Quote:
Originally Posted by ahanix1989
I must admit, I am surprised.
rmay635703, I'm glad you're from around here so you'll understand the locations I mention in this post. I'm still learning in-town how long it takes the van to slow down. It spends a LOT of time at 30mph when coasting I now know...
took Highway 45 at 50mph instead of 55. It wasn't a direct "roundtrip test", but instead I drove home from the pump last night, went to work this morning, put the coroplast under my van, then drove up to Oshkosh and back, stopping at the pump on the way back. Even though I had to run my air conditioning the entire time to keep the windows from fogging up, I quickly punched in my calculator... 75.6 miles / 5.036 gallons... 15.008mpg!
Obviously I can't verify whether it's the neutral coasting in-town or the coroplast on Highway 45... but something is making a huge difference here!
So while there's still room for improvement, especially with how I had the a/c running throughout the majority of the trips.... I must admit, everyone's advice (especially rmay635703's) is really helping out here!
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Glad to help, I've been there done that so to say and I've spent more than my far share of time going down 45, 40-55mph (I just try to stay going a little better when folks are tailgating in the 55mph sections)
Also having a painfully rock hard throttle position once you are cruising along is critical, especially if you don't have any guage. If you can very slowly move the pedal out going up gentle hills and very slowly move it in going down you will find your FE goes up even more, it hurts my leg though as the movements are minute. And on larger hills leave the pedal fixed in one position so you don't drop down gears.
I would estimate your improvement is pretty much in line with what happened with my dodge ram club cab. You will find the slower you go in overdrive the better your fe, also the more you coast the better. The coroplast underneith probably just sweetens the deal a bit.
Effectively what I've learned is that I almost never have enough distance to safely coast down (and it takes too long occasionally) I can't stress enough how much in town coasting and even off the highway coasting helps fuel economy. Heck my winter FE in town was between 8-11mpg before I started coasting, now I usually get at least 14mpg in town. Just make sure your in N when coasting or FE doesn't increase much, not sure why dodge has the engine race in gear but it does.
Once you log some full tanks using what you've learned so far we shall see what the fe ends up being. Oh and I would love to see a full airdam to the ground on one of our rigs, if you can find some rubberized stuff or tall plastic sheeting might be a good 2nd step. Results might motivate me to do the same
Also apparently our rigs love to scuff brakes, might be a good idea to check your brakes and rearend aren't scuffing or binding up, it appears my LH front brake is scuffing a bit and both my rears are either scuffing or the rearend is binding. Apparently a common problem on dodge. I checked the RH front a while ago suspicious but apparently it is the only one not stuck.
Cheers
Ryan