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Old 02-14-2017, 02:02 AM   #2 (permalink)
oil pan 4
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Location: NewMexico (USA)
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Sub - '84 Chevy Diesel Suburban C10
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It appears that taller tires lifting the vehicle up a half inch to 1 inch is enough to over come the aero penalty.
The problem with taller tires is when you go too tall and have too gutless of an engine.
For example my engineer friend bought a ford expedition 2wd with 4.6l engine and auto transmission, the person who had it last put 3 inch taller than stock tires on it.
It had lack luster getup and go and was always well below epa rating even with odometer corrected milage.
After about a year the tires wore out enough to warrant replacement. When he finely put the correct size tire on there it started getting real close to epa fuel economy, it could get out of its own way and could tow half way decent. He said if he would have known the correct size tire was going to do that he would have put the correct tires on when he bought it.

A diesel with a manual transmission and almost unlimited torque won't suffer as bad.

If you are going to be mostly towing with it get the highest load rated tires you can and make sure it has the correct load rated tires on it currently.

Since you have the manual transmission avoid flooring it in 6th gear. The 6th gear is push fitted to the shafts and the engine may put off enough torque to spin the gear, which is really bad.
If you have to floor it to get over a hill just drop down out of top gear.
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1984 chevy suburban, custom made 6.5L diesel turbocharged with a Garrett T76 and Holset HE351VE, 22:1 compression 13psi of intercooled boost.
1989 firebird mostly stock. Aside from the 6-speed manual trans, corvette gen 5 front brakes, 1LE drive shaft, 4th Gen disc brake fbody rear end.
2011 leaf SL, white, portable 240v CHAdeMO, trailer hitch, new batt as of 2014.
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