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I tend to agree with darcane; a grille block can be done dirt cheap in less than half an hour with an old cardboard box, a pocket knife, and a roll of duct tape, and can possibly get you up to 2 miles per gallon right then & there. Disclaimer: I have not tried changing to an electric fan (for increased mileage), so I really have no firsthand experience how much they help. Doing both that and a grille block would probably be a winner, though.
The air dam he mentions is a good idea, too. Chances are, whatever factory version is on there doesn't extend down as far as your lowest hanging "stuff", whether it be the axles, shock mounts, transmission/transfer case, or whatever. You don't want the air dam to hang down farther than that, because you'd be needlessly increasing your frontal area, but taking it down to the same level is good.
I'm afraid efficiently climbing hills is a mystery to me, too. In the little testing I did, the speed most efficient on level ground (40 mph) was also the best for going up the one particular hill I was testing on. However, this was my Jimmy with an automatic transmission, and when trying to feed it enough throttle to get to it's best BSFC load, it would always downshift, and the mileage would be horrible. With a manual, where you can prevent this, they say going up the hill in the highest gear possible, while keeping the engine RPM and load within the best BSFC range is optimum. As I recall, this is usually around 70% to 80% throttle.
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