[owly]

Experience shows that cruise control COSTS GAS....... No serious hypermiler uses cruise control....... You let it lose speed going up a hill, and use "Georgia Overdrive" on the downhill side. You may do pulse and glide under some circumstances, etc. Cruise tries to maintain absolute speed regardless of terrain, not to mention not making those small speed corrections drivers make constantly for safety..... easing up a bit on a blind hill or corner on a two lane road in anticipation of that farmer with a load of hay just over the hill, or seeing children playing kick ball next to the highway.....knowing that a kid or dog might run out in front of you..........or passing a car stopped on the side of the road, etc........

In short cruise is both dangerous, and inefficient. It has little to commend it except for insurance against exceeding the speed limit, and giving your foot a rest from time to time........ which unfortunately puts your foot farther away from the brake!

I invented a safety cruise recently which I put on my pickup which has 3.07:1 gearing and a 4.3 V6, rendering cruise completely unusable......... If you try to use cruise, it will constantly shift for the hills, etc.

It works like this. I have a spring loaded idler linkage that blocks the throttle linkage forcing you to push against a stiff spring to accelerate. The cruise control cable attaches to this linkage and pulls it away so you can accelerate. It only blocks it on the acceleration side, so you can let off the gas easily and normally, and when below the set cruise speed, it is completely beyond your travel and you don't feel it at all. The result is that the pickup drives completely normally, the pedal feels completely normal...........until you reach your set cruise speed, at which time the linkage provides resistance that feels like a throttle stop, but is spring loaded, so you can push it, but with considerably more effort. This allows you to rest your foot on the pedal without worrying about looking down and finding yourself going 80 mph. If you rest against the linkage and your cruise speed is 65, you will automatically maintain 65, but you can slow down and speed up below that speed as if you didn't have the cruise at all.

Here's the fly in the soup........... I don't have a way to pull the spring pressure off, so before you set the cruise, you have pretty stiff throttle. Ultimately I will install some sort of 12V linear actuator, or a diaphragm to pull the pressure off. This unit doesn't have a diaphragm cruise, but an electromechanical cruise.

Any thoughts or suggestions??