Big Improvement in Ford F-250 with manual and 7.5l
 

I ran a quick check of my mpg before I started and it was 11.2 mpg. I read some of the posts and articles on this site and here are the things I did:

1) slow down...instead of 50 mph in a 45-zone, I drove 40. Instead of 72 mph in a 65-zone, I drove 60. Instead of full throttle acceleration I did the 1/2 to 3/4 throttle.

2) Instead of running the gears from 2nd thru 5th, I started skipping a gear when I could. Start in 2nd, rev the engine to about 3,100 rpm and shift to 4th. Same with 3rd to 5th.

So, after these two simple changes my mileage went to 13.6 mpg. I had a lot of town driving and I pulled a horse trailer in town for a little bit, too. Not much I thought...only 2.4 mpg. But, the percentage changed my mind...21.4%!!!!

Amazing how a few simple changes can make a huge difference.

Next thing on the agenda: I aired my tires up to the max tire rating on the sidewall. And, when I do my daily commute of 30 miles on the highway, I'm going to fold my mirrors in and open my tailgate...(JUST KIDDING!). I also will probably remove my windshield wiper arms for a couple of tanks just to see if it makes any difference.

After this test, I hope to have some time to actually mod my truck a little:

a) Build a tonneau cover that covers the back 60% of my bed.
b) Fabricate an air dam for the front bumper
c) Fabricate a sail for the rear of the cab
d) Fill in the gaps in the front of the truck and the sides that could create drag
e) fabricate improved wheel fairings that improve air flow
f) fabricate a more aerodynamic bumper for the front and rear. It seems there are a lot of places to create drag.
g) Fabricate belly pan systems to channel air flow better under the truck.


This is exciting stuff...i must be a nerd. Any tips or links would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks for all the good tips so far...

BigTruck
1995 Ford F-250 HD 4x4
7.5l (460 cu)
Manual transmission

Can you commute in something else?

x2

I bought my Geo to commute, it was 600 bucks, but worth every penny.

Omission
 

Yea, I was so excited I forgot I had another bullet point:

g) buy a car that gets better mpg.

I'd like to look into the VW TDI vehicles...those sound like the wave....

Thanks for the replies....

For me, it is often more exciting to hear these stories about trucks, because it is good to know people care :)

I would echo their ideas of simply shelling out for a more efficient vehicle, but I know many can't afford to insure and keep two vehicles (I can't), so I encourage you to keep up the good work with your truck.

Dang it, run the numbers before saying that.

Every time I've done it, the lil car pays for itself, sometimes in a just a matter of months.

Obviously someone can bust their hump trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear ie: you can turn that thing inside out and backwards trying to re-engineer it and if you break 18 that's nothing short of a miracle. Or you can get something that doubles or triples that efficiency and it's ready-made; the factory spent the millions of dollars and man-hours for you.

IF your thing is the fuel saved it is possible a new car would fit the bill.

IF your thing is money saved along with fuel savings there are plenty of older economical cars to choose from. Some may fall into the beater category but if it's job is commuting then so what.

I think a new car would take forever to pay for itself with that amount of commute. I good used car would take far less time to pay for.

+1. Get a used econobox beater, like a 15 year old Hyundai Elantra for $700. You can pay for the whole car with the first year's fuel difference between it and the Ford.

I'm guessing that you drive a truck because you need to? Either way, I think having two cars is a little extreme... Having to drive a truck isn't a bad thing.

Nice improvement from driving tips alone. I'm in a similar boat...trying to get better FE in my Tundra. It's an '05, 4.7L...and I average 16.5 city, and about 20 hiway.

A few improvements I've done, that might work for you, are:

Lighter weight engine oil. Mine calls for 5w-30, I used 0w-30.
Spark plug modification. Drill a 1/16" hole in the ground strap and index them.
Increased tire pressure. My max is 35psi, I have them at 45psi. Tires are heavily overrated in this area. They can handle 60psi no problem.
Installed an Aquatune. Still getting it dialed in...but hoping for 25% improvement from that alone....

Look into changing gear ratios. That 460 has plenty of torque to push 3.31:1 gears. Slowing the engine down at a given road speed is a very powerful approach.

