It's been a couple of weeks since I made these trips, but I put over 2,000 miles on my truck since March 25, and nearly all of those miles were towing something. A little over 500 miles Easter weekend with a Toyota Celica on board (2580 lbs + 2200 for the trailer), then back home with the trailer empty. Then another 350 miles each way with a Toyota MR-2 on board (2840 lbs + 2200 for the trailer + a bunch of other stuff).
Not the heaviest loads by any stretch, but an interesting thing happened after I dropped of the Celica. My fuel economy went down! Worse with an empty trailer.... I've been scratching my head ever since. The conditions were a little different, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. On the leg with the car, clear skies, beautiful day, not much wind. Just a great day to be on the road. On the return leg without the car lots of rain, and maybe a little bit of wind, but certainly not a storm. What wind there was seemed to be a cross wind too, not a head wind.
So here's the entries from my fuel log for this first trip:
3/25___27,407____9.3___$18.52____$1.99____11.3____11 .5____trip fillup
3/25___27,709___23.9___$49.08____$2.05____12.5____12 .6____100% tow
3/26___27,993___23.3___$48.51____$2.08____12.8____12 .2____100% tow
3/27___28,216___18.9___$39.71____$2.10____12.2____11 .8____Emptytrailer
3/28___28,514___26.3___$53.29____$2.03____11.8____11 .3____Emptytrailer
Go figure..?..?.. The trailer is open, so I figured it would do much better without a car on it. Maybe I was driving faster, but if I was it wasn't by much. I didn't think the rain would have any impact, but maybe it did. I was a little disapponted with under 12 mpg with an empty trailer.
Here the entries from towing the MR-2. These are much more in line with what I usually see towing these size cars around.
4/01___28,820___24.2___$50.41____$2.08____13.1____12 .6____some empty trailer
4/03___28,955___11.8___$23.79____$2.02____12.4____11 .4____100% tow
4/04___29,290___27.1___$55.20____$2.04____12.3____12 .4____100% tow
4/10___29,590___24.6___$50.81____$2.07____12.5____12 .2____mix
The last entry includes a fair amount of empty driving. So I've come to a couple of conclusions: 1) This truck does about the same driving around town as it does towing. I can get decent numbers on the highway empty, but it's firmly stuck between 11 and the 12.5 towing (my loads). 2) The O/H console is easily faked out. It's not consistently off one way or the other, either. It seem to get more out of whack when you spend a lot of time on the highway. So for just the towing portions I used 155.5 gallons to go 1883 miles, or 12.1 mpg. The console avg for the same legs was 12.4, but it varied from the actual as much as 1.0 mpg high to 0.1 mpg low.
The truck was flawless once again. It never skipped a beat. My kids love the room in the back, and I love the power, smoothness and quiet of the motor.
I appreciate you taking the time to post those numbers and the comparison between the overhead and the actual. I think you are getting good economy from your V10. How do you tolerate that smaller gas tank in the CC shortbox or have you done something to remedy it? What rearend ratio do you have?
Thanks
Kelly
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95 F250 4x4 SC, Alloy wheels, Catectomy, 3.55's, E4OD, Dark Green, Ground effects package, Warn manual hubs, 12k mod, Redline Oil throughout, Big Hayden cooler, Factory AIC, Fuel shimmed, TYMAR air filter & HX mod, Ceramic Hypermax dp BD 5/95, TEE5 code, Timbrens, SCMT, boost, tranny, and pyro in Rocky's overhead pod
90 F350 SRW with Loral Sprayer setup, 38.5" Super Swampers, 4wd, 5 spd, 7.3 IDI, 93 factory turbo motor with Luk clutch, homemade air intake, 3" "99" downpipe, 3.5" straight pipe exhaust
Autometer boost, pyro
Kelro - The smaller gas tank is really only an issue for me when I'm near empty and the only gas around is overpriced. I guess I could have the same problem with a bigger tank, but with some planning I could probably buy cheaper gas most of the time.
Before this truck I had a 150 with the dual tanks, 300 cu in I-6 and a 5-speed. That thing would go nearly twice as far as this one before I had to fill up. I thought a 300 mile (give or take) range would get on my nerves, but the reality is I'm ready to get out of the truck by that time. I haven't driven anywhere where the range of the truck was less than the intervals for gas stations, so between that and my desire to get out it's been a non-issue.
When I got this truck I immediately started looking at transfer flow tanks. Then I saw how much they cost and decided I'd give it a try in the stock configuration to see if I could live with it as is. If I was travelling by myself (read no kids or wife) it might be more of an issue, but these days it's worked out fine so far.
The truck is 2WD, auto, 3.73 LS. The only modification is an Access bed cover and Banks Trans Command.
Yes the tank is small, but I found when towing after 2 hours someone in truck is ready to stop anyway. I wanted a transfer flow real bad, but also looked at the cost. Spent $15 dollars on 2 6 gal cans. Empty them into tank at rest stop and keep on going. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]
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2001 TRed F250 Lariat CC 156 in.,4x2, Camper Pkg., V10, Auto, 3.73LS, Heated seats, Bed X-tender,Ford Flaps,Catch-all,RollNLock. 7200# Me, Wife, 2 teens, gas and gear for weekend.
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