my 99 is getting about 22 highway if i keep my foot out of it and around 13-16 in town

FASS 95 fuel pump, superchips programmer (garbage)....

 

DPF delete kit????What is DPF and what is the kit???? Thanks again,I'm learning a LOT!!!! Jerry

 

2006 quad cab short bed 4X4 Heavy Duty manual 6 speed anti-slip 3.73 rear end.

I'll give you my milage numbers below which I maintain very accurately, calculate, trend on a graph and keep in a spreadsheet. However read the rest first. I have tracked every single tank full I have burned with 100% accuracy since I drove the truck off the lot. I watch it like a hawk. I do this not just for tracking milage itself, but because milage is one good indicator of overall vehicle condition.

I have kept my truck maintained extremely well. All fluids and filters are always changed way before they are due. Oil and oil filter have never gone longer than 4000 miles and I normally change them every 3000. Fuel filters and air filters have been changed before they reach the lowest milage limits in the manual based on heavy duty usage. Rear and transfer case fluids have been changed according to heavy duty use schedule in the manual also. Tires have been kept aligned, balanced, and rotated. The tires are the original 245/70 R17s. So everyone have a good laugh on this! The wheels and tires are really wimpy on my truck, but they are about to get replaced. I mention the tires because I think their smaller diameter makes them turn faster and reduces fuel efficiency. Everything mechanical and electrical on the truck is stock except for my Rhino bed liner, fog lights, and Prodigy electrical break controller which is used with our travel trailer.

I use the truck for infrequent non-towing freeway driving to work (I mostly work from home or travel). I also use the truck to tow our travel trailer. Trips in the trailer have averaged 1200 miles round trip. Our trailer is a Vortex Viper Toy Hauler, weights about 8000 pounds, is a 32 feet long bumper pull and has very poor aerodynamics (does not cut through the wind well). Most of our trips have involved travel on open interstate and some stop and go through towns in East Texas. Hills are involved also. For some reason we seem to always get caught in wind or storms. I typically drive 65 MPH top speed in 6th gear whether towing or not.

All of the above impacts milage significantly.

When the truck is new your mileage will be very poor. It will improve significantly for the first 15,000 to 20,000 miles or more. When mine was new I got about 14 MPG empty. I am now getting 18.5 MPG empty, not towing. The best I have seen while towing is 14 MPG. Typical towing is around 12 MPG. I've seen it dip to 10 MPG when towing, which was due driving into a very strong cross/head wind that I could feel bucking the trailer and truck.

Friends and work buddies who have similar trucks report very similar MPG. Folks with the auto trans report slightly better milage (20 MPG highway empty). This is probably due to the auto overdrive higher overall gear ratio.

I don't know what to suggest after all this emission control crap was added to the newer models. These vehicles are too expensive to be screwing around with problems, even if they are under warranty. If I were you I would read the forums and make sure you don't buy a truck or CONFIGURATION that has problems. before I bought I read horror story after horror story about the Dodge auto trans. Every vehicle I have owned in the past that had all the electric crap on it wound up with seats that would not adjust, windows not working, locks not working, auto trans had to be rebuilt after 60K miles, etc. This is one reason why I have a manual trans, rubber floors, no electric windows, no electric locks, no electric mirrors, no electric seats, and no fru-fru butt warmers. Be sure to check the overall dimensions of the truck you are looking at. The 2006 Ford quad cab short bed would not fit in my garage (too long).

Hope this helps.

 

There are places that make kits that delete the DPF. They are not street legal as they remove the SMOG stuff. They are designed for off-road competition. You can delete the DPF, and/or the cats, and/or the EGR. There will be a controller or DPF sensor simulators that will keep the computer from going into regeneration mode (which is why a diesel with a DPF uses more fuel). Even if you keep it at stock HP numbers, it will run cooler, more efficiently, and will give you much better mileage.

Just search DPF delete on this site or google it. Lot's of info on the subject. Like I said, I was tempted, but not worth changing back to stock every two years for the SMOG checks out here in California.

 

Don't count on your mileage computer being like mine and showing worse mileage than you are actually getting. I had a 2002 1500 QC 2WD with the 4.7L V-8 and the computer showed 3-4 MPG better than what I was actually getting.

I traded that gas hog in on the 2500 diesel primarily for better mileage. The fact I got 4 wheel drive, 100 more HP and heavy duty towing ability was all bonus ;-) That 1500 was doing good to get 14MPG on the highway with a tail wind.

As mentioned, the mileage ona new truck isn't going to be very good for at least 15-20k. Mine really picked up around 40K and I've seen a slight average increase continuously since.

I looked at the Super Duties when I was shopping for a diesel (I was unaware of the mileage differences between the Ford and Dodge at the time) and I just didn't like the Ford. It didn't ride as good as the Dodge and it felt sluggish.

And lastly, the Navistar diesels need a coolant additive to prevent cavitation erosion. The Cummins, being parent bored, does not.

 

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And lastly, the Navistar diesels need a coolant additive to prevent cavitation erosion. The Cummins, being parent bored, does not.[/quote]

What's parent bored, Air hog. ????

Thanks again for all the information.Jerry

 

A parent bore means the cylinders are cast into the block as part of the "parent" metal, the block itself. The cylinder does not contain a sleeve that is added later as ina sleeved engine.

The plus side is that these engines are far less prone to cavitation erosion (notice I didn't say immune, pretty much all diesel engines can have some cavitation).

