1987 Ford F250 - 25mpg hwy or bust

[mikeyjd]

Other easy areas to look at:

-Mirrors
-Fluids
-Driving techniques

I think the added weight from the tires will cancel out any gains from the lower rpm's unless you are doing drastically more highway than rural/city driving.

Smaller mirrors or adding aero forms to the fronts of the existing ones can be a good idea.

I've experienced anecdotal gains of 2mpg switching to synthetic fluids all the way around. Then biggest gains are supposed to be in the differential.

With a truck driving habits are going to go a long way. Any time you have the chance to sacrifice some speed, let's say by going 55 instead of 65 you are going to notice huge results. The worse your aero is (and yours is terrible at best) the more higher speeds kill fuel economy. Here is an example of how Diesel_Dave drives to get 328% above EPA with optimal driving (along with some mods).

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...a-26259-5.html

[6 Speed]

I'd like to swap out my current mirrors for the newer style ones, but that will require me to replace the entire door (I'm ok with this. will give me a chance to find some cleaner ones). The downside to this is that with the flatbed I plan to build, or service body I install (I might have found one at a very reasonable price) and the trailers I'm likely to start towing, I'll need more mirror than those. I was looking at some of the semi style mirrors. I notice newer ones have a curved back to them now, rather than being flat, giving them a little aero over the old ones. How much, I'm uncertain, but I'll definitely document any changes from baseline when I get them.

As for driving habits, I've already slowed waaaaay down from how I used to drive the Ranger (god that little guy was fun). The majority of my driving around here would be described as rural or highway. I live in a rather small town (google Elkhorn, Wi), and most shopping and customers are a drive away. I spend most of my driving time doing either 25-30 or 45-60, depending on in town or out in the county. On the highway I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with this truck much over 65 anyway, so 65 is likely to be my main highway speed.

[oil pan 4]

First mod should be to take one of those chains and loop through the handle on each tool box and lock it at each end.
Ever try working with out tools? Trust me it sucks when some degenerate runs off with your equipment just so they can get high.
My power washer, one of my top money makers and a hand truck got ripped off not too long ago.

My truck vs. trailer thread is to offer a suggestion to replace a pickup with a trailer for people who only need the use of a pickup occasionally.

[oil pan 4]

Second mod should be electric fan conversion or an air dam, when I did the electric conversion I picked up about 2mpg, the air dam netted me 1 to 1.5mph.
Both are fairly easy to do, quick and give good return.

A turbocharger should come after that. Start looking for parts now. When I installed my holset HE351VE turbocharger off a 2007.5-2010 cummins I gained 2 to 2.5 MPG and gained plenty of power. Just don't put a factory sized turbo on it, we consider them too small to go on the chevy 6.2L diesel. Go big with the turbo and don't use the factory piping where you can help it, get what ever banks parts you can. I use a banks exhaust manifold and glad I did.

Don't worry about the vacuum pump, its likely only about a 0.1 MPG improvement as calculated on paper, I did a vacuum pump delete and saw no difference.

Don't worry too much about weight reduction, your truck has close to the same weight and lack of aerodynamics as my suburban, each 100lb that you shave off will only net about 0.1mpg on paper and my towing logs indicate 1mpg loss with the addition of as little as 500lb. You would have to shed hundreds of pounds to get any noticeable improvement.

[Christ]

+10 on the e-fan upgrade - and it is an upgrade. The fan hardly actually needs to run to cool the engine at all when you're at speed. Don't forget to wire it in using a thermo-switch. If you have a rad that has the auto trans ports on it, plug one side, fill the tube with coolant/water mix and put the thermoswitch in the other side. Saves on having to mod things.

[oil pan 4]

Here is some light reading that will give you some ideas and maybe answer a few question.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...uck-18187.html
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ger-18197.html
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...dam-26600.html

[user removed]

Search the forum under the name "Jacob Aziza", He has an older F150 and gets the kind of mileage you are looking for and he is hauling heavy scrap virtually all the time. There are even some videos of his driving technique.

regards
Mech

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by 6 Speed

I was looking at some of the semi style mirrors. I notice newer ones have a curved back to them now, rather than being flat, giving them a little aero over the old ones.

Some newer big rigs, with all the enhanced aerodynamic jobs they're featuring, have smaller auxiliary mirrors with convex lenses bolted into the front fenders.

[6 Speed]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

First mod should be to take one of those chains and loop through the handle on each tool box and lock it at each end.
Ever try working with out tools? Trust me it sucks when some degenerate runs off with your equipment just so they can get high.
My power washer, one of my top money makers and a hand truck got ripped off not too long ago.

My truck vs. trailer thread is to offer a suggestion to replace a pickup with a trailer for people who only need the use of a pickup occasionally.