Aquatune
 

I'm interested in reading your results from that mod. Please post your fuel log.
I've only managed a 19% increase with my Mustang due to break-in, "adjusting the nut behind the wheel", and adjusting my commuting route.

I sure will keep you guys up to speed on how it does. So far, I have increased HP and cleaner emissions.........but what else do you expect from a water injection unit. I'm hoping the hydrogen injection part pulls its weight and gives me the FE gains.....

I hope money rains down on me from the sky too.

Documentation? Dyno graphs? Emission test reports?
Just curious.

Yeah, I wish. HP by feel and emissions by smell.....tested like a true scientist!!

Yeah, so take it with a grain of salt I guess....

Good to see another TruckinEcomodder:thumbup:

I doubled the MPG's in my truck, an 89 F150 4.9 went from 12 to 25.

How big/heavy of a trailer do you pull? the 460 has its place but seems overkill for pulling a 2 horse trailer.

Why not have the horses pull the truck:D

My biggest gains are from EOC and 0 idling.

EOC?

I saw you have an ignition kill switch. How is that useful for you?

LoL, Engine Off Coasting; that is the holy grail of hi end ecomodding tips for manual transmission vehicles, I suggest taking a look at the 100 or so ways to get better fuel economy. EOC properly done is VERY effective especially in town.

You will see EOC is listed in the fuel economy tips somewhere. the easiest form is to put your truck in neutral kill the motor and coast up to expected stops from as far of a distance as possible then bump start near the end when you need to regain speed.

A fair warning that you should learn how to do this on an unpopulated road so you can know how your paticular vehicle handles it.

Good Luck
Ryan

??????
What does this do??

The indexing of them probably does more for improved combustion than does the drilled hole. But the purpose of indexing them is to get the open area of the spark plug facing the fuel mixture, and not the ground strap.

Drilling the hole allows the spark to travel through the hole and act like a pencil torch in the combustion chamber. See this link for details...

Big Truck - just curious how your other mods are doing? For sure the aero improvements are worthwhile but the biggest contributor is slowing down. When I slowed down just a bit (as you did) it was amazing how much more relaxed I became. If everyone left 5 minutes earlier for their outings and slowed down a wee bit I think we'd see less idiotic behavior on the roads with lower stress levels everywhere.

460 cubic inch. I haven;t seen that since a 1976 ford ltd wagon. Crazy.
then to realize a small block with 10mpg is not only more fun, it does the same job....and then...oh no..the big bad deisel with fuel mileage of a four banger torquing its way with 10000 pounds to talk about.

that engine is done. give up the mods, park it and talk about it like the good ol' days. That is the best ecomod ever for that one...:confused:

I started off thinking no replacement for displacement, until I encountered a 3 man boxer engine...who is giggling now?

My Engine Off Coasting is usually 1/3 of my total distance traveled. The way I see it the engine has 1 purpose, Moving the vehicle forward if it isnt doing that It shouldn't be using any gas, so I turn it off.

Thanks to EOC I got 41 mpg on the last trip I took







ok ok it was only 1.66 miles But I coasted .78 miles:D

Earlier today on a 50+ mile trip I hit 31.42 mpg there and back. 25-55mph

the main issue with buying a second car is the DISPOSITION of the money needed.

sure a TDI would save me its own cost in fuel over say my cherokee in 1.5 years. (assuming $5000 for the TDI)

Here is the problem. the $5000 for the jeep would NOT BE $5000 at all EVER.

it would be $64 a WEEK. starting to see the difference now?

while the NEW CAR would be $5000 RIGHT NOW. $140 RIGHT NOW (registration title etc..) $300 RIGHT NOW for insurance (and this is for me with very low insurance) and another $85 RIGHT NOW for inspection PLUS if it needs anything to pass inspection.

See what I mean? $5000 is NOT $5000 in this equation. ONE is $5000 right NOW the other is $64 a week for 18 months.

this is the CORE problem people with SUV's and Trucks who do not want them are STUCK WITH THEM. no matter how you play with the numbers the SUV is always CHEAPER because you don't have to pay 100% right now.

