them at least to the max load pressure (I will go as much as 20% over max on new tires), check the front end alignment. Unload all the stuff you are hauling around that is not needed. Install a bed cover or just a simple tarp over the bed.

Driving at a max of 55 MPH is a huge factor. Learn to "coast" on long down grades and when coming up to a stop.

To the best of my knowledge the US Federal limit to using untaxed fuel "additives" is 7%..........

The above items are simple to do,,,but can be as much as 25% or more improvement some times................
crossbones

 

I'm not sure what all the mods are that would be necessary to burn biodiesel? I thought that I read somewhere that these 6.9L and 7.3L diesel engines would do well with it because the fuel lines run close to the engine or something which would keep the biodiesel hot and therefore less chance of clogging. There is a place just north of Seattle that is making B99, B20, and B5 and has his price at $3.70 even though diesel here sell for $4 and up. I went up to buy some one day, but they were out. My thought was to put biodiesel in one tank and only use that tank when the truck was up and running hot, then switching back to regular diesel before shutting it off. The guy did say though that I would probably have to make some changes, but we didn't go into details. I've been reading a lot on using WVO and there is a kit you can buy where you need 70 cents per gallon worth of material (lye and something else?) then of course you have to secure your waste vegetable oil source. I'm afraid with Standard Biodiesel up north BUYING the WVO from restaurants that getting it for free is going to be harder and harder. And the kit costs around $3K so if you're saving $3 a gallon you will need to drive far enough to buy 1,000 gallons of gas and I am currently only using the pickup as a part time rig (but that could change quickly if my fuel costs only .70 a gallon!).

The long range affects of biodiesel are worrisome though. It's great that it's renewable, but if the whole country wanted biodiesel there would be no more corn for the cows and we'd all have to eat rice cakes or something? I don't know how it would work in a large scale deployment.

 

KLPYW (? I never can remember his sign on name) has a dual ram air set up where he took the intake bowl and added a snorkle from another intake, took flex pipe and ran line to where the parking light is. parking light area was modified to larger size and had led turn lights installed. REALLY SLICK! he's got photos posted in his gallery.

speedrdr

 

I believe that is cheaperjeeper that did that mod

 

You should eliminate all rubber in your fuel system before trying biodiesel, and that means a specially rebuilt pump, and extra $50-$100 I think. Using the dual tanks is a geat idea, and should work nicely.

The only thing more worrisome than replacing all of our food crops with fuel oil crops is trying to grow ethanol instead, its VERY inefficient. And there just isn't enough farmland to grow the amount of oil we need if everything was diesel powered. For now, Biodiesel is still a temporary fix, but if you can get it for a better price, than I would be all over that (no suppliers where I live).

For long term, I am still waiting on slightly cheaper batteries before trying a hybrid or outright electric conversion on one of my trucks, propably my F150. The cost of batteries is to the point where its very tempting to try right now. Many people just don't realize how efficient and cheap electric vehicles are to operate. And thats before you consider making your own power.

 

What kinda KW/per hour usuage will be added to your electric bill when using an electric car? Our power here is mostly from diesel generators and is expensive.

Funny thing (well not funny) is we have hydro power being made less than 40 miles away. The powerline run just to the east of my house but that power is being piped 500 miles away and we are stuck with the generators at Beluga. Some kinda deal that the local power company made when the darn dam was first built in the late 80's. Protecting their profits I guess.

Cook Inlet also have the second biggest tidal range (30 feet) in the world second only to the Bay of Fundy. Seems like we could tap that energy. Dave85 your in Cambell River have you all tapped into the currents coming through Seymour Narrows, Discovery Passage?

 

I like that thought process.....seems logical

 

I did hear plans to place underwater turbines in the narrows, but not sure if it went ahead. I'll have to look into that, because those waters flow as fast as the campbell river when the tide is moving (our boat can plain standing still!). I know a plan for a wind farm on cape mudge was nixed before a test tower could even be installed to measure potential wind resources. Mainly because of a backlash over how unsightly they would have been, Still makes me mad just to think of how short sighted people can be sometimes (literally, in this case).