I don't have much problem with theft here. The truck comes home with my every night, stays parked right outside my bedroom window actually. Myself and one of my neighbors are both up until late hours of the night, so it's easy to keep watch. Add that to the very low crime rate (we have a rather sizable LEO presence, being the county seat....and the fact that the sheriffs are based right down the road) and I'm relatively comfortable leaving everything in the truck. It helps that I help my neighbors and we all watch out for each other lol.

The comment about the truck vs trailer was by no means a slight against you, I just know it's a fairly active topic and would have come up. When I still had the Ranger I actually was considering attempting to setup the trailer to work from.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Second mod should be electric fan conversion or an air dam, when I did the electric conversion I picked up about 2mpg, the air dam netted me 1 to 1.5mph.
Both are fairly easy to do, quick and give good return.

A turbocharger should come after that. Start looking for parts now. When I installed my holset HE351VE turbocharger off a 2007.5-2010 cummins I gained 2 to 2.5 MPG and gained plenty of power. Just don't put a factory sized turbo on it, we consider them too small to go on the chevy 6.2L diesel. Go big with the turbo and don't use the factory piping where you can help it, get what ever banks parts you can. I use a banks exhaust manifold and glad I did.

Don't worry about the vacuum pump, its likely only about a 0.1 MPG improvement as calculated on paper, I did a vacuum pump delete and saw no difference.

Don't worry too much about weight reduction, your truck has close to the same weight and lack of aerodynamics as my suburban, each 100lb that you shave off will only net about 0.1mpg on paper and my towing logs indicate 1mpg loss with the addition of as little as 500lb. You would have to shed hundreds of pounds to get any noticeable improvement.

For the electric fan, it's something I already want to do. My only concern with it is that on FTE I've seen people talk about the fan not keeping up with the temps during towing or hauling large loads. As large as my radiator is, I could run at least 2 fans, I'm sure this would solve the problem those people have had, noone ever mentioned having multiple fans.

Turbo would be nice, both for power and (with proper tuning) MPG, but the Banks kit is the only bolt on option for my truck (and I think it's actually geared more toward the 7.3, I could be wrong), and for the cost of the Banks kit or even a homebrew, I'd rather put the money in other areas first.

The vacuum pump delete isn't entirely about mileage. I should confess that the other reason I want it gone is it's one less belt under the hood. I have 2 belts that run together to drive the water pump and power steering, then another belt that drives just the alternator. A 4th belt runs from the alternator for the sole purpose of the vacuum pump. Switching to hydroboost nets me something of a brake upgrade, as well as one less belt running off the engine (or it's accessories).

Considering the weight of the truck and what I do, weight loss is the least fruitful option anyway. The way I look at it, the extra weight can actually help on the highway. When doing the pulse & glide, the extra weight means more momentum, more time before pulsing. The flip side is that it will take more grunt/time to pulse back up, but it could work out to be slightly on the positive side.

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Here is some light reading that will give you some ideas and maybe answer a few question.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...uck-18187.html
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ger-18197.html
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...dam-26600.html

I did actually read all through your work truck build. The air dam will come in the form of the bumper I mentioned in my OP.

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Some newer big rigs, with all the enhanced aerodynamic jobs they're featuring, have smaller auxiliary mirrors with convex lenses bolted into the front fenders.

There are some mirrors I've used recently that I would like to adapt to my truck if possible. My neighbor had a box van that he used with his hot dog cart, and it had a double mirror on each side (tall setup with a regular mirror and a convex mirror), in a fairly aero housing. I'd like to see if I could adapt this to work on my truck.

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Search the forum under the name "Jacob Aziza", He has an older F150 and gets the kind of mileage you are looking for and he is hauling heavy scrap virtually all the time. There are even some videos of his driving technique.

regards
Mech

I will definitely look into this. I've got a starter on the way, I should hopefully have my truck back on the road sometime next week. Also picked up some good used tires, so I can at least not worry about those for the time being. I still want to buy a new set, so I'd still like to see some discussion regarding that.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by 6 Speed

For the electric fan, it's something I already want to do. My only concern with it is that on FTE I've seen people talk about the fan not keeping up with the temps during towing or hauling large loads. As large as my radiator is, I could run at least 2 fans, I'm sure this would solve the problem those people have had, noone ever mentioned having multiple fans.

Dual-fan setups such as the one from the early Oldsmobile Silhouette/Pontiac Trans Sport/Chevrolet Lumina APV with dual-zone air-conditioner have some good results in Diesel conversions too.

There are some mirrors I've used recently that I would like to adapt to my truck if possible. My neighbor had a box van that he used with his hot dog cart, and it had a double mirror on each side (tall setup with a regular mirror and a convex mirror), in a fairly aero housing. I'd like to see if I could adapt this to work on my truck.

This setup is very usual in European vans.