Unless you get lucky. I got super lucky. Found a metro for $600 and even that was beyond my means THANK GOD he was willing to take payments! 6 weeks later I had it. put $400 into it over a month (thankfully the cops left me alone past the 10 day mark) and now I am golden. by JANUARY 22 or so the car will have FULLY paid for itself including tax title registration and repairs.

Still would not have matter for spit if he did not take payments as I simply did not have $600 to buy it. ($753 actually with tax and tags etc..)

I have been trying for 3 years now at least to get my hands on a metro.

$700 cars are not $700 cars 99% of the time. you also need the cash to fix them as almost always they need something. If you can do the work yourself MAJOR BONUS.

GREAT JOB so far man on the improvements!! really impressive. Amazing what driving style does ehh?

CoastRider WOW man F150 at 31mpg is astounding!

sadly I can not coast my Cherokee. its an auto and it takes FAR FAR too long to reboot a cherokee. my metro starts in under one second. I stopped EOC'ing until I get a kill switch though. Don't want to rape my ignition or ECU.

whats an acquatune?

An Aquatune is a water injection/hydrogen injection device.

See their website for more info...

Hydrogen injection devices have been shown to gain their efficiency at the cost of robbing your 12VDC Battery/Alternator for power. Ultimately you will just wind up draining your battery faster. Save your money folks.

I have made similar posts about this in the past here and on other forums. Water injection is a waste of money, compared to just running without an alternator and installing extra batteries. :thumbup:

That device lost credibility for me with the mention of "hydrogen injection". You can't separate the hydrogen and oxygen bond in water for less energy than it takes to create that bond.

I agree with you that the aquatune is likely snake oil. but the statement that you can not sperate the H and O for less energy than it takes to create that bond is patently stupid. ie a DUH statement. its called entrophy.

little hint. IT ALSO takes more energy to MAKE gasoline than you will EVER be able to extract from it.

Water injection itself is not the snake oil here. It's the 'hydrogen injection'.

Also, the word is "entropy", not "entrophy".

so I hit both keys sue me.

How much am I really robbing my charging system guys? Like 8a at most?....which is all this little guy uses.

Most of us who have sound systems in our cars pull way more than that...especially when our amplifies have 100a, or more, worth of fuses on them.

How quick they strike! wow.

rynarpm. its not the amps that are the issue. The right question is where does your charging system get the power?

the point that is missed is that if you are drawing 8 amps of POWER from your cars charging system than you CAN NEVER EVER be producing more than 8 amps of usable power from the Hydrogen you generate and this assumes its 100% efficient.

its is LITERALLY like trying to grab your ankles and LIFT yourself up. You need to get or apply energy from "outside" the system.

Hydrogen can work (though I have my doubts as to whether it can be used in this manner) but NOT when powered by the car itself.

because now your burning more gasoline to make electricity to run a hydrogen generator to spray into your engine to burn. see how its a closed loop?

entropy says this can not work. all energy transfer systems are lossy. you can never get more than 100% back.

the reason gas works is because we get the energy from OUTSIDE of the immediate loop. ie the planet made the gas over millions of years.

we are just using the result somewhere else (in the engine)

to even have a CHANCE of working you would need to bring your own seperate power supply with you to run the hydrogen generator IE a battery pack.

your still going to use more charging the pack (pesky entropy again) but your electricity in the house costs less than the gas in your tank so it MIGHT work in the end to save you some money.

Most people think. the alternator does not take much gas to run I can spin it with my hand.

Plug something INTO the alternator and NOW try to spin it :-) as you apply electrical demand on the alternator it will get harder and harder to spin.

one time I had to connect a 3000watt inverter to my minivan 3.0 V6 to power our fridge and freezer in the garage (power was out for 2 days)

when both tried to turn on together drawing a mere 6-7 amps each. it damned near stalled the engine.! in fact the only reason it did not was the inverter turned off (as the engine slowed down to stall it stopped producing the minimum volts it needed to run)

so I had to stagger start the compressors so only one was going at a time and then give it some gas when both came on at the same time.

takes a lot more gas than you might realize to produce 8 amps.

8A@12V is 96W, or about .13HP.

Converting the mechanical energy of the engine into electrical energy at the alternator is lossy.

Converting the electrical energy into chemical energy (by splitting water) is very lossy.

