Much easier/safer ways to save gas:

- Accelerate at a reasonable rate
- If you know you're going to stop soon, lift off the accelerator earlier
- Slow down on the highway
- Try riding your bike to the store to get a soda next time (save gas, get exercise)

Bob

 

Amen to that.

 

Basically. Don't Be in such a rush to get no where. I see people zoomming around 5 and 10 over the speed limit. they will zoom right past me, and I will catch up to them.. Simply because they have to stop at a light or the like. Or. they will be behind me, get tired of the speed limit, zoom around me doing 10mph faster, only to go 1/2 a mile, slow down, to take a turn.. they are not even finished taking the turn by the time I pass them.

 

Slowly accelerating, especially with a gasoline engine, isn't actually the most efficient use of the powerplant. You really want to maintain a high load without entering PE mode. This means ample throttle application in higher gears (to a point) without demanding fuel enrichment.

Grannying the accelerator isn't the short road to good MPG at all.

I think people spend way too much [wrong] attention to the gas pedal when it's the brake pedal that needs a light touch

 

Funny, every article about hyper-miling mentions Wayne. He's got some good ideas, but some of them are downright dangerous. Wayne is a sharp guy (I've known him from various home theater forums for years), so he doesn't worry me, but there are lots of people who would cause accidents using his techniques.

Did the article mention how he drifts backward down his street and up into his garage (yes, backwards) with the engine off the entire time? Yeah, hardcore.

Nonetheless, I use some of the most basic techniques, such as anticipating light changes and such.

 

This one works very well, eventhough it can be very dangerous.

Yesterday I was driving my truck on the highway and got in behind a beertruck that was going the same way I was. I reset my Average Mileage in the DIC and kept track of it. I averaged 25miles per gallon going 65-70mph behind that truck! My truck was only rated at 20mpg highway under the old system.

Ever since I bought my truck I've noticed that I consistanly get better mileage with the AC light turned off, but the fans set to recirculate.

My truck can pull the side mirrors in to help with parking, but I sometimes do that on the highway also. I just use the rearview mirror and make sure to look over my shoulders in my blind spots better.

I've been considering adding to my airdam to make it lower and wider to direct air around the sides of the truck instead of under.

Eventually I'll lower it a bit too. I had my PCM reprogrammed to try to help, but I haven't noticed much of a difference there. A bed cover is on my to-do list also. I'm scared to block off the grille much since it has been in the 90s here this week.

Oh yeah, I drove my dad's Vette instead of the truck some yesterday, but I don't think I saved any gas with the WOT blasts...

 

Wouldn't a bed cover do more harm then good to mileage? I remember a show doing a test with pickup truck areodynamics on the Discovery Channel. This isn't directly applicable, but I think the same principles apply.

They had two identical trucks with the exact same amount of the exact same type of fuel. Tire pressure, etc: everything was the same. Except for one thing. They had one truck's tailgate open. They drove both trucks down the highway for some hundreds of miles until they ran out of fuel. The truck with the tailgate up went significantly farther.

They discovered this was due to the air going over the cab and hitting the bed in different ways. In the truck with the tailgate closed, the tailgate acted as a type of redirect, and sent the air along the bed back up to the cab, which sent the air up wards, where it was caught by the air rushing over the cab again. This redirecting of the air created a spinning motion, which actually made this truck much more aerodynamic than the one with the tailgate open (I guess there's some urban myth that opening it will increase mileage).

So if you put a bed cover on (I'm assuming it's for aero purposes), won't it stop that spinning motion altogether, just like the open tailgate did?

 

Because your compressor isn't cycling on and sucking away horsepower.

 

www.sae.org/technical/papers/2004-01-1146 <- SAE paper about the aerodynamic difference between tailgate up, down, and off.

Your post contradicts itself with this line "The truck with the tailgate open went significantly farther."

I always leave my tailgate up.

GM added a small spoiler to the trucks that also helps with aero. My truck has that.

Here's another interesting article. http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/highlights...uplands_e.html

 

I have a topper on my little B2300, so I leave the tailgate up.

 

Check out the trucks that have run on the salt flats. They typically have bed covers of various sorts (GMC's Syclone had a cover over the rear half of the bed, if I recall correctly).

With the stock engine, my truck's fuel economy was remarkably insensitive to driving technique. That's probably due more to its gearing and the relatively large drivetrain losses than anything else.

 

That would be mythbusters.

 

My bad. Fixed it.

YES! I couldn't remember what the show was. Thanks!

 

I remember where they showed that when the tailgate is up, it creates an invisible air "bubble" in the bed that allows air to pass over the entire truck bed smoothly.
But when the tailgate was down, the air came down right behind the cab, creating a suction, and hurt mileage.

 

Yup. They re-tested it later too, and found that the absolute best mileage was obtained with one of those kind of mesh tailgate things IIRC. The next best thing was tailgate up.