The sand more than likely has little effect once you moving. That barn door
is something else.

Also if you get on the freeway and get all that sand and truck moving at speed
I feel sorry for any stupid little Honda cars that get in front of you and do
something stupid. Like get in front of you. They call that scrap metal after the fact.

 

You in big truck territory grossing 80k lbs, id hate to buy fuel at 6.5mpg,that will get into profits fast.

 

Experienced that last winter when a little Kia pulled across traffic in front of me. I was only going 10 mph and still knocked the front wheel off the car. Barely a dent on my plow.

 

New drivers should bot be allowed to drive in bad weather until they
have 5 years driving time.

I got to thinking that some of those little cars are scrap metal before an accident.
In other words an accident looking for a place to happen.

Wonder how there gas milage does after they have been flattened by a
big truck this is lucky when it sees 12MPGs.

 

Sean: DO NOT give the insurance a**holes any other thing to deny or charge us for!!!

I'm serious... we were changing insurance and trying to get everything under one policy -- got to the cars and they said: sorry, we can't insure you at all, because you have a truck that is over 10K and under 14K GVWR. WHAT???!!! So I need to go get an F450?

It is all numbers (averages, or risk analysis) with them....

Time to go watch a movie -- I've been fighting all day with a computer controlled ice maker (actually been a week) -- why can't they keep a simple thing simple?!

Scott

 

I may as well throw my trucks apatite up here. I average 17 mpg taking my truck up to place in the mountains. Its a 5,000 foot climb up and a 5,000 foot drop back home.

But its always around the same 17-17.4 mpg on the 210 mile round trips. For turning 38/15.50/18 M/T's Id say it does well.

 

Ok, I'll bite...I consistently see somewhere in the 13-15 range running the Appalachian Mountains. Of course, if I wasn't in a hurry everywhere I went, I'm sure it'd be better. Typically run 80-85 up and down I-79 and across I-68. Thought I'd hit the jackpot when I hit 18 mpg on our annual outer banks vacay.

 

I know one thing that will bring your MPGs up is staying out of the city stop and go
trafic. That just kills any good numbers. Noting like getting 8,000 Lb moving from
a dead stop. That is where the little cars really win.

Scott for you I can change it to train locomotives galling out of the sky to ruin your
day instead of F-series crushing little cars. But with the way they drive around us
you would think that the Ins Co would be more interested in not giving them a policy.

 

I don't know if there's any magic involved there. Id have to say that 80-85mph is not helping. I give the credit to flywheel affect I'm guessing. At 65mph I'm turning 1,650 rpm's on the dot, so its just lumbering along. Average speeds are 55-65 going up the route I'd say.

Mild tune and the early Ford flash in ECM. PHP 65HP tow tune Atlas40 no emission's
I had a Chevy 4x4 for 24 years that had a 427 in it that gobbled 20 gallons up and 13 back down.
Don't think I burn 13 gallons of diesel round trip now. Also not start and stop is a big player, but it gets a share of that up there so ?
I can squeak out 19.5-20 mpg in the valley at 70mph, but its almost impossible to stay at 70mph. So I just burn fuel on Interstate. 17 is probably close on level too

Nothing special tho, in process of installing a KC Turbo Stage I not sure if it will change things but curious to find out. Id guess the take your time and stay at a cruise speed you would be surprised maybe.....

 

It looks warm there.

 

I did a ~600 mile trip once where I ran 58 mph the whole time, kind of like how Anthony used to say he pulled trailers. Got something like 17.5 mpg.

I wanted to tear my hair out, and by the end I would have paid $100 to not be in the seat for the extra 2 hours. Plus this was in West Texas, so the average truck speed was somewhere in the range of 85 mph. Not worth it to save a couple bucks, I just drive and enjoy a few points off my blood pressure.

 

Not sure you could expect to do much better Mark, Those are some good numbers. I am also interested in the effects of the KC Stage 1 and I will let you know on mine. With me though, I was enduring a stuck turbo for awhile, so I expect some improvements ... but maybe not beyond what the fuel economy was before the turbo issues.

draboo - congrats on the fuel economy. I think that is around the best I have done except for a few times I had 30 mph wind behind me.

I do wish I know how folks like Sean can get 21.5!! My average for the last 190k miles is around 15.5.

 

That 21.5 MPG was on a trip to SoCal and I managed to not have to stop much.
So I was under the best conditions I think I could manage. I just wished I could
do that when at home. But there is too much stop and stop. Not much in the go side.

 

Its nuts here in California last 20 years. I used to laugh at the global warming thing when I was younger.
But theres no doubt we got problems and the west coast is really bad. Used to have winter fog in the entire valley that would go from November to March and at times you didn't see the sun for a month at a time. Fog is gone and hasn't been in the valley for last 15 years. So instead of being damp wet and in the 50's we are sunny and in the 60's and 70's in winter months. Thats having affects on our weather and the rain that we normally saw is moving to our North and Oregon and Washington is getting the most of it.
The Sierras are really feeling the brunt of it and I saw a report on the health of the Sierras in Northern region. The forestry service estimates 128 million trees have died since the great drought as they are calling it and lost another 6-1/2 million trees last year even with the over average rain and snow we did have.

So I can assure you the weather on the western part of our country has changed and its changed a lot. I bought a small cabin in a place called Dorrington in 1994 and the first 10 years we had snow on the ground from November to April and it was guaranteed. May be 6" or it could be 4' but it was always there in some form or another. Last 15 years it snows and within a week or two it melts away and is gone. This is at 5,000 feet elevation and it improves as you climb of coarse but anything under 6,000 feet it melts and heads down into the Delta system on its way to the ocean. I have cut down 30 trees myself on the property and thats just barely over 1 acre. So yea things are bad here in the state of California and don't let anyone tell you differently.
The state has become more efficient at water storage and has really done some amazing water works projects with the effort to use the water we are getting more efficiently. They have run twin 12' pipelines up to a reservoir 50 miles from the Sacramento river for the purpose of storing river runoff long term. They pump it up to Comanche reservoir when river flows are high and save it for non rainy days. I have seen the pump house at the river and Gulliver's Travels is EXACTLY what it makes me feel like when you see these gigantic pumps and motors.


OK well there's info for the day as far as how things are for your fellow Americans living on the western side of this country of ours. Its actually been very cold here over the last few weeks. We have been catching the jet stream from the North and seeing upper 20's and 60's for the highs. But still warm for a lot of you living in the areas that 0*- 20* is the norn.

 

Considering the weight of these trucks I still find it amazing to see the miles per gallon a 8,600 lb truck can achieve.

I can say that my mileage did improve significantly after I had PHP sell me some tunes along with what they call a rollback for the ECM. No way to tell how much the rollback thing improves things but the whole package absolutely had a positive impact on my fuel consumption as well as the power I gained.
I am going to see if I can find the flash that they noted on my paperwork from them. Just have to find the paperwork.

****OK I found the MAGIC # (VXBC6) is the Ford flash that is in my truck now. The FICM tunes as well as the ECM tunes will do much better when stacked on top of this flash. I will say one thing about it that I do not care for which is: there is NO turbo sweep with this flash. So if you want to ensure your VGT stays clean you must: MASH ON THE THROTTLE and burn that unison ring of yours off.****

But 21.6 mpg is a seriously high figure all things considered.