You said power....

I had the exhaust on the stroked 5.9 in my Dakota designed using "Pipe Max" software, not a Billy Bob seat in the pants give me wood deal. (Sorry Big Green)

More important than the primaries is the length of the secondaries.

There's a "generic" formula out there, look it up...

 

Look Adobe, I apologize for being curt earlier; I just found it annoying that you walked in late to a two year long ongoing discussion about rebuilding for fuel economy and start giving out unsolicited "good ole boy" advice to everyone that they're better off with bigger headers, etc. Look, if you want to take a truck and try to make it into a race car, that's your business. This thread is about something entirely different, so please contribute something useful instead of talking about big headers and quarter mile times.

 

LOLOLOLOL Gas Mileage... mine is running 100% and no matter how I drive it I am getting 11.5 to the gallon ... you want mileage spring for a new truck as I can attest to the mileage BUT you want the BEST looking truck you have to have the 2nd gen so its a trade off

 

They do look great don't they?

 

I like the idea of this build. On a daily driver most of the time you're between 1000-3000 RPM. Dual quads sticking through the hood on a tunnel ram with a race cam sound cool, but aren't fun to drive to work every day. I think it's cool you're trying to build something fun to drive that's as efficient as possible. When gas prices go back up, you can keep driving yours, while others have to drive a Geo Metro all week!

 

After having a few different 360 powered vehicles (98 durango, 98 ram, 99 durango shelby sp 360) I have found e3 plugs to be unreliable (the metal on the top of the plug would loosen causing a mis-firt). Also any champion plugs I have ever used had one fail in the first 1000 miles. I switched to NGK v-power plugs and love them. I also run the summit racing wires/cap/rotor. One thing I noticed to make the biggest difference was to get rid of the 18yrs old coil and get a new one.

 

Thanks for the interest and support! I plan to continue updating you guys on my progress all the way through completion and hopefully be able to show some fuel efficiency gains after engine break-in.

Adukart, I agree about the E3 plugs. I've read enough negative reviews of them that I'm not going to use them. I'm intrigued by Denso's twin tip plugs. Still reading up on them, but looking at the design, I think their claim that it allows for less obstructed initial spark propagation is at least plausible. Has anyone tried these?

Also, I plan to put in a MSD HVC-2 coil.

 

Yeah...that's a crock of ****. The shorties, though not a TON better are still better. The only longtubes available for these trucks are Pacesetter and they're straight up JUNK with clearance issues. No Spintech midlengths I'd be much happier with, Pacesetter I'd be wasting time and money. Especially considering the 1-7/8 primaries are too big for anything short of race motor or built 408. Why waste my time with that crap?


And the 2bbl was a major drop in low end since the truck was pretty much stock otherwise. Shorties more than made up for it though and smoothed my powerband.

 

I'm probably going to stir up something, but as far as mods go by far the best "but dyno" mod I did was the JBA shorties. As far as the original topic is concerned I don't know if it really did anything for my fuel economy and I lost a little low end (I used to be able to do this one hill in O/D at 55mph then after couldn't quite hold that speed at the same ambient temp) but I did notice good mi drange pull, were one would be O/D off pulling a trailer. Fact is though if you move more air you will need more fuel. Keep in mind the objective is 14.7:1, air:fuel, all the time. Our 360's are great at moving air in the low end which = low end torque and crappy fuel economy. So I still think the original post is on the right track in raising the compression.

 

That seems backward to me. Normalizing efficiency numbers by injecting rolling weight into the equation and calculating ton-miles per gallon, my last run up and down and around the mountains to Steamboat Springs netted me 48.3 ton-miles per gallon. An 1800 pound car would have to bag 53.7MPG to reach equal efficiency.

That's not crappy fuel economy. It's just a heavy futzin' truck.