Good day to all. I am a proud and first time owner of a 2000 Dodge 1500. I've noticed that this truck is ALWAYS thirsty. I was looking to make some upgrades, as far as an intake airflow system, muffler, and anything else that could possibly help. I know it won't help much, but even saving a gallon or two would help me tremendously. I'm on a budget though. I've been searching online for a descent, not too expensive, and not too cheap, intake system. I could go to local stores in my area, but you know how that goes, they try to sell you the most expensive equipment. So I'm placing my trust in you folks. I have between $150 - $175 for the intake system. I was thinking of making this my first mod. What would you guys (or ladies) recommend? Any other mods that I should consider as well? Thanks in advance!

 

There is really nothing you can do to these rigs to increase mileage. They just werent designed to be good on fuel. The average is ~12-13mpg. Your stock air in-take is just as good as a cold air in take so save your money. However you should read the stickied plenum thread at the top of the forum, that fix will be the biggest bang for your buck.

 

Replace the plenum, timing set, cap/rotor, plugs, wires, cat and front O2 sensor.

That's about all you can do. After that you might be able to do an e-fan and get rid of the factory clutch fan. It will help with A/C too.

 

Plenum and your tune up first. Plugs, wires, cap/rotor, timing chain, etc.

Then get into your exhaust/intake and maybe an SCT tuner. But cai's are a waste of money according to everyone on here. I got a Spectre CAI and all it does is make a cool whistling noise when I start it up when it's cold. It also looks good under the hood. It didn't really do anything with my mpg and it didn't improve performace any as far as I can tell.

Get a drop in K@N filter and your be good to go dealing with your intake.

 

Psh, don't listen to these guys, 10" lift and 40" mud tires should net a few mpgs or so...

 

That's whats up. I appreciate all the input. Yea the CAI's do look good under the hood, but if it won't help with MPG's, I'll wait on that. Good thing I asked first before dropping that kind of cash.

@stewie01...LOL..I like that man. In due time I will my dude.

 

I've been thinking of making the stock air box into a CAI by piping air into the fender it feeds from.



I just haven't done it yet.

 

with that big of lift, better add on the famous invisible trailer 3rd gen ego boosting mirrors to help the mpg

yeah agreed on the cold air intake, looks cool, sounds cool, but you'll be lucky to see any mpg improvements, I should know I have one. Like stated before, start with the plenum if you haven't already. Another thing I'm trying, though I don't think it's working, I'm running purely ethanol free gas in my truck for awhile and seeing if that helps....

 

Ethanol free gas can increase MPG by 1-3 mpg

 

^^^ This by far! I run 91 octane fuel with zero ethanol in it and i got much better mpg's then running the lower octane with ethanol in it.