Downside, if the cylinder becomes scored, or any other damage, it has to be bored out to fix it. This means some high machining costs.

A sleeved engine has a cast iron sleeve that is inserted into the block to form the cylinder. Sleeve designs are broken into two basic groups, wet sleeved and dry sleeved. A wet sleeve has a large portion of the sleeve in contact with the coolant (hence the name). Dry sleeves have little or no area in contact with the coolant.

Plus side to sleeves are quick, easy renewal of a cylinder if it becomes damaged inside.

Downside, prone to cavitation erosion.

What is cavitation erosion? When a fluid is subjected to pressures lower than its vapor pressure, bubbles or "cavities" form. When the pressure increases again the bubbles implode. If the bubbles are in contact with a surface the shock waves from the imploding bubbles actually create a tiny, extremely high pressure jet of the liquid. If the jet impinges on a local surface, it will erode small amounts of the surface's material. If unchecked, it will eat through this surface. Think of a micro version of a flo-Jet or water cutter used in cutting metal to shape.

So why are sleeved engines more prone? Because the sleeve forms the cylinder and cylinder walls. Sleeves being relatively thin are susceptible to flexing, especially from the high stresses and pressures in a diesel engine. As coolant passes through narrow passages in and around the cylinder area its pressure drops due to the venturi effect. Bubbles form. When the sleeve flexes outward, it quickly raises the presssure in the surrounding coolant (since a liquid doesn't compress well or at all) and the bubbles implode and you get erosion of the sleeve.

The coolant additive serves the purpose of creating a sacrificial coating on the metal surfaces for the bubbles to chew on instead of the metal of the sleeve.

Early IDI non-turboed diesels had erosion problems because they tended to have higher compression ratios than most newer turbo charged diesels in order to make more power. Higher compression means more power, but also more forces and stresses acting to flex sleeves and such.

 

As for Ford, don't go thier, navstar ( international ) 7.3 power stokes were the last great ford diesel, 6.0 second gen were a wee bit better than the 6.0, 6.4 is a trip down hill, in super slow.

CTD empty gets no better milage than a 5.7 hemi, is a great missconption to asume diesel engines get better milage wnem empty, they don't.

Facter in towing, and a ctd, or even a Ford diesel have the advantage, empty, or loaded most diesl trucks get the same milage loaed or empty, a gas engine sucks more gas to tow less than what a diesl engine can.

I'm getting all the info I can on the 6.7, but I would asume the 5.9 gets better mpg and more power, more displacement from the 6.7 really dosent add to a increase in power, I find it odd that you need more displacement to make less emsions.

my 06 reg cab hemi with a 6sp 373 can average 21 mpg empty, 1800 Rpms at 60 mph, throw 6 to 8 thousand pound behind me, I'm lucky to pull 12 to 13 mpg.

 

The 6.7 has more HP than the 5.9, not much but it does (about 25HP more). I would surmise it is capable of a fair bit more with proper tuning, but the requirements for diesel emissions seems to have taken the front seat. Ultra-low sulpher fuel and more filtration appear to be the name of the game.

In broad terms, a diesel will make more power than a gas engine for equal volumes of fuel as diesel has more BTU's than gasoline for that equal amount.

Of course, there are many other factors to consider concerning the engine designs, gearing, etc, ad nauseum.

To say a diesel gets better mileage than a gas engine while running empty is not a misconception, but rather highly dependent on the engine(s) in question. My 2002 Ram 1500 is/was living proof. 4.7L V-8, 2wd and it NEVER got anywhere close to what my 7,000lb 4x4 QC diesel gets at 22.1 MPG empty on the highway. The V-10's won't do it either.

Interestingly, prior to the 2002 1500, I had a '95 Ram standard cab 2wd that I bought used with a V-6 in it (yeah, big mistake). I went to the junk yard and bought the 360 cu. in. V-8 out of a wrecked '96 and dropped it into my '95. It bolted to the manual tranny I had, I got all the wiring, everyhting still attached to the engine for $1200. I had to buy a flywheel and do some "innovative" wiring as the harness on the new V-8 was from an automatic, but 2 days later I had what was probably the only half-ton Ram in Texas with a 360 cu. in V-8 and a 5-speed manual.

The point here is I got better mileage with the 360 V-8 than the V-6 on the highway because the V-6 was under powered and 70 MPH cruising amounted to a constant foot-to-the-floor affair. Stop-and-go traffic was something entirely different.

Does the Hemi Rams use the "multi-displacement" thing like the cars, shutting off cylinders while cruising?

I'm not trying to start a gas vs diesel war, but I'm willing to bet if you average overall mileage for the life of the trucks (and not just a single example of empty highway cruising), and subjected them both to the same driving conditions, towing, etc the diesel will win in terms of mileage hands down.

 

Don't know about the Dodge mileage, as I have not taken delivery of my new to me 06 Ram 2500, but a few years ago I drove a F550 service truck with the 7.3 engine, and it got mid single digit mileage, When they put me into an old 12 valve 98 Ram, it got 15 MPG and it was only 100 lbs lighter than the Ford. Something else to ak your buddy, is how many injectors he has put in so far? I put 4 in the 7.3 powerjoke in less than 80000 km, and I had the truck since new so all the services and updates were done at a Ford dealer.
I can't wait to pick up the new Dodge.