How to get the best MPG

That's pretty good.

Consider this thought.

A short mack with a container on 60 gallons of fuel to norfolk and back, say 400 miles. that thing is mighty thirsty by time it gets back to baltimore. Especially if I have to stand on that #### thing wound out to heft that 120K box over the little hills.... I fueled daily halfway through the round trip.

That's what? 4 or so miles to gallon maybe? Out of a 60's rig?

Fast forward 50 Years and freaking by god people think 6 mpg is awesome in a big truck for a average. Although I will say that horsepower has tripled and torque probably qaudrupled on the given amount of fuel fed to the engine...

Just a thought. 50 years for a progression from 4 mpg to 6 and change and your 8 and plus...

 

It'd take awhile to list all the things to do to run efficient.
Seriously if you're a natural driver, you have a leg up.
I did a lot of reading on autos, and it's funny they talk about the concepts to squeeze fuel, and having a computer for it, that I figured out probably by the third shift I ever drove.

For starters for the OP, that 579 is not the best truck for economy.

You need to master the art of the roll. Before you go "WTF is he talking about" ,
think about when your truck rolls on its own.

 

No, I don't do that. I drove one modern auto that did that, and I didn't care for that at all.
No just the art of the roll.

 

Oh?

I have a problem with that.

Always power on the drives. I can see where it might do that on ice out west downhill against a sloped road surface and over you go.

 

The Meritor rockwell auto we had on our 2001 century stayed in gear always, unless we were parked or stopped at a light, it will select a low gear and move out when it's time to go. It even stayed in gear or selected another one really fast during one of our ice slides... amazing. Worked way way faster than we can ever do it. ca-click....

If you needed to, there is a paddle under the steering wheel that goes into manual mode at your input by hand and it will hold that exact gear or up or down shift at your command manually at any time. It did not care if you pulled that 9% in 6th all day.... it stayed in that gear.

Your talk about computers deciding to take it into nuetrual during a highway trip bothers me today, I cannot and must not have autos that do that. Call me a control freak. But engineers don't know it all. Reinventing the things will get people into trouble.

 

I read the same story about CRXs making 50 plus MPG. And thats not even hybrid back onthe days.

 

so it means that aoutomatics are more gushers than sticks? im loss here

 

I got 48 to 51 out of a plymouth colt brand new at times. It got pretty consistent too with that GT 5 speed car. it would sputter at 6 miles to empty on left turns and I lived where there was like 10 gas stations within a half mile. HA... that was fun.

so was 10 dollars to fill the tank then too. 500 miles a tank give or take a few.

I played .. er worked at a car dealership long ago as a whi.. er detail boy. Taking the owner's super cars to get his tank filled usually had some burned off by the time it was returned to him in a timely manner. Call it 155 or so on some of the round about roads which is pretty much all you could get out of them between hollows and hilltops.

One friend of mine outfitted his car with a transmission and a dual pump set up capable of emptying all 20 of his gallons by the time he completed a flat out top end attempt somewhere around 170 or so. That number is theoratical. There was enough Cam lope on that thing at idle you had to stand on service brakes hard with both feet to shift into reverse to back out of it's parking space and the rear tires would still chirp. whew.