I did my figuring on my trip to the River (Colorado).
Here's the results:
Mpg eastbound: 11.78 mpg
Mph westbound 11.50 mpg
That doesn't tell the whole story. On the eastbound
leg of the trip, we experienced little wind, and did a fair amount
of hill climbing through San Diego county into the desert. There's
three grades to climb from San Diego... 1st near Alpine, and I
slowed to 65 mph in 4th.... 2nd near Mount Laguna and I slowed
to 65 mph in 4th... Then we hit Cameron Grade... In my old
Mitsubishi, with 2 jetskis in tow, I would slow to 55 in 3rd gear...
Friday night we climbed 3/4 towards the summit at 80 mph...
Hit the summit at 76 mph...(towing a 4500# jetboat, verified by
a weigh station @ moving company)...in 4th gear... It was a
little noisy with exhaust/headers/FIPK, but it sounded real
healthy... That bettered my speed a year ago by 10 mph....
Plus on the flat towards Yuma, AZ. I had the cruise set @
72 mph (2500-2550 rpm) in 5TH GEAR, with no problems,
lugging, etc.
On the westbound trip we had a bit of a headwind,
so I kept the speed around 67 mph...below 62 mph makes
5th gear a bit too tall, and 4th is only good for about
55 mph (2800-3000 rpm!), so go slow in 4th, or fly in 5th...
The grade up the hill is a 6% grade, 13 mile, winding climb.
I actually slowed for the corners up I-8 because we were running
75 mph in 4th.... We got slowed by a motorhome (it's only
2 lanes up), and dropped to 60 mph in 4th....and left it at that
Outside air temp was about 100-105 F., and the truck only
heated up slightly about 1/2...*may it was 5/8ths??* We did
pass quite a few CARS on our way up, and once on top, we
kept a good 70-75 the rest of the way home... The exhaust/
headers make a BIG difference in towing for me!!!
(I ran on the stock SBEC)...
**I did experience something weird, when I
flashed my brights to let a trucker over, my BRAKE
and ABS lights came on in the dash, and the tach jumped
up 1000 rpm or so, then dropped back to normal (and
the lights when out)... I kept doing to try to fiqure
out what was going on, and then the radio would
shut off momentarily, then turn back on... WEIRD...
Then while stopped at an Immigration Inspection point
the truck DIED.... (The tach stayed at IDLE), but all
power was gone (luckily we were stopped in traffic).
I proceeded to turn the key/on/off/on/off...NOTHING,
10 seconds past, I tried it again, VROOMMM...it
started, the radio/ac came back on, and off we went..
(Horns blaring behind us....) The radio lost all
presets.... So a total loss of power had occurred.
I had this happen 5 months ago, and took it to the
dealer... They said a bad battery terminal, or a bad
battery... And when I say a total loss of power, I
mean it (no lights, horn, dome light, key buzzer,
NADA!). All is ok, the hi-beams don't make the
dash lights come on anymore...etc.etc... I
suspect the stock SBEC is flaky, as the last
time it happened I had the stock SBEC in....
I plan on getting the battery checked out too...
ANY SUGGESTIONS???
..Sam '95 SLT
BTW: I will post the pictures of my truck pulling
my friend's boat... It looks funny to me, as the
boat is about 3-4' longer than my truck, plus
weighs about 400# more!!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:07:37 EDT