[carolina guy]

I did notice a quicker warmup time, and the SG didn't show much difference in the operating temps...hovered right around 180-184 (about 5 degrees warmer than normal).

The mpg change over my typical route was a bit more interesting...

My trip to work is about 45 miles each way, and typically by the end of the run with a mixture of city, stop and go highway and cruise control at 75mph, I get an ending average mpg of 18.8 to 19.5 without the block.

With a longer trip (125 miles each way) consisting of a little bit of stop and go, but mostly cc at either 62mph or 70mph depending on the segment, I typically see about 20.5 at the end of the trip.

With the block, it got to the 19.5 much quicker and topped out at about 19.9. On the longer trip I topped out at 19.8.

So...it is mixed results.

Makes me wonder if I either did a flush mounted (smooth to the outside edge) grille block, or a complete block...or both if that would improve??

I am now thinking about doing a tonnau cover for the bed and see what that does. Dropping the tailgate saw essentially no change in mpg (less than .2 mpg for the typical trip).

The grille block was just some cardboard (with paint) zip tied to the outside of the grille (but recessed inside the grille shell) and a lower block that was about 80% (duct tape over styrofoam).