Truck... 2005 dodge ram 4x4 diesel with 3" lift, 34" tires & AT. Started another thread in the aero forum regarding mods I have in mind to clean up the underside of the truck. [pfth... cant post a link to the other thread... Its over in the aero mod forum if anyone wants to read it, I will up date this once I have 3 more posts
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http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post336473
Under the hood I have a few other ideas I need feedback on... 1st off there are performance mods that have brought me from 15~16 up to 17~17.5 mpg. Have the stock airbox, AFE Torque tube down to the stock turbo, AFE Arcflo intake horn, smarty programming, stock DP into an Aero 4040 muffler into a 30" magnaflow muffler.
So... mode 1, port the airbox and attach a hose to it in such a way that it would draw air from the back of the engine by the firewall so it is warmer than what it gets from the front... (I'm convinced the motor gets the best performance when ambient air temps are at 80~85F). I have the torque app that I can monitor intake air temps with and am thinking of a 2~3" electric exhaust cutout to control flow in the event it gets hotter than what I'm after.
Second mod would be to draw that warm air across the fuel rail to warm up the rail a tad bit. Going this way as I think it's the best way to use the heat that is under the hood vs adding an electric heating method. On the flip side of the coin...one mod I did a while back on my last gas truck was to cool the fuel. This gave me a 6% average bump in mpg over the 1600 miles I tested the mod on... did approx 800 w/o the cooler than 800 with, cant argue with the data. This plus other mods took that truck from 11.5 mpg up to 14.5, 2000 ram 1500 4x4.
Again the truck is getting about 17.5 mpg on the hiway, this was before swapping out wheels & tires, had 33" 12.5 wide 18's on chrome wheels. Now there are taller, narrower tires on a different wheel that shaved 9# off ea wheel. I have not measured the current mpg yet so I dont know where it sits now. The goal is to get up to 20~21 mpg on the hiway doing approx 65 mph.
Anyways, what do you guys think?