Quote:
Originally Posted by wmjinman
... Seems like someone on here was experimenting with an "alternator delete" and got something like 5 more mpg out of it. But of course, he had to charge the battery up all night long every night....
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Yup, that's me. It needs about an hour of charging time per hour of drive time. That's with one 10 amp charger for each of the two deep cycle batteries that power the electrical system. Delete was done by installing a switch where alt output cable meets the battery. So for a long road trip I just close that switch and the alt does its job.
The point I want to make in this thread though, is that I've found real gains from relieving the engine of the job of powering accessories. Take your pick, the gains are there for a radiator e-fan, a/c delete, p/s or alt delete.
Example: I recently removed the power steering belt. Idle fuel gallons per hour was 0.158-0.159 prior to the delete. After the delete, at same engine temp on same day, idle gph was about 0.151-0.152 gph. I will say 0.0075 gph difference at idle.
Calculating the savings at highway speed: rpms would be 4x idle speed so fuel used to rotate engine is 4x (I verified that by idling at 4x idle or 2500 rpm). And fuel saved with p/s delete is 4x .0075 gph or .03 gph at highway rpms. That translates to an increase of about 1.25 mpg highway in my case, not a bad return.