Reburning the hydrogen and converting it to mechanical energy is lossy again.

Three losses-- where are your gains?

Also, that additional 8A load on the alternator is extra load on the wires in the charging system, which means the wires get less effective at carrying the electricity due to the heat, so there's more inefficiency.

Water injection in and of itself is a time tested way of increasing the efficiency of the engine, in part by allowing you to advance the timing much further than before (assuming the engine management allows you to do that).

If you can disable the electrolysis portion of the aquatune but keep the water injection functions, you might have a winner there.

but word of caution. YOUR DOING FREAKING AWESOME so don't change anything if you can put it back :-) hehe

Ok, I'm a learner at heart....so bear with me. I understand the logic of not being able to put back what I take. Yes, there are losses. But one thing that has always made me scratch my head and think, "why doesn't this get mentioned?" is: Doesn't the alternator always generate more current than we need? I don't know about these newer cars, but with older vehicles, one could use the battery to start the car, and then disconnect the battery altogether and run the car off of the alternator alone.

So using that example, can't the alt run the car, and the battery run the electrolysis unit?

AlaricD: The gains would be Combustion Efficiency. With the Aquatune system, some unconverted H2O does get injected into the comb. chamber, and because it is displacing available oxygen, the o2 sensor reads this as rich, and then leans out the a/f ratio. (am I right on the o2 sensors functionality? More o2 in the exhaust reads as lean, and less reads as rich) <--this was explained to me by the owner/inventor Nick Foy. This is why the Aquatune requires no external sensor adjustments. The gain is a leaner A/F ratio which saves gas in the long run.

But anyhow, help me understand how an engine, that is turning an alt with a belt 100% of the time, uses more gas to replace current losses. Does the alt increase resistance (and therefore use more HP) when it is replacing lost current? If it does, then I could see more gas usage to make the electricity we lost during electrolysis.

The alternator requires proportionately more power to turn it in order to generate more amps at a given voltage. (At least that's what I learned while earning my electrical engineering degree.) I doubt the laws of physics have changed since then.;)

not physics just knowledge. as we know power plants end up having to put out "x" power whether its used or not hence why some localities make E cheaper at night to encourage people to run high drain things at night.

in your car though the alternator takes almost NO power when its "unused" (which is never but thats besides the point)

for an example of this next time you have your belt off give the alternator a "spin" note how easy it is to spin?

While running the minimum power is not the minimum the alt can put out but the minimum your car NEEDS to run which for many cars is actually quite a bit of power (shockingly large amount of power I am learning for some cars)

this creates a load. as you turn on more things you add more load.

its turning the alt belt 100% of the time but the "load" is not present 100% of the time at least not evenly.

Your car would not make it far without the alternator (there is not as much power in that battery as you think) and as a starter battery it gets really pissed off if you deplete more than a tiny amount of power from it before recharging it. IE big degradation in life span. IE they don't like it.

Even deep cycles are damaged if you consistantly take them below 80%

you need some good quality deep cycle cells then you can take them to 50% with a Decent lifespan.

How long does your battery last if you leave your head lights on? well those lights consume 7 amps. Your generator is already consuming more power than your headlights do at low beam. 8 amps is a lot of juice.

In theory YES if hydrogen was more efficient at combusting and it helped you combust gasoline better you COULD see gains running it off the car.

but ONLY if those gains are larger than all the losses in the long long chain of losses you create when you do this.

the newer your car the less likely it is too work since the newer cars really are pretty efficient at burning gasoline (relatively speaking)

either way the real answer is to put 2 or 3 good quality battery in the trunk (you need to figure out how much power you need between access to a charging jack) and power the hydrogen system off that. IF your going to see a real gain thats how your going to see it.

But then, someone will say.....you just created another loss because of the additional weight of the batteries you're hauling around in the trunk.

Anyways, thanks for the info. It's still fun to experiment....and burn gas doing it. ;)

not the same thing. yes you need more energy to move the "mass" of the batteries but not the ENERGY of the batteries. that came from the outlet in your house. See we are adding energy from OUTSIDE the system.

once you do that there is only 3 questions

is the power enough?
will there be a gain?
Is the E from your house cheaper than the gas you saved if any?