Getting Better Fuel Mileage

MaxEffort is there a number to reach you at?

 

Well stated information, accurate info Maxeffort. Sounds to me like you've been to the old Bernie Dempsey spec'ing classes if you know what I mean. I'm thinking you and I attended the same classes years ago in a certain midwest river town, right?

 

Black smoke means money out the pipe? Well ive never, guess im gonna turn my down to 410hp. I bet ill be getting 3mpg then, i was getting 3.5mpg with it set to 525hp..... Bridge CAT. Now i got 5.7mpg average on my last west coast trip, with sky high exhaust temps do to small turbo and not enough air. With the big turbo i expect to average 6mpg running west. This is with a W900 KW with 6 feet of space between sleeper and trailer. See signature.

Oh and running 70+mph.

 

I've driven aero trucks that only got around 5.8 mpg, and I've driven big square nosed trucks that got 7.2 mpg. Most recently I was driving a DD15 Cascadia that only got around 6.8. I was disappointed in that. I was driving a 379 Pete/475 C-15 last year that got 7 on the nose. I HAVE driven a Western Star 4900EX with 515 Detroit that got 7.2. Seems to me it's more about spec'ing the truck for the job and not driving like a moron. Progressive shifting helps. Oddly enough, the trucks with more power tended to get better mileage... probably because they aren't working as hard, keeping more power in reserve.

In my opinion, if you take a truck that was spec'd to run 70 mph and cut back to 60 to try and save fuel, you probably won't see any difference at all, since you took that truck out of its sweet spot.

 

How does the Prostar hold up compared to other trucks.

Here's an artical that supports the Prostar:


http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=BW&date=20080507&id=8604919

 

Just wanted to thank Maxeffort for the fine job! A comment concerning cruise control...there is research going on that is trying to have an input to cruise from a gps unit. In this manner, the cruise system would receive information concerning terrain and make adjustments based on anticipated downhills and uphills...something to watch.

I have a white paper from Cummins on fuel mileage increases "The Secrets of Better Fuel Economy