Thread: Speed vs. Semi
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Old 07-20-2009, 02:04 PM   #10 (permalink)
FastPlastic
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Ames, IA
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98 Cherokee - '98 Jeep Cherokee
90 day: 17.18 mpg (US)

ZX7R Ninja - '99 Kawasaki ZX7R Ninja
90 day: 42.45 mpg (US)
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Ok, so I'm going to be the rebel, Seeing as I just got my best trip ever headed down to Van Meter from Ames, about 60miles one way the other day. I was in a bit of a hurry so I was doing 70's the whole way. Seems there we're a lot of pickups with trailers headed the same way, so I did some hoping from one to the next as they passed. Following about 6-7 car lengths behind. Managed to get 26.9MPG's on the way down. My way back on the other hand, it was much colder (65F as opposed to 79F on the way down)and there was literally no traffic at all. The best I could push out of it was 23.2MPG's.

In my case I would imagine the reason for it being so much better is the extremely poor aero on the Jeep Cherokee. I believe cd is 0.51, so having the trailers push the air around the big hog helps more then a small aero dynamic car would.
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