|
Driving with load is a legitimate, tested, and in OP's case it seems, unavoidable method of hypermiling. It consists of doing all of your acceleration in bursts as short as possible while remaining in top gear, then coasting (preferably engine-off) for as long as possible. On long hills, the decision is made for you. If the grade is steep enough, it's all most of us can do to keep from having to downshift just to make it up the hill.
In response to OP, I have no idea how well it would work. I've toyed around with the idea as well, but never implemented anything. Leaf blowers normally draw close to 10A (I know my dad and I couldn't run two of them at the same time on a single 15A circuit, but I'm guessing at the exact values) I think at 110V which is 1.1kW of power. Not an insignificant load for your electrical system. In fact, a typical 85A alternator can't supply that much power, so you risk damaging that and drawing down your battery if you're on a really long hill. What that amounts to is a bigger or secondary alternator, in which case you might as well just install a supercharger with a switched clutch.
I assume you know you'll also have to pump more fuel in to go with the added air if it's anything significant. I also wonder how much of a restriction a leaf blower would create on your intake when it's off. I think it would be fine, but you might find that you'd have to devise some intake-switching system to keep things working right.
These are just some considerations, not meant to discourage you. To the contrary, I really want to see how this would work if you got it going right. People have marketed 'electric superchargers' before, but they generally are underpowered and provide negligible if any gains. Due to limits on electrical load, they can't just take the guts out of a leaf blower and say "here, slap this on your car and it'll go fast". It's going to take more engineering for your application than that.
__________________
|