Hypermilers thread

[David85]

Its getting to the point where you could actually drive a car that is worthless without the gas in it!! Have you checked out "DavesFarm" on Utube? He knows what to do with a good hoopty. I won't complain though. My truck went from 9 MPG to 20 so far and it more than pays for itself even with the price of diesel. It helps that I work at home, so there is no daily commute to deal with. I think I will survive the ULSD era.

[Dodge/Cummins]

It's getting bad enough that I actually thought about getting a Neon today! STOP THE INSANITY! Then I realised it would only be good for getting back and forth to work and that's only 20 miles round trip.
It's still no good for hauling my 6-person family anywhere and I can't go over the mountains in it to go hunting for 5-10 days, so it would cost more to keep it going than it's worth.
I have seriously considered selling the wifes Suburban and getting an.....um....a.....mini-van. Augh, I hate the freakin' fuel prices!!!!!!!!!!

[David85]

Originally Posted by Dodge/Cummins

It's getting bad enough that I actually thought about getting a Neon today! STOP THE INSANITY! Then I realised it would only be good for getting back and forth to work and that's only 20 miles round trip.
It's still no good for hauling my 6-person family anywhere and I can't go over the mountains in it to go hunting for 5-10 days, so it would cost more to keep it going than it's worth.
I have seriously considered selling the wifes Suburban and getting an.....um....a.....mini-van. Augh, I hate the freakin' fuel prices!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so sorry to hear that buddy. I offer my deepest condolences on your loss. Theres not much worse than having to consider buying a minivan.....except maybe buying one

The solution I'm looking at is converting something small like a 2003 corolla or late model ford ranger to battery power. When my dad gets back from an overseas trip, he wants to start collecting the components and look for a good donor. We expect at least a 50 mile range and top speed around 75 MPH, more is possible depending on how much we shell out for a the battery (lithium). The $2 rechage cost will be kind of nice compared to what gas would cost (less maintenance as well).

[ghunt]

I'm doing OK right now driving my Thunderbird- sure, it takes 93 octane, but gets around 22-26 mpg on mixed driving, so it hasn't been too bad.

When I get my truck done I want to drive it occasionally. I'm just wondering what I'll do this winter. The Thunderbird always gets put away for winter (would be useless trying to drive it in snow anyway), and the truck won't get good enough mileage to drive it every day. I may have to pick up yet another beater (ugh)...

[waynebo]

get a ranger 3.0 with a 5 speed and 4x4,older model.

[David85]

Originally Posted by waynebo

get a ranger 3.0 with a 5 speed and 4x4,older model.

My sister had a 2.9L 4x4 ranger ex cab and it was pretty good, but eventually we lost interest in the small problems it had with the EFI. Was good for about 25 MPG. The 2.9 has similar power and torque numbers to the 3.0, but the powerband is lower down.

We still that ranger, but it now has a 2.3L turbo diesel instead and gets 30 MPG (she was hauling @$$ that day too). It has its own quirks, but I hope to get those sorted out soon enough. If we ever get another ranger, or repower this one again, it will be electric powered.

[royzell]

Hi all, my $.02....

I have found 2 simple but obvious - therefore overlooked items.
1. clean air filter - every 6 months whether it needs it or not, kind of like oil changes.
2. tire pressure - don't run what the vehicle manufacturer says, but rather the maximum indicated on the tire itself - less rolling resistance. Check often.

[David85]

OK, last fuel up was 16.5 MPG on the front tank. Driving included just about every condition but towing. City, highway, extended idling, and a wild goose chase out on a logging road for a few hours. Not exactly ideal.

Rear tank only took 5 liters, and that calculated to 22 MPG running very gently on blacktop with mixed city and highway. I tried using neutral to coast for longer distances as there are some nice long but shallow hills that I can still hold a steady speed without the transmission out of gear. Illegal, but still interesting. Maybe it would be better to reprogram the PCM to make use of the coast clutch instead.....

The rear tank is probably an outliner, I did my best to fill very slowly but chances are the small volume still threw the result off.

My new tires are set to 75 psi and I'm all set to make my weekly run on thursday. Will be interesting to see what difference there will be on the odometer when I get back. I suspect the tires with their full tread are taller than the ones I took off.

[matts156]

I didn't read every post, so someone may have already covered this.

If you drive like you don't have a brake pedal, you'll improve your mileage. This is how it's done:

1. When you're approaching a stop sign/light or traffic, or any other condition that will require you to stop or at least slow down, take your foot off the gas and (for MT trucks) put your foot on the clutch and coast to that point when you notice that you are going to (or may) have to stop. You might piss off some of the people following you but they don't have to pay your gas bill, so to hell with 'em.

