what are some ideas to get get better gas mileage on my 1997 1500 5.2 other than a tune up, cold air intake, and electric fan? what would be the max city mpg's i could expect?

 

Have you done the plenum fix?

Some exhaust mods, intake mods or other engine mods would help, such as headers, a new better intake manifod, or roller rockers. Maybe a 50mm fastman TB?

 

+1 for the plenum plate/gasket fix. Do a search, you'll find tons of info, even in recent discussions.

Seriously though, the best thing you can do besides a tune up and synthetic fluids (CAI won't net you much more than 1, max) will be to keep the tire size down (I'm assuming you have the stock 3.55 gears) and your RPMs down. If you can keep your foot out of it, you could get several more MPG above my 12 number, especially if you have the manual transmission.

Around town, when my truck was bone stock (with my lead foot), I'd get about 10 MPG in town.

After Fastman throttle body, Volant CAI (better than K&N due to its design but more expensive), tune-up, synthetic fluids, modified intake manifold, better ignition coil (Blaster 2), Magnaflow high flow catalytic converter, Flowmaster Super 44 muffler, indexed plugs, and the Superchips tuner, I got about 12 MPG in town. I may be forgetting a few minor upgrades, but you get the point. After all that money thrown at it (and I am by no means the most $$$ in upgrades on the forum, not by a long shot), all I got was a 2 MPG increase.

If you add all that up, it'll take me forever to recoup what I spent in gas savings. I knew what I was getting into when I bought the truck, I buy upgrades for performance, not MPGs.

I'd also advise that you go to your User CP (look right above the "New Reply" button) and create a signature with your truck's complete info, or a link to a website (like my CarDomain) with the info. 4x4? Manual or auto? Gears? Trim level? Etc. All of that would help us if you ever have any future issues.

And welcome to the forums!

 

assuming you have a 2wd, about the best you can expect is 16-18 on highway and 14-15 in city, and that's assuming you drive easy and with mpg in mind.

make sure your speedometer/odometer is right. if you've changed tire size w/o correcting the speedo, then you're not measuring the mileage right.

besides tune up, you want to change your fluids, 02 sensor, good (responsive) tps, inflate tires up as tight as safely possible (like around 40-45), check bearings and brakes for minimum drag. also avoid big tires.
cold air intake is a waste of money.
since you have a 97, superchips won't work.

 

after my plenum fix, cleaned intake manifold, cleaned fuel injectors, new fuel pump, fan cutch radiator, water pump, msd 8.5 mm super conductor wires, mopar champion copper plugs, accell cap/rotor and coil. with 4.10 gears front and rear, new timken wheel bearing, i now get 14.3 city mpgs and 18.1 highway (at 75 mph's) with my 5.9L at 199K

each one of those contributed to better mpg's it seems