Hows it going everyone
im new to the forum and got a gas mileage question.
i just bought a 2002 ram 1500 quad cab hemi
has 104k miles k&n intake and headers.
i asked the guy how many mpg he gets and he said 10 city and 14 highway
i thought you would get more with mpg with those upgrades?
i was looking into buying a programmer.
i will do a tune up soon oil change, plugs, and all the goodies.
if you guys have any tips on increasing it id highly appreciate it.
thanks guys

 

what type of programmer are you looking at? As far as your tune up goes don't waste money on the fancy BS sparkplugs just stick with your champion copper plugs and you will be fine.

 

Welcome aboard. Glad you found us.

That would have to be a VERY LATE '02 to have a Hemi in it. Most likely it's a 5.9. If so, 10 and 14 are about right. Intake and headers will have little to no improvement on mileage. Some folks say they even hurt the mileage.

It'll take a lot of miles to break even using a tuner to help fuel cost. Plus, the tuner may not completely "talk" to the drive train anyway, so the options would be limited.

If it's a Hemi, remember it'll be sixteen plugs. If you count only eight, it isn't a Hemi. Could be a 4.7, too, I suppose. Don't forget the tranny and diff service unless the PO had them done recently (15K-30K). If it has LSD, it'll need the friction modifier in most cases.

 

Welcome to Dodgeforum. Glad to have you with us.



According to Wikipedia lol, there was not a 5.7 Hemi produced at all in 2002. All 3.7,4.7,and 5.9.


Take a look underneath the hood, there should be a white sticker somewhere that says Catalyst. That should have the year and engine size, if not there check on the door or glove box. Good luck! Let us know what you find.

 

so i checked its the 5.9 i was hoping it was the real hemi with the 90+ extra hp since it had 5.7 badges on the fenders.
and i was just going to do normal plugs those fancy ones seem to never have a positive effect on engines.
also i looked at another post for the price of the programmer to what you would actually save and maybe ill pass on it. how much do you guys gain with programer on mpg?
but i think overall i got a good deal $6k for quad cab 4x4 104k miles?
thank you for the input guys

 

You must have bought one from those bozos on Top Gear. They don't know what engines are in the Dodge pickups and misrepresent the displacement.

I don't have a programmer, so I can't speak from experience. Common sense, though, would tell me it would take quite a while for a programmer to pay for itself with lower fuel cost.

Assuming a 5% improvement, that's 14.7 mpg instead of 14. The .7 mile/gallon would be 1.2 cents per mile cheaper (theoretically). The programmer is about $300? The break-even point is 25,000 miles. Not exactly economical, especially since any actual benefit is doubtful.

 

a programmer for the 5.9 is the only way to go, chrysler had issues with the engine pinging in these trucks and turned the engine down to compensate for the ping, a programmer will open the engine up and give you some better hp and mileage. if you have engine and tranny quesitons it is probably best that you post in the Gen II section as all those trucks are running either the 5.2 or 5.9 engines. the 5.9 is a solid engine just not at peppy as the Hemi, for some mods etc. check some of the trucks on the gen II page.

 

Should have done a little homework. The Hemi didn't debut until 2003. I think the guy who sold it to you is a real douche for A) putting Hemi badges on a 5.9 and B) not specifying what engine it had in it at the point of sale.

If you truly get 10/14 city/highway you are doing pretty well. I had a 5.9 in my 1998 RCSB 1500 4x4 and with 4" of lift and 35" tires I couldn't average double digit fuel economy in combination driving. Might could just nip 12 on trips if I kept it at about 65 mph.

Best things you can do for fuel economy are keeping it completely tuned up, use synthetic fluids wherever you can and keep the tires at 80% of their listed max cold PSI.

As far as seeing better fuel economy, you might can dump a couple of grand in it and see 2 mpg, but you're better off just saving it and putting it into the pump.

The 5.9 is VERY detuned at the factory as a band aid for the Plenum Gasket Issue (do a search, mainly in the 2nd Gen Ram section) and as such tuners REALLY wake this engine up. I believe a modestly priced Superchips tuner nets around 50 HP gains, but don't look for much in he MPG department, but again, with the vast power gains, it won't cost you any fuel economy and you might also see a fraction of a MPG gain.

For what you paid, if it's in good shape, you still didn't do bad at all. That's relatively low mileage for about a 10 year old truck and I'm seeing the few 3rd Gen 5.9s that are around selling for about $8500 in good shape, 4x4 QC with 120k'ish on the odometer.

That 5.9 is a tank though and the only real issues with it are the plenum issue (easily fixed, parts to fix it forever are cheap, but labor can be intensive) and some are known to suffer from cracked heads in the Magnum engines with hard use. With good care, it should get at least as many more miles as are already on it. I personally know a couple of people with well over 200k miles on theirs.

A couple things to look for (problem areas) are cracked dashes, front end components and the transmission. The 46re tranny is the only real negative in this truck. Like the 5.9 engine, it's a single year holdover from the 2nd Gens and it's responsible for the old saying that Rams had the best V8 engines on the planet mated to the worst transmissions. DO YOUR MAINTENANCE ON THE TRANNY AT OR MORE OFTEN THAN THE MANUAL REQUIRES - lack thereof ALWAYS results in problems...

 

Welcome to the forum, Glad to have you here. Like Hammer and Mike said, the MPG you are getting is very good for that truck and engine. The bodystyle we all have is like a large brick so the Drag coefficient isnt that great and robs us all of MPGs. Some have said that lowering will increase mpg due to lower drag but I have had several lowered vehicles and never saw this improvement. The best tool for assisting with MPG monitoring is a VAC gauge. If you know how to use it you can squeeze the max MPG out of your truck. As far as the BS plugs, the only benefit to them is with the irridiums you dont have to change as often from what I am told but I have always done mine at 30K regardless of what I run. Tuners wont net you any MPG in fact most of the time they make it worse. I had a superchips on my jeep with the 4.7L and the mileage tune that they say will get you better MPG was 3MPG or so worse than factory. You can try running a higher octane fuel and some lucas fuel cleaner through it. I bought the big bottle of lucas and went through it in 3 fill ups. I know that was over concentrated but it worked great. Try running the the different grades of gas and monitor the MPGs over 2 or 3 tanks of fuel with each one. Hope this helps.

Chris

 

I've never seen a "mileage tune" work. Problem is, they de-tune the vehicle and 99% of the drivers give it extra gas in an attempt to have the same performance/acceleration they had stock, which defeats the tune.

In my experience the "performance tunes" give the best gas mileage, IF you can stay off it! By having more power, you have to give it less throttle than when stock to achieve the same performance. As long as you don't gun it to feel the extra power, you'll get better gas mileage. Not much, but it certainly won't be worse.
I found that running the Performance Tune on my Superchips yielded enough fuel economy that it was still just a tad cheaper to pay for the 93 octane fuel than stock with 89 or even the 87 octane tune with 87 gas.
DO NOT RUN A LOWER OCTANE FUEL THAN THE TUNE CALLS FOR.