Just passing this on to those thinking about doing & for those who are doing & have had similiar experiences.

Just got back from 2700mi trip. 99SC F250LD SB 4X4 4.6L AT 3.73RE I think the 250LD are now 150HD. MODS: Superchip flipchip 87/92 K&N drop in, meanstreak cat.back exhaust.

Truck loaded with roof top boat, etc, bed full,(towing) TT about 4500#, according to scale, about 500# under GCWR. HEAVY !

First trip towing with chip installed. Yes, it gave me that little extra i was looking for. Highest towing elev. was about 6000ft, not sure of % grades, but some were very long. Before chip, similiar terrain, i'd be in 1st gear about 20mph. With chip, 2rd gear about 35 - 40mph.(40 was pushing it) Entire trip i towed in 3rd gear. Never once did i get into low. Of course, higher elev. and steeper grade?? Probably be in 1st gear. Tranny shifts good, TC worked good, think i can finally tell what gear im in.

Nev. Idaho Montana British Columbia Oregon. Started off Chevron 92. Some of these other areas didnt find Chevron, so decided to use Conoco. Higher elev. i could only get 91oct. Didnt have any choice. fortunately, Conoco burned ok, no problems, no noticeable drop in power.

NOW, in Nelson, British Columbia, first time i saw "94"oct, .93per liter,Chevron, expensive, but thought id try some, with 25gal. tank, had maybe 10 or 12gal. 91, didnt see any noticeable increase in power, may have to be completely 94 and not a mix. So i probably wasted my $, or maybe not?

Would 94oct make more power than 92oct, dont know? Seems to me it should? Got 92 Chevron in Lewiston, Idaho, 1.59Gal, that was easier on the pocket book.

Got 10.5 & 11 mpg @ 55 & 60mph. I thought that was pretty good considering towing etc. If you wanna go faster, gonna pay.

Chip did help. Good luck OT

 

Hey OT

Did you ever get your tach working? There was a comment in the August Muscle Mustangs & Fast Fords about some gizmo that is available that you can use to connect a tach to the distributorless ignition.

I wish we could get better gas here - the best I can find is 92 octane and most places just have 91.

Ian

 

Hi Old Timer,

Thanks for your post!

Using that 94 octane, mixed roughly about half & half with the 91 that was already in the tank, might have brought you up to a bit over 92 or so. If it was a good high energy fuel, and you had nothing but that in the tank, perhaps you would have seen a bit more benefit, as these vehicles will generally respond up to about 94 -95 octane with the Superchip. It won't be a significant increase, but there would usually be a little bit more power. However, just as you commented, in that particular situation as you described, I wouldn't expect for you to be able to really tell any difference from adding 12-13 gallons of 94 to 10-12 gallons of 91 already onboard.

Wow, a 2700 miles trip, that's quite a haul!

With those grades & at those elevations, it sounds like you were really giving that vehicle quite a workout, load-wise. It was very interesting to read your comments about the speeds you had previously been able to attain versus what you were able to do with the Superchip.

Overall, to be able to get 10.5-11.0 mpg with that kind of load over those types of terrains actually sounds darned good for an overall number.

Very interesting & informative post, thanks OT!

 

Hi Ian

Tks. for tip on tach. No, i havent installed tach. What you mentioned maybe what im looking for. Dont really want to put alot more $ into this truck. Not sure how long ill keep my truck, before chip, barely adequate, with chip somebetter, but 4.6L & towing, its working hard. Just about everybody passes me. HA

Not sure, but are you getting good results with the 91 or does the 92 oct. make a noticeable difference.

Good luck. OT

Hi Mike

Tks. for info. Yeah, didnt really feel any difference, perhaps someone with more experience & feel may have, but anyway, was worth a try. As you said it probably raised the oct. some, guess thats what i was thinking at the time.

Also using castrol syntec, so this may also be helping with the mpg. I was surprised when i started doing the math. On last leg of trip, pretty flat terrain, got 11.22mpg @ 55mph. But still overall mpg, i thought not that bad, considering what i was hauling & towing.

Have a good one. OT

 

Hi Old Timer,

Hmmm, very interesting! The flat-terrain mpg was only 11.22, that is a bit surprising. I would have thought that it would be higher there, and would have been lower than what it must have been while going up those grades, to come up with the overall numbers of 10.5-11.0. Very interesting results indeed. It would be great if we could know the energy content of the fuels, as I'm sure there was some variance there that may well account for some of this, though that is of course just a hunch.

And of couse, using synthetic oil certainly helped mpg a bit too, every little bit helps.

Thanks much for your response, impressions & data, etc !

 

Hi Mike

Know what you mean. Dosent look right, thats what i thought.
Anyhow, redoing some mpg - came up with 10.44 to 11.44.
I realize going up grades in 2nd gear, gotta take more gas, even im a bit puzzled. So........im thinkin ? Seems to me it should have dropped off more than 10.44, it is interesting!

Going again in Sept. Up coast of Oregon & north , so will record mpg. and compare. Hope i dont end up eating crow but thats what my figures show. Ill post those results.

TKS OT

 

Check out http://www.paulshp.com/paulshp.htm then click the mustangs link for the tach gizmo. Not cheap!

