Okay so everyone knows about rising gas prices or whatever, im not too terribly worried right now. But here are acouple mods im considering, and i know they not all the same price, but which order do yall think is logical so i dont hurt my gas mileage too bad.. I am averaging about 13.5mpg right now

Efans
SnugTop bedcover
LT headers, Offroad pipe, Xpipe, then dual mufflers dumped
4.10's

I had a friend send me a link to some very cheap motive 4.10s on ebay and was wondering if i choose them first how much would it really hurt my gas mileage significantly? ( i drive mostly city )
And i have an 8.8" rear end right?

Thanks,
-Patrick

 

SnugTop bedcover should help a bit with gas mileage. 4.10 gear will worsen the gas mileage but will make the pickup lively with acceleration. I don't have 4.10 but knowing it will decrease couple miles per gallon. With the gas going over $3 per gallon and more this summer. It's not worth the investment to put mods that won't help any with gas. Unless you need for solely purpose to increase towing/hauling power then it might be worth the extra costs. Just my .02 worth.

 

You really think a couple mpg loss? damn.... making me not want to do it. I need to find someone that had 3.55s then went to 4.10s and using same driving habits how much they lost....

And do you think ill pick up that much from the snugtop, that it could justify the 1000 dollar price tag?
-Patrick

 

I personally think you'll see much more of a MPG increase from the Efans, as opposed to the tonneau cover. I have an ARE on my truck and it gets crappy mileage regardless of if it's on or off. The tonneau cover MPG issue has been debated time and time again on this site, but I still have yet to hear a truly convincing argument for it increasing mileage. It's the same thing as driving with the tailgate up or down. In all reality, it makes no difference. Go with the fans. Just my 2 cents.

-Craig

 

How many miles per year do you drive?

That list will cost you $2500 and you might be lucky to save 1mpg. Okay, lets say you drive 15k/yr, gas costs $3.00/gal and you can get 15mpg after the mods. You'll save $333/yr and take 7.5 years to recover the costs in fuel savings.

Don't mod vehicles for fuel economy savings. If there are other reasons, great, but not fuel.

 

Well yea i am not doing them only for the sole purpose of adding mpg, and i think 2000 would be a more reasonable estimate....
1000 snug top
400 headers
100 mufflers and x pipe
400 for efans
100 to weld up headers to x etc and delete o2 sensors

But anywho.. I was mostly asking to see what i would see would be my biggest gain, (the one i would do first) and how much of a loss i might suffer from doing 4.10s now

I bought my truck brand new, 2.5 years ago, took it on one long road trip, 4k miles, and i just rolled over 30.ooo miles.
So roughly 11-12k a year.
-Patrick

 

I go about 30,000 miles per year, Last August I bought the truck at 59k & i'm at 75k now. Thats not even a year haha. Efans will help the mpg rating? hmm well first what are they? Seems like a thing I should do to my truck.

 

Efans = Electric Fans. Currently, your truck's fan runs off a belt from the crankshaft. Electric fans don't use a belt and therefore don't rob your engine of power. Less load on the engine means it uses less fuel. Efans won't effect your MPG all that much though, so I hope I'm not giving you the wrong idea. Here's a link to Troyer's Efans:
http://www.troyerperformance.com/cgi...alogno=PPI-EFK

-Craig

 

Oh, ok thanks for the reply that makes sence now. But would efans kill my battery life? Whenever I detail my truck for like 2 or 3 hours I turn my key back & pop a cd in just wondering if adding efans would I still be able to do that without draining the battery.

 

i gained a good 30 mpg putting flowmasters SIDO on my truck so it will well pay for itself in a year

 

Do you leave it in the driveway?

 

No, the fans won't come on with your ignition. There's a thermostat built into the fans that turns them on when your engine reaches a certain temperature and turns them off when it cools down enough. No need to worry about draining your battery. If you have any other questions about the Efans, I highly recommend reading the info on Troyer's site first.

I have no idea about the post above this one who claims to see a 30 MPG increase in mileage . . . I think he may have meant 3 MPG.

-Craig

 

I have always been just a little sceptical about the claimed mpg and power gains with electric fans, for several reasons. First and foremost, it seems to me that the power to run the fan(s) has to come from somewhere. The juice to spin electric fans comes from the alternator. The alternator is going to be harder for the engine to turn when it is being asked to supply more juice. I can't quote the fancy scientific terms for that phenomenon, but it's a fact that the more current an alternator or generator is asked to supply, the harder it will be to turn.

Another fact is that a conventional clutched fan is not nearly as parasitic as most people think, simply because they are usually "clutched up" (spinning full speed) much less often than you would think. If your cooling system is in good shape, and you drive a 500 mile highway trip, the fan will probably spin full speed for 10 or less of those miles. The rest of the time it is spinning relatively slowly, basically just freewheeling, producing almost no drag at all on the engine.

I'm not trying to preach from a soapbox here...hard facts might convince me I'm wrong. (But it wouldn't be easy.)

 

Maybe 30 miles per tank.

 

Just talked to a friend that does EVERYTHING CUSTOM and EVERYTHING himself. He's VERY knowledgeable and has been in the automotive industry for quite some time. Here's what he said.

Yes, an alternator becomes harder to turn, but marginally. He said that most newer e-fan setups only pull like 20amps and only pull THAT much at startup. Once they are spinning, they only pull around 5amps. That's nothing to an alternator. All in all an e-fan setup will only cause an infinitesimal amount of added resistance to the pulley. So you lose the resistance from the clutch fan and add almost nothing, in the way of resistance.