Effects Of Air Dam (Ford F350 pickup)

[dwestmodesto]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

To answer some questions:

I haven't really done anything under the hood that helped much. A 203 degree stat did yield a 0.5 MPG improvement. A 4" exhaust didn't help at all. Using a Baldwin PA2818 air filter with all under hood intake didn't help a bit. Going from split-shot to single shot injectors did not improve MPG one iota.

I use all synthetic lubricants. Didn't improve MPG at all.

Gearing and aero are the big enchiladas if you want MPG from a pickup.

I don't see how my air dam is much different than the one on the race car.

BTW, my air dam is currently on the garage floor. It snows in Nap-town this time of year, and bulldozing snow is not conducive to high MPG.

I will probably trim it back a little this spring before I put it back on. One does get tired of the scraping.

The MADS smarty tuner with POD might be a interesting place to look. It is a high performance tuner that has ability to adjust timing, injection pressure, etc, but it also has a new feature called POD...power on demand. It can turn down the power to anywhere from 1% to 100% This is a link to the developers explanation. Smarty POD Info - Diesel Bombers. It might have more potential for mileage increase. My DiabloSport promisses increased mileage, but I haven't seen it yet...Still experimenting.

[cfg83]

aerohead -

Originally Posted by aerohead

CarloSW2,is that mag available at newstands? I've never seen it,but I'd look for it if available to mere mortals.I'm not a student at Art Center or CALTI,or the others,hope we don't have to be.Thanks!

Here's the one my wife got me :

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...2-a-11620.html

CarloSW2

[Big Dave]

I'm running the advance as far as conditions will tolerate. I do have to get it started in cold weather. I have another setting with more advance for warm weather. It helps a little (<1 MPG).

I've tried IAP all over the place. It has almost no effect on MPG.

[ECONORAM]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

To answer some questions:

Gearing and aero are the big enchiladas if you want MPG from a pickup.

THAT is very true. I have been tinkering with some aero improvements on my 07 RAM for some time now. My biggest issue is getting things to mount study enough so they don't deform while driving down the road! When I was in Utah I did manage to pull 24 mpg going from Layton to Wendover, about 150 miles or so. I have yet to match that on my visit to OKC though.
I have a small block off that mimics the SRT10 blockoff, and have installed an electric radiator fan. I do not know if synthetics helped much either, but I like to worry...
My truck has a 3.55 ratio with the 20 inch wheels. I do have a bed cover also. I can get 20mpg pretty easy once I hit fifth gear. Using the MPGuino to watch my fuel flow helps a lot. I was shocked to see my truck burns 0.5 gal/hour at idle!?

[dmac257]

Originally Posted by cfg83

When they were designing the front air dam, they came across this very issue. They found that if it was too low, the drag from the air dam overcame it's benefits. It's job is to get the air past all the messy engine and front suspension components. Once it has done that, it doesn't need to be any bigger.

So does an air dam replace a front pan or work in conjunction with it? If you intend to smooth the area below truck with a full belly pan would the air dam help or hurt you due to the increased frontal area?

Don

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by dmac257

So does an air dam replace a front pan or work in conjunction with it? If you intend to smooth the area below truck with a full belly pan would the air dam help or hurt you due to the increased frontal area?

Don

The lowest drag concept cars run belly-panned airdams ahead of the bellypan as well as lower the nose and raise the tail with active suspension.
My resources also report that there are diminishing returns with respect to the depth of the dam vs drag,claiming,as mentioned,that at some point the aggravated frontal area starts to undo the benefit.
bondo ran into this on his F-150 and had to trim it back which was heart-breaking to me,as if you've ever seen his work in person,it would be tantamount to Michaelangelo chopping the head of the Pieta.
Ford Probe-IV ran a smooth-bellied airdam which lowered at about 40 mph to block air from the full-bellypanned underside.
In the last couple days,I've almost completed the airdam for my T-100 which has languished for 5-years now with an un-completed nose.I'll begin a thread on that shortly,and have photos,if Al can break free to help scan and Photo-Shop.
I'm at 6-inches ground clearance with a flexible lower urethane rubber chin which already 'kisses' some curbs during parking.I don't dare risk going lower.

[max_frontal_area]

Originally Posted by ECONORAM

I was shocked to see my truck burns 0.5 gal/hour at idle!?

hmmmm. my 82 NA diesel jetta was burning 1.0 gallons while driving on the freeway. did you discount the fuel that was being recirculated? does your engine have MDS. i drove (no PnG) the 5.7l mds hemi in a magnum and got 40 mpg

[Big Dave]

Aerohead is probably right. Anair dam plus a belly pan would give the best MPG.

I modified my air dam this summer. It was 3 inches above grade and it grounded at the least provocation (like braking or the steps in my driveway). It worked really well. It was worth at least 0.75 MPG.

But I got tired of listening to it grind, so I shortened it up to 9 inches above grade.

Now it doesn't drag or look dorky, but it is nearly worthless in improving MPG.

I'm trying to learn GIMP so I can shrink down my pix to a size the site can handle.

[Tygen1]

I've a couple observations and questions. In the past three months I purchased a 2000 7.3 PSD Excursion. Being an avid hypermiler, I was able to average 17mpg in mostly city driving. Then the injectors started failing, among other things. So I upgraded to single shot injectors and tuning from Beans Diesel. Mpg has not improved, in fact I have yet to get as good of mpg on thier Economy program as I was getting with a terribly misfireing stock tune, now 16.5mpg. With my scangauge in the EX. I can clearly see the instant mpg increase as the I switch the chip to the more aggressive settings. I have been running in the second most aggressive setting for this past week and the average has increased by a couple mpg, will probably be around 18mpg. It seems most economy tunes just limit the fuel delivery on acceleration so lead footed drivers won't shoot themselves in the foot. Doesn't help at all when you foot is well trained. I'd like to see one of these aggressive tunes with low shift points on the ATX
Now concerning air dams...I would like to add one to the Ex., but I am concerned reading that Big Dave says his air dam, at 9" off the pavement, does not help mpg. Is that True? It's funny that my post at the begining of this thread says to go as low as possible (my escort is only 2" off the pavement) but now that I am faced with this for my wife, I must consider curbs and such because she will hit them and will not tolerate any noise of the air dam scrubbing the ground. I need to figure out a happy middle ground.

[3-Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

...I'm trying to learn GIMP so I can shrink down my pix to a size the site can handle.

If you have a version of Windows XP, it comes with MS Photo Editor, which makes it real easy to reduce picture sizes. I use GIMP as well, but Photo Editor loads much faster.

Jim.