I achieved my goal for 2009
 

Thanks to the great information on this site, I hit my goal of 30 mpg from my work truck.

Let me start with info on the truck. It's a 2003 Chevrolet S10 extended cab step side. I have about 85k miles on it. It has a 2.2 four cyl engine with a 5 speed tranny. The truck is lowered 2" in the front and 3" in the back. It has 18" wheels with 235/50/18 non LRR tires. It also has a 4.10 rear end which really hurts.

Before I joined this site, I was getting about 26 mpg per tank. I bought a scan gauge ii for my birthday and while looking for info on it I stumbled upon this site. I joined right away.

After reading and digesting a ton of info on this site, I started my mods. Firstly I was due for an oil change so I went with Mobil 1 fuel economy 0w 30 full synthetic motor oil. While I had the truck in my shop I also did a radiator flush on it. I then looked at the tires and saw that the max sidewall pressure was 44 psi, so I aired them all up to 45 psi. I then pulled off my factory air dam and used duct tape to seal off the fake foglight holes from behind. I also pulled the entire grill and blocked off half of it using the same duct tape from behind method. After reassembly you can hardly notice any of the duct tape and it all looks very factory and isn't noticable. I began to see the results right away. However, the greatest mod I have is the scan gauge. It has taught me how to drive my truck for maximum MPG. I can't say enough for this device. If you don't have one you should get one and make it your first mod.

I use this truck to commute to work and occasionally pull a small trailer and haul stuff for the house. The tank I just used was all commuting to work with no hauling or towing. My commute to work is about 48 miles per day round trip. I have a choice of 3 routes to work. One is all highway with the speed limt of 65 mph (avg mpg of this route 28.1mpg). Secondly is a country back road speed limit 45 (avg mpg of up to 34 mpg). Lastly is the beach road speed limit 25. The beach road is currently under construction and I haven't been able to get a true reading taking this route as there are many detours. I used the country route for this entire tank.

So, after all this I averaged 30.1 mpg from this tank of fuel, just barely beating my goal of 30 mpg. :thumbup:I have had trips to and from work with averages of up to 34.7 mpg, but a hard rain one day took my average mpg down quite a bit. I really thought my average would be around 31 mpg but I came up just short. I am not complaining though. Seeing an increase of around 4 mpg is more than I had hoped for. I owe it all to the information I received from this site. You guys are great.

So what now? Well I may have to set a new goal. :D I have a few more mods I want to try. I have a bottle of synthetic gear oil for my rear end, I used this mod in my last truck and did see an increase in MPG. I'd really like to install an electric fan from a Ford Taurus, a popular mod for S10s. I also would like to build some underpans for the truck, it's very unaero down there. I'll be riding my motorcycle the rest of the week, I'll have to see how high I can get it's MPG 8)

I'll keep reading all the threads from this forum and keep modding my truck for MPG. You guys have really helped me and I greatly appreciate it. Sorry for the long post but I was really excited to share my success. Take care guys and gals and thanks again.

Super22LL -

Most excellent! It feels so good when all the hard work pays off.

CarloSW2

AWESOME MPG'S FOR A TRUCK!! GOOD JOB.

I hope you can put up some pics soon. I always like to see what fellow s10 owners are doing.

Keep up the good work!:thumbup:

Here's one from late last year. I've debadged it since then to kind of clean up the lines. Thanks for the compliment, I appreciate it.
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p...er22ll/111.jpg

Oh, and LUVMY02CREW, I have always dug the crew cab S10s. I wish they had made them in 2WD. That's a great looking truck. Have you been on S10Forum.com ? It's a great site for our dimes.

Super22LL...yeah, I visit S10Forum.com and S-10 CrewCabs.com bunches. I don't post too much on either, just reading and soaking up info. Both have tons of info to try to digest. I have gotten caught up for hours on each just clicking away:eek:

Engine mods
 

I had a '97 S-10 Reg. cab, stepside 4cyl. 5 spd. I was getting 30 mpg with only these things: K&N cold air intake, Jet module chip (stage 1), cat-back exhaust, lowered 2" all around (the "extreme" suspension), and new side mirrors from Stylin' concepts (the other ones came with the truck broke). I miss my S-10.

I'd skip the catback exhaust. It got annoying after awhile. Besides, go with a header and you usually get more torque... Pace Setter makes headers for the 4 cyl S-10. I've found them cheapest at Jegs.com.

