lasitter

The Objective: Within the continental US, driving my 1996 F-150 4.9L truck with stock tanks and almost entirely stock engine, from some point on the Atlantic ocean to a point on the Pacific ocean, stopping only once to refuel.

From Jacksonville Beach, Florida to somewhere around San Diego, California, Google says it's 2,362 miles, IIRC. This is basically going all interstate and I have not confirmed whether or not this is the shortest route. And I HAVE computed the average MPG required to get there.

I've already achieved 25mpg, with other important mods yet to go.

The Aerolid would almost make it easy:

http://www.aerolid.com/

Alternatively, it would also be possible with a conventional tonneau.

Other rules and limitations:

I know that this is an incredulous claim, and that it would require unassailable verification by others. That's why I'm contacting Sierra club bloggers to see if I can get together a team of spotters / chasers to verify that I never snuck extra gas into the tank(s) along the way.

Some obvious rules:

No "drafting". Pretty much impossible to find someone that is actually driving 55-60mph anyway, so it would have to be some truck you hired to drive in front of you. None of that.

The vehicle would have to pass emissions inspection at both the beginning and end of the trip. No hollowing out cats, but you could pretty much have any muffler that wouldn't get you arrested / cited in any jurisdiction along the way. I wouldn't plan to use a really loud muffler.

Any breakdowns where the truck was towed farther along the route to the destination for repair would have to be made up by doubling back and then forward again after the repair to make up the distance.

You would have to use an air filter and carry some amount of fluid in systems such as the windshield washer reservoir.

When you ran empty and and had to use a one gallon reserve to reach the next refueling point, you would have to double back, as before, to make up the distance.

You could put in as much fuel as the stock tank would accept, filling it to the brim, wiggling and jiggling all you wanted to eliminate any air voids in the tank.

You could drive with the windows up, with or without vent fan, with or without AC (if you could stand it).

You could not delete accessories in order to save weight.

Electric fan: permitted. Don't know what other electric substitutions you'd want to allow on the first run. On the way back I might go for an electric water pump. Who knows?

You could use whatever tires and wheels that would fit. That means if you wanted to drop back to a to a 215/75-15, you could.

You could run any inflation you thought the tires could handle.

You could choose to drive any time of the year, and at any time of the day or night to avoid traffic jams.

You could choose any path you wanted, if you thought a non-interstate path would give you an advantage.

You could perform any regular maintenance (air filter, oil change, etc.) you wanted.

There will be more, but I've got a long time to go before I attempt it. If you all have any other rules or permissions, I'd love to hear them.

Ken1992

You would need to average 31.75 mpg to do that, if you figure out how to do that let us know.

dr_bowtie

let us know how that works out... even at 25mpg thats roughly 475 miles to 19 gallon tank...I assume you have dual tanks both 19 gallon? or 18 front and 19 rear...

that still leaves you a little short out west there are lots of steep incline hills but I am not saying it cant be done...

best i ever got was in a 1999 Chevy Venture and that was 43mpg with a tweaked 3400...I drive from South Bend Indiana to Sumner Texas (Paris Texas) at just at 1000 miles... I had to get gas in Joplin Missouri....

I did it by using a 160 T-Stat and pulling 10% of the cruise fuel out...

I have been following your Post at Fordsix forums...I am there as MaxRat...

Just call me Sean

iTrader: (1)

If you can alter the fan and water pump then why can't you delete acessories?

joefriday

Who are you to question these made up rules?

95stepside

if you live in RI why arnt you starting from there if its on the east coast?


oh and btw that cover is the ugliest thing ive seen all day...

lasitter

Part of this from filling the tanks as full as possible and running them dry.

That includes finding the perfect "fill angle" and working it for all its worth. I've read that some people have gotten more than the stated capacity out of a tank on fill-up, and I'm very interested in getting stories from others. One of my next tasks will be to run my own tanks dry and see what I can come up with!

lasitter

Right now, there is no margin for error.

Route planning and weather will be HUGE. If it looks like you're going to encounter ugly headwinds, you stop driving.

I'm planning to take up to a week to go the distance, so that's some flexibility.

(in no particular order ...)

• Floscan or equivalent max out driving techniques
• Lower back-pressure exhaust
• Tonneau
• Fold in or remove exterior mirrors
• Performance ignition (even .1 mpg would help)
• Tires
• Cam indexing / substitution (EFI suggestions welcome)
• Testing / matching O2 sensors
• Testing / matching injectors
• Upcoming valve job
• Electric fan
• Testing / minimizing brake drag
• Dyno testing configurations

Maybe have to tweak some of the rules ...

• Partially / significantly block grille
• Bump the compression to 9.5 or so
• Check out chipping / edging
• Under-driving accessories

If you believe the Aerolid alone could be worth anything like 22% gain, that would be an enormous savings right there.

And suggestions from people on boards like this will be very important indeed.

sixx23

I wish you the best of luck doing this..
Nearly seems impossible

lasitter

The "rules" are far from finished yet. Who knows? Maybe you drive w/a can of fix-a-flat versus a spare?

It's important that in the end, the average person could image doing some of the things done on this test to improve their own fuel economy.

I don't want folks to think they have to give up power steering and power brakes for good fuel economy, or that I'm asking them to REMOVE the air conditioning system.