The lowering for reduced wind resistance will be the biggest benefit.
Preventing air from rushing under the truck is the biggest thing you can do
to improve your truck's aerodynamics (yep, even more than a good tonneau
cover!). Lower it, then add a good ground-effects package.
As far as handling, that will depend on how good of a kit you get installed.
A poor kit will actually make your truck handle worse. Personally, I just
lowered my truck an inch by putting on shorter tires (with bicycle computer
to correct speedometer); therefore, I've maintained all factory geometry and
suspension clearance, with improved handling simply from a lower center of
gravity.
MPG with the shorter tires has equaled that of the taller tires - I think
this is because 1) around town, the shorter tires make for shorter effective
gearing, allowing less engine to be used at stoplights, and 2) the mpg
gained (thru aerodynamics) from lowering the truck offsets the lower
effective gearing (I think my 3.55 is effectively a 3.9x) at highway speeds.
-- -- Doug Fedeli <rdf@eznet.net> wrote in message news:3B22E86E.179027BD@eznet.net... > Here's what I was thinking. Lowering a truck will improve gas mileage. > 1. A lowered truck will have less wind resistance. > 2. (This is the biggie) A lowered truck handles better. If you don't > have to slow down as much for a corner, you won't have to accelerate as > much leaving the corner. Since our trucks burn more gas accelerating, if > we can keep acceleration to a minimum we can save gas. > Does anyone think my wife will buy this? > You Gen III guys could save even more with a Hotchkis kit. > > Doug Fedeli >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:01:46 EDT