If you want to continue with engine mods I've heard advancing the cam timing (cam timing not ignition timing) gets you more torque down low in the RPMs. Which is what you want for mileage. Retarding the cam timing (when the cam gear jumps a tooth) is for power in the upper RPMs. The only bad thing about advancing the cam timing is you can't rev the engine to past 4500. Not many people I know drive at such high RPMs though.

Very nice...quite amazing MPG for a truck...I suppose than thing weighs more than 2 tons...

I had a '98 regular cab long bed with a canopy on it, 4cyl 5spd. I routinely got 33mpg hwy with abosolutely no mods other than the canopy and no hypermiling techniques. Just drive at 65mph.

Is 30+mpg typically hard for these trucks? I just figured they all got about that.

-Mike

It's a little tough for me to get over 30 regularly on this truck. I believe the #1 disadvantage I have is the extra cab. Most extra cab S10s have a 4.10 gear rear end to help compensate for the extra weight of the cab. I believe this truck weigh's 3800 lbs but I'd have to double check or weigh it at work to be sure. I'd love to change out the rear end with a wrecked junkyard S10 and maybe to to a 3.42 rear end to see if this helped me on MPG or if it hurt my acceleration/dirvability.

I still plan on keeping this truck as my daily driver for several more years. I haven't updated fuel logs in a while, I need to get back on that. I've been averaging 27 mpg lately, I still drive in a hypermiling style but have been driving more high speed highways lately. I recently bought a taurus fan from Ebay and plan installing it on my next long weekend, I'll post an update and let you know how much I gained from it.

You could get an aftermarket air dam that hangs lower. I'm sure there is plenty of protrusions below that stock air dam that love catching air and slowing you down.

If you don't mind looking silly and loosing rear visibility, there are a lot of success stories of the 'aero' style camper shells. I left my trucks dignity intact and bought a car that gets 2x the mileage. Course it's a lifted fullsize too...

Maybe a turbo kit?

Oh yea... Clean lookin truck!

Loose the window guards and you'll be 'sleeker' too. A slab side bed would be more aerodynamic, but I like the way the sportside bed looks.

Perhaps you could get rear roll pan with the back step delete.

Then create a belly pan so it's not acting like a parachute behind your truck.

Duude that's amazing with 4.10's and that truck is gorgeous loove the rims

Congrats. I did not know that pu's were able to get that. I had an early Dodge Dakota, reg cab, 4cyl., 5speed, & on a trip out west got 25. I thought I was doing great.

Around town, my diesel Cummins gets better than that got.

Keep up the great work,
Dave

Thanks for the kind replies guys. I would love to add an "extreme" style factory air dam on this truck. The prices are too high on them for aftermarket, but I keep my out at the junkyards and sales. No luck yet.

I love those wheels too, I grew up in the 80s and the IROC replicas really take me back to the days when the IROC Z was the king of every highschool boys dreams. As soon as I saw them on an S10 I knew that I had to have them.

I do plan on adding a belly pan to the truck too. I have some coroplast in my shop that I need to fashion into some kind underbody aero advantage. My week off starts this Friday, and I will be putting in the electric fan and installing an amp and a 10" sub in the extra cab. I know it's added weight but I'm really missing having a little jam in the truck. Nothing fancy, just a little more than what I have. I'm very interested to see how the electric fan mod performs. My S10 forum seems to love this mod, saying it frees up power and economy. Should be quite interesting.

Keep on truckin'

Installing the efan on my truck was worth it. It took a few hours but I finally got it all together and operating correctly. I gained 1.3 mpg on the first tank with it. I also had a noted power increase and the fact that the screaming cyclone sound of the stock fan is gone, well that was worth it in itself. If you have a mechanical clutch fan I strongly suggest you take a look at the taurus fan, its a great mod.

Bravo. Thats crazy milage for a truck!

~Jimbo

Not to take anything away from the OP, but there are folks getting 40 mpg with Ford Ranger pickups. That's your next plateau.

Wow, 40 in a Ranger, now that's insane! I'll have to check that out to see what kind of mods were done.

Here's a link to one's gas log. He only got 40 mpg in the summer, but his lifetime average is 34.4 mpg.

Here's another fuel log, for a pickup averaging 38.6 mpg.

And this guy's averaging 39.6 mpg with his Ranger.

30 average is still pretty good without a bunch of mods.

My 99 Nissan Frontier gets 24 highway at the 70-75 mph range. I used to get a pretty regular 26 with an occasional 28 before E-10. Though I think the loss is because E-10 burns faster and I havent broken out the timing light on it to bring the timing back to optimum.

Impressive!