Anyway, the point is that if you keep giving it gas to take you up to the stop point then use your brake to slow or stop, you've wasted fuel getting to that point because you could have just coasted to it.

Also, if you slowed in advance to a stop light, it may turn green before you get to it. You save fuel because you're resuming your original speed from your slowing speed instead of from a full stop at the light.

2. Don't downshift to slow down. This just gets the RPMs up which pumps more fuel into the engine. Even though your foot is not on the pedal, if you downshift and get the engine up to 1200 or 1800 RPM, you're feeding the engine 2 or 3 times (or more at higher RPM) more fuel than you would if you just let the engine idle at 600 RPM while you're coasting to the stop point.

Of course, at some point when you stop you'll have to use the brake to come to a complete stop but the point is, the less fuel you use to get there, the more MPG you'll see next time you fill up. Pretending that there's no brakes will help remind you to take your foot off the gas pedal much sooner when approaching a stop. I know that if I had no brakes, I'd be taking my foot off the gas at 3 times the distance from a light than I would if I did have brakes, and praying that it turns green before I got to it.

I already drive this way to some extent, but when I drove in this morning to work, I consciously tried the method above for the first time. It surprised me when I realized how many times I was previously giving it gas when I could have been idling. I took a whole exit off-ramp at idle and just let my momentum carry me to the end of it, when ordinarily I give it gas half-way through the ramp to keep my speed up. I found that there was only about a 5-8 mph difference between the coasting speed and the speed I maintained when gassing it through the ramp. Wasted fuel!

So make like there's no brake pedal there and let your momentum take you to a stop point rather than fuel from your tank.

[tbone91]

I'm not so sure about creaping/coasting up to a light. Probably half the fuel I burn is sitting at lights because the guys ahead of me missed the cycle by not making it to the detector loop before the preceeding light in the cycle turned yellow.

Not trying to flame anyone, but rather complaining about the stupidity of five minute lights timed at twice the speed limit.

[David85]

Originally Posted by tbone91

Not trying to flame anyone, but rather complaining about the stupidity of five minute lights timed at twice the speed limit.

Hell yeah!!!!

The bypass around Nanaimo in BC is set up that way. The posted speed limit is 90kph, but to line yourself up with the changing lights on the bypass you have to drive at 120 kph. I know becasue I, like many others that know the route have done it. It can be quite frustrating and many drivers loose their patience and try to get ahead any way they can, although they never really succeed. Its not easy to get good MPG numbers in that cattle run

I've been in smaller cities that have much more advanced traffic management that does allow you to catch the so called "urban wave" without having to break the speed limit.

[David85]

Just got back from my 200 mile run.....

I can verify that my speedometer was in fact NOT thrown off by the new tires. Same route showed the same trip meter reading when I got home.

I used the rear tank to head south and the front to come back home.

Rear tank already had 55 mixed city and other short trip kilometers on it before heading out.

Heading south I fought a mild head wind for about half of the time, also some rain, heavy at times. Heading back north on the same route I had some help from that same wind, there was also slightly less rain. Load was similar for both directions, railings hanging out of the bed with the tailgate down.

Rear tank MPG estimate is 18.3 MPG @ 67-73 MPH

Front tank estimate is 22.6 MPG @ 67-73 MPH

Average for today =~20.49 MPG Averaging 70 MPH

This route includes some driving on a city bypass, so there is some urban high speed conditions thrown in as well. The very same that I rant about in my last post....

[David85]

Some more results...............

98.371 miles if mixed short distance city and highway driving with about 25 miles of which was towing our 18' boat (including a 10% climb at 50 MPH) burned 6.613 gallons

That gives 14.875 MPG.


128.3 miles of freeway driving at 70-75 MPH. 100 miles of which was completely empty with the tailgate up. Burned 6.1 gallons.

That gives 21.087 MPG


And for the final test, 78.208 miles of freeway driving averaging 73 MPH (ocasionally hit 80 downhill). Tailgate down with light load of railings in the bed. Burned 3.439 gallons.

That gives 22.740 MPG


The last two results were on the same round trip, with the higher result being part of the return leg. Typically preveiling winds blow north and I've consistently seen higher results on the way home than the way out.

As a side note, my cruise control is not working right now, and all of the results in this post are without using the cruise control. Traffic was also better this time, I lined up at 120 KPH and hit just about every light when it was green for the urban section of the drive.

[catfish101]

Man you drive fast. You aren't haulin corn squeezins are ya.

[David85]

Originally Posted by catfish101

Man you drive fast. You aren't haulin corn squeezins are ya.

No, nothing that glamorous. But I do make it in house. The trip is to get them to a powder coating shop, the closest one that we trust being 98 miles away...



For larger loads I drag this thing behind me:



I bet these guys didn't see me coming though.



They are part of the reason that we built the trailer.