Tidal power is probably the most reliable and consistent source of zero emission renewable energy on the planet, I hope we will see more of that in the years ahead. Micro hydro is also one of the most cost effective power generation methods right now. Smaller rivers can be partially diverted for generating electricity with hardly any visible footprint. I'm really surprised they are not using it if there is a hydro source so close to you.

For electric cars, there is no data available for something the size of our trucks because so far no one has built one. But for lighter vehicles like a compact car or pickup (rangerEV), it is possible to estimate operating cost.
In BC we are paying $0.06/Kwh last I checked.
The OEM ranger had a 20.96 Kwh battery depending on the type (ford used at least two).
The cost for me to recharge this truck with most of the electricity coming from hydro, would be $1.26.
The range was about 50 miles OEM (later ones could do 75).
Cost per mile would be $0.025 (no fuel/oil/air filters or other maintenance needed)

Source for specs:

http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/fsev/eva/ford_eva.pdf

I believe this is the early version that was powered by lead acid batteries (deep cycle marine batteries, basically), later ones used nickel hydride batteries, and now lithium is making 200 miles a reality for range. I've followed the tehcnology for nearly a decade now, the pace of development is increacing, and batteries are getting better every year.

 

That is correct - see my gallery.

KJLYPW did a single ram air with a custom scoop that feeds from between the hood & grill - he has photos in his gallery too.

 

Actually there are no rubber parts in all but the oldest pumps. The REALLY old ones had a rubber drive coupling in them but all rebuilt pumps use a different material (poly?) so no "special" pump is needed.

As for the hoses and lines, from what I've read you can run anything up to B50 for years and it won't hurt anything. Of course YMMV, and if your hoses are already in really bad shape all bets are off. I know I've been running B20 almost all the time in my trucks for well over a year and none of the hoses have gone soft on me...

 

I wouldn't worry so much about the seals. The thing with biodiesel, mostly soydiesel is what I have to deal with is it cleans verey well. Be prepared to go through a few fuel filters. We have the most problems with farm equipment because they buy soydiesel and put it there old storage barrels, and guess what, it cleans them. The other thing is the chance of bacteria growing in the fuel also increases. It's recomended that you use up all the soydiesel and run straight #2 fuel for stroage.

 

If you've been running an additive like diesel kleen for a long time there wont be much junk for the bio to loosen up.

the tech nology for electric cars has been prooven for many years back in the 70s or 80s, sorry my CRS is acting up, ford and gm prodused electric cars and a few years latter forced all the customers to sell them back then they destroyed them. Wounder how much the oil companies payed them to do that.

I also have a kinda off the wall idea for an MPG increas. If you fill you're tires with helium it should reduce the weight of the vehicle and possibly rottating mass not sure of that part though. Alsso the molicules may be smaller allowing it to leak out more easily.

 

Honestly David, i don't see where a fuel shortage is comming anytime soon. I drive a cement mixer in the Beaumont-Port Arthur, Tx area. As we speak, Motiva Enterprises aka Shell Oil-Saudi Oil joint venture is in the process of a 10 BILLION dollar expansion to double their refining capacity from 300,000 barrels a day to 600,000 a day, makeing it the largets refinery in the country. Valero is in the neighborhood of 2-3 BILLION to increase thier capacity and upgrade their systems to accept the "dirty" crude that noone really wants. The Huntsman Corp. is almost complete, should be within 3 months, with a Bio-diesel facility. And Total Petrochemical is expanding to the tune of 2.2 BILLION to add a Coker unit and to slightly expand its per-day capacity.
With just Motiva they are gaining the possibility of, 600,000 barrels @ about 27 gallons of gas and 7 gallons of diesel a barrel.
For them to put that much money on the line, you know they have a card up their sleve and do not plan on going short anytime soon.
just a little bit of info from a lunatic truck driver