I took the ram on it's first trip this week from Boise to Vegas, which is around 700 miles. I would have taken my girlfriends prelude but it's a 95 and has been having issues lately and we didn't trust it in the dessert. I was pretty much predicting that I would get around 18-20mpg and after the first gas fill up found out I was gettting 13. I was very pissed and trying to figure out why it was so bad when I thought of the powerwire andhaving to beat wide open throttleto keep the truck at 70mph.I knew that powerwire uses alot of gas atWOT, so I took my powerwire out and got 16.5 for most of the rest of thetrip. The last section of the trip I slowed down to about 65-70 andI thinkI got about 18 but I haven't checked yet. I was pretty disapointed overall with my mpg and also the 6 speed is really annoying because if there is even the slightest hill you have to downshift or floor it the whole way in order to keep speed.

 

I feel you'r pain .I ran In to anouther Dodge truck ownner he has the 4.7 V-8 and he gets better HWY MPG than we get and not so underpowered.

Where I live we have rolling hills and lot of wind mosty HWY driving I feel you Pain.

I rechecked my MPG last time I filled up I was back down to 17.5 MPG.

Thats with trhe mods, I was aslo pissed when I first gotten the truck with the 3.7 V-6 I was also getting 13 MPG at first It gets better MPG around 4000 miles.

 

Yeah wind was a factor here too.I didn't even realize how many little hills there are on theinterstate hereuntil I took my truckand I've driven it tons of times in different vehicles.
It was kind of weird because half the time I was happy with the truck and half the time I was annoyed on my trip. Passing the truck does fine as long as you downshift,I was doing up to 3 or 4 car passes at a time including semi's fine. For what I use it for the truck is great and I don't think it's too underpowered most of the timeunless your in 6th gear. The problem is that in order to use what power the truck does have you will get terrible mileage. For example on the highway I could just leave the truck in 5th gear, drive 80and the wind and small hills wouldn't bother me but I would probably get 12-13 mpg.

One thing I was trying to figure out was if 6th or 5th gear is better for mpg on the small hills. In 6th I would be at about 2300-2500 rpm's but would be floored at wide open throttle in order to maintain 70-75mph. In 5th I would be at 3000 rpm's but at a little less than half throttle to maintain 70-75. What do you think?

 

Same here I planning to put some 3.90 or 4.10 gears in the rear to help it out it should give me some more off the bottom and rev a little higher at HWY speeds in 6th wh

Itshould fix some of the down shifting for hills wind Ect mite as well 6th gear on a hill or wind kills the truck 5th sucks gas.

I should be a happyer with low gearpulling6th gear rev little higher so I can climb hills and use it in a head wind and not have to down shift as much, Big gain is off the line and towing I be able to tow more weight when needed easyer

I had to down shift to 4th gear to pull some hills with my wife and kid in the truck lets say the extra 200 lbs make a big diffrents when pulling hills even when I haul my dirt bike I notice the extra weight.

 

I'm not a fan of 4.10's in these trucks. If you do it be sure to post back with a full report.

 

I been leaning more 3.90 my self.

 

My truck has the 3.55's orwhatever they are since it came with the tow package and limited slip. It handles the road fine about 60% of the time in6th gear and I think if I didn't have my 20's on it might be ok. Oh well it looks good. If I'm going to do much highway driving I might have to get the chip instead of my powerwire. The powerwire killed my mpg on highway and it sounds like you have been doingbetter with the chip. It was 3.5 to 5 mpg worse with the powerwire in on the highway because of using to much throttle to keep speed.

 

bchap05

That sucks I did not know the Power wire killed you MPG.

How do youlike the 3.55 gears I have the 3.21 they are to much freeway flyers I been looking at at least 3.90 or 4.10 I not sure about 4.10 they mite be to deep of a gear set I have find someone else who's running 4.10 and see how they like them I do mostly HWY driving.

 

I think the powerwire actually helps my mileage in city driving and also highway driving when I'm not floored the whole time. Run it hard with the powerwire and the gas dissapears. Ilike the gearing but they were on my truck stock so I haven't driven the 3.21's. It would be interesting to drive the same truck with 3.21's and see the difference. I would probably prefer the 4.10's though as I do 90% city driving.

 

So I finally had to fill up from the last part of my trip and I ended up with 19mpg. I drove thefirst 340 or so on the highway and the last 110 miles in thecity. So since I usually get 15-16 city I figure that I broke 20 finally during the highway part.