1,180 Mile Tank

[ExplodingDinosaurs]

Something I thought of later: Like I said, I haven't noticed a difference in fuel economy when I plug in. However, if I drive the truck multiple times in a day, so the motor stays warm, or steadily driving on a trip, it seems to get a mile or two better mpg. While I'm sure the plug in heater does help, it is a long ways from the motor/tranny/axles being fully warmed up by driving.

Originally Posted by ExplodingDinosaurs

... I plug my Dodge diesel in religiously. I put it on a timer so it does less time in warmer weather. I haven't noticed that it helps or hurts the fuel economy, but I haven't done a rigorous test, either. Without the heater it takes one to two miles to get as hot as with the heater. The dash screen will say between "< 100" (very cold night and parked outside) to as high as about 125 F. ...

[wyatt]

Do you have a picture of the grill block and bed cover that helped make this tank possible? Very impressive numbers BTW. a VERY big air dam will help too. I saw a paper about a guy who did some CFD work on optimizing a truck for fuel economy. He had an aero truck bed cover and a huge air dam and saw a huge improvement in fuel economy.

[Diesel_Dave]

I'll try to post pics soon. We've been in the process of moving and I've just recently found the camera & charger. There's nothing earth-shattering about either one but I'll post pics anyway.

As far as air dams go, I've seen conflicting results. They help by reducing air flow under the truck (which is typically high drag. However, it also increases your frontal area--which hurts. Big Dave on this site, who has a F-350 put on an air dam, and I don't think he saw much of any difference. My personal opinion is that a belly pan would be considerably better than an air dam, because it improves the flow under the truck, but doesn't increase frontal area.

[JasonG]

Putting in a 190deg thermostat and synthetic/Lucas in my rear brought me to 21-22 MPG.
That's with my 4.10 gears.
The rear fluid seemed to make a big difference on my coasting distance.

[Diesel_Dave]

What specific oil did you use? 75W-90?

[Diesel_Dave]

So I finally got around to taking pictures of my grill block & bedcover. As I alluded to before, these are both really low-tech.

The upper grill bock is just some old carboard, some leftover black spray paint and some black zip ties I had lying around. BTW, even with ambient temps up near 100 F, I haven't had any trouble with the coolant temps.

The bed cover is some leftover extexior "trim" plywood from a construction site garbage pile down the street, along with some thrown away 2x4's.

So, the quality leaves a lot to be desired, but you can't beat the cost...GRAND TOTAL = $0.



And another note...I finally got my bloack heater cord installed. Tomorrow I should use it for the first time. I'll let you all know what happens.

[slowmover]

And another note...I finally got my bloack heater cord installed. Tomorrow I should use it for the first time. I'll let you all know what happens.

From another thread:

The lag time of engine oil warming is another topic covered by Hillary: 15-30" behind coolant . . . . That's [potentially] a lot of fuel over a years time. Coolant pre-heat would shorten engine oil temp lag time once underway. [Fleet consultant Doug] Hillary likes to see a close [overall] relationship between coolant and oil sump temps. There is an SAE paper on that discussed on BITOG.

As the Cummins is equipped with an excellent in-block fluid-to-fluid oil cooler (to bring up oil temps faster, and to avoid high temp spikes) it would seem as if pre-heating the coolant would be a good move for a commute of nearly any length.

And the electrical use is offset by longer engine life, IMO.

.

[Diesel_Dave]

Just an update...I've been using the coolant heater for about 2 weeks now. I can't really say how much it's helped FE--in the last few weeks I had to remove the bed cover, change my fuel filter, and the weather and traffic hasn't been very consistent either. I don't see how it could hurt FE, and it's has to help engine life, so I'm going to keep doing it.

I've also got the oil pan heater that I ordered--2 150-watt pad-style heaters. I haven't had a chance to install them yet. I got 2 150 watt heaters for a couple reasons. For one thing, they were the cheapest route ($23.49 a piece). Secondly, I plan on hooking up both the oil pan heaters and the coolant heater to the same timered power strip--that way I only have one thing to plug in. I figure 300-watts might be a bit too much in the summer. If it is I'll only use 1 150-watt heater in the summer and use both in the winter. Third, the pad size for 150-watt heaters are smaller, so they'll me easier to fit on the oil pan--one on each side on the drain. When I get them installed I'll try to take some pics. I'm also looking at putting another 150-watt pad on the tranny.

[Rick323]

Are you putting the heaters on the oil pan? or are you going to put them on the transmission or differential? I'm pretty sure the block heater on my ford is 1150 watts-that's good enough for the engine (oil, antifreeze...everything). I plan on putting a couple of heaters on my car and trucks, the trannys are definitely getting one.

[hortoholic]

Diesel_Dave, Whats the max pressure of the tires? 70 PSI seems like a lot to me. I got a small car and I even don't do that. if they are at max pressure, how is the tread wear? Anyways, great job!