I have seen a few 1gen v8 dakota's around here for sale and every one of them are advertising 14mpg town and 18 mpg hwy. Every time I fill I check it and I get 12 town and 14 hwy.

Are they full of bs?

Also, one of them is advertising that it is "Performance Chipped." Is there a chip out there for a 1gen that would make a worth while difference?
I looked in the FAQ and found a couple but no reviews or numbers. I found some on ebay that promise anywhere from 25 more HP to 250 more HP... yes.. 250! go look your self! scam.

Thoughts?

 

Can't speak for anyone else but on a fresh tune-up and a light foot mine can get 20mpg with about 18 on the highway (this is bone stock with a tonneau cover), can't give you a good city number since I don't really do any city driving.

 

All the Ebay chips are a scam and the JETs are said to be crap too. The only good option for us is the Mopar PCM, Mopar did advertise them as a 25HP increase and I believe it.

BTW my truck typically get 14.5-15.5 MPG running mostly town/country roads and little freeway. It will do 20+ on the freeway.

 

Any thoughts on improving my mpg? Im not so much concerned with the mpgs, but I can only assum that I am lacking power as well.

I have newer (1 year old) plugs
have used quite a bit of fuel system cleaner since my motor swap (had same mileage with old motor too though)
"cleaning up" the exhaust tonight (that should help)
Still have OEM intake filter

Any other thoughts?

 

My truck has had a full ignition tune up in the past year and put in autolite 3923s for the plugs and an Accel performance coil, as well as a clean air filter and less than a year old o2 sensor. I have the mopar performance computer for a 5.9L. I have shorty headers and a '98 modded intake manifold with no EGR, bored out throttle body, no CAT, flowmaster 40. I also have an electric fan which I only ever turn on during "city" driving. With 3.55s and 31.65" x 10.5" tires I can get 15-16 (last tank was 15.7) driving the absolute crap out of the truck... as in pedal to the floor and shift gears no lower than 4k rpm. This is on city/open country roads. On the interstate I've never seen better than 18 but I average 70-80 mph so there's that little issue of air resistance.

I hope that gives you some ideas.

 

I assume you have an automatic? That seems to be a big factor with fuel mileage on these trucks from what I've seen.

 

Could be you're plenum gasket is probably blown which can cause lower mileage and power also.

 

Wouldnt the plenum gasket cause it to burn oil, though?

I did exhaust last night and I am going to do intake soon. I will report if this makes any difference.

Thanks for the info!

Hahn, Are you saying that you thing the autos are worse for mileage?

 

Plenums won't always burn oil, my 99 the gasket was blown in 4 places and didn't burn a drop. Easiest way I've found to test is to pull the breather hose off of the air cleaner and check for a vacuum, if there is a vacuum it's blown.

 

Yes, autos get worse gas milage because there is a greater power loss in the transmission, so they are less efficient.

There is always going to be a vacuum at the throttle body when the engine is running or it wouldn't suck air in. Thats why the vacuum lines are attached to the intake manifold. The reason they burn oil is because when the gasket blows, there is a vacuum at the belly pan of the intake which sucks oil in from the valvetrain.