As far as the gas goes, I can't tell any difference on the ***-o-meter between 91 and 92 but once I get my magnacharger I will be running the highest octane I can get.

Mike makes a good point about octane and energy content. Around here you can get gasohol (15% methanol) which has high octane (93 or more) but the energy content is lower than straight gas, so you make less power. The octane number is important but it is not everything.

Ian

 

Hi Old Timer,

Right, I agree! But then, that's the value of accurate data, as it sometimes shows us the unexpected. I don't have a hard time accepting it, I just feel like you do, that it's a bit odd, and would have expected a bit different spread there. The bottom line is that as long as you are comfortable that your data was accurate, that's what matters. If it's accurate, it's accurate, and we have to go where that leads us sometimes. The overall number was decent all things considered.

Great post!

 

Hi Ian,

Wow, you've got 15% ethanol content up there?!? That's huge! Here in the US it's limited by law to no more than 10%, and the fuel systems in our new vehicles will generally only tolerate about 10% ethanol content, or so they say in most owner's manuals.

You're right on the money about the octane versus energy content; that much ethanol, 10% like we have here in some places in the US and your very high 15%, will certainly lower the energy content even though the octane number itself is nice, the performance & mileaeg still suffers as a result.

Interesing post, I didn't know you had a 15% ethanol content up there!

 

Appreciate input. Thats what i got. No complaints here. Actually, i think thats really good. Get 17mpg on 87oct. (flipchip) 55mph, flat terrain, past 55, if does start dropping off. unloaded-not towing) 60 dropped to 16 1/2mpg, When i go faster, i dont look at mpg

Got me to thinking. That Chevron 94oct. i got in Nelson, BC. I dont recall seeing any labeling on the tank that indicated ethanol, or gasahol, or???

I once saw label on a 76 station in Calif. that indicated somekind of alcohol in gas, but dont remember what the exact labeling was.

Ian Are the gas pumps in Canada, where your at, labeled with ethanol or gasahol or?? Just curious....

Tks Have a good one

 

OT - AFAIK, it is only Mohawk which sells gasohol in Canada but they really push the octane value in their ads.

Mike, I might be too high on the percentage, I am going by memory on the 15%. I remember that there were a lot of people concerned when it first came out that it would damage their fuel systems. I know for sure it is at least 10%.

Ian

 

Hi Ian,

OK, understood, & thanks for clarifying. If you ever do happen to verify just what percentage of ethanol they're using, I'd love to hear back from you on that, just from a curiosity standpoint, as there may be situations that we'd want to let a customer know, perhaps, in that area. It's possible that they're using 15%, it's just that this is a high figure for us here in America. That doesn't mean it's not 15%, it could very well be.

Thanks!

 

Final Update:

Total miles: 2737 Used: 252gal. gas Ave mpg: 10.857

Paying .20 more per gal for 91etc .20X252gal=$50.4 more.
(prices fluctuate some, so used .20 highest)
Considering my load etc, and avg. 55-60mph,(flat land) not bad at all. BTW: Road signs i saw said 55mph is the legal towing speed, dont know if that nationwide, but man, i had rigs(5 wheel/TT) pass me like i was standing still--(Im doing 60mph,) guess they wanted to show off their PSD etc, but man ...sometimes its spooky & on occasion saw dangerous stuff, all for the sake of a
few minutes.
So .....Guess im a bit envious of the extra power but certainly not with some of the drivers. So guys, PLEASE BE CAREFUL

I dont have enough data to claim the superchip has increased mpg, (still to come) but did get that little extra power i was looking for,(towing) so for now, extra cost i can live with.

Thats my story. OT

Thoughts: My brief trip into British Columbia, brought to mind our Canadian truckers(members) sometimes say "thats canadian dollars" I did not know there was such a hugh difference in the exchange rate. I got 1.50 canadian for 1.00 US dollar.

Great for us going in, but not the otherway around. Sure hope that changes. Did make me stop and think. Thats not a good situation to be in. Good luck guys!

 

OT,

Just a quick note on the value of the Canadian dollar. Canada is the biggest trading partner that the USA has, in terms of Dollar value traded.
Sure it sucks when we purchase US products but think of all the $$$ we make when we sell Canadian products into the US. Last time I checked we sold more to the US than we bought. 1997; $244,121,000,000 Exported to the USA and $212,214,000,000 Imported. God bless America!

Regards

Jean Marc Chartier

 

Hi JMC,

Excellent post, interesting perspective.

Many of us Americans have not travelled outside our home country, and so we tend to have just our own perspective based on the dollar quite naturally, like anyone in that situation.

I've been lucky enough to have travelled much of the world, and spent 13 years in Europe, 7 in West Germany back when the German "Mark" (their unit of currency) was 4 to the dollar, and WOW, talk about getting some fantastic deals when buying over in Europe, and especially what was then called West Germany, it was tremendous. I have no idea what it's like with the EU using the "Euro" now.

I've had a number of Canadian friends, for example, about 12-13 years ago, a freind who was a big-wig in commercial automotive dealership mgmt software, when he moved from Canada to Florida, he said it was just like getting a 25%-30% raise (at that time), and he was absolutely ecstatic.

You're absolutely right in that this works both ways, one side gains & the other loses, so to speak, is pretty much how it works.

Thanks for your info,