Yep. There's arguing because you're right, then there's arguing because you want to be right...

 

Naaaah.... Everyone on this board--nay-- the entire automotive industry--- is just suffering from some malady called paradigm stuckness. Riiiiiight.....

 

From the Care4Air website:

1st gear: to set off

2nd gear: up to 15 mph

3rd gear: 15 - 25 mph

4th gear: 25 - 30 mph

5th gear: 30 mph



Ha...


My 4 banger Ranger wouldn't even pull in 5th @ 30mph...

Hell, my 302 Mustang would barely pull in 5th @ 30mph....

 

Not sure he really knows what a paradigm is, although he did spell it right - I don't hear many saying that the paradigm we are dealing with is that higher RPMs equals better mileage. There's no paradigm that needs to get unstuck, except Dancodanco... diarrhea of the mouth (or keyboard) and constipation of ideas.

 

Yeah, but you'll get better mileage with your foot to the floor in 5th than you will in 3rd or 4th!!

-Joe

 

1. I say you do a test with your truck and be honest.......I get my wife can't see the rpm gauge and drive .... blah blah..... one excuse after another.

2. I refrance Ford company and other companys also english speaking Eco driving countries like england, scotland..........I get it must be false its from cyberspace. danco like's to argue!

3.do you guys have any refrance from ford or any thing out in cyberspace disputing the eco driving? using the highest gear possible to keep your engine working at its most efficient. or Shift into a higher gear as soon as possible

4.do you guys also belong to the Flat Earth Society? http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djubl...rthsociety.htm

 

I forgot, I get the best mileage when I don't use overdrive... I park the truck on a trailer, leave the transmission in P and the key in the off position. Now the truck doing the pulling suffers, but I don't need no stinking overdrive!

 

Doing so would produce anything but analytical data. If you want to be analytical about it, strap your truck down to a dyno at $100 an hour and measure the fuel flow rate through the line in gallons per hour at a constant wheel speed, engine RPM, and load that simulates your truck pulling a 5000lb trailer. THEN I'll buy the data, no questions asked. Then, take your truck and install a 2:1 rear gearset and re-run the test under the EXACT same operating conditions (same load, same speed and, of course, lower engine RPM) and report those fuel flow rates, and I'll happily eat my crow un-salted.

It does, in fact, say that keeping the engine RPMs in that range and shifting within a certain range will produce better fuel economy. NOBODY'S ARGUING THAT POINT!!! However, extrapolating from that recommendation that the highest gear ratio results in the lowest fuel consumption is ridiculous. You're talking about an entirely different set of operating conditions.

Indeed, AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. That's not rocket science. Shifting into a higher gear as soon as possible will result in better mileage than NOT shifting into gear as soon as possible. However, while it's mechanically possible to shift into 5th gear in a manual trans vehicle once you're rolling at 4mph, traffic behind you sure isn't going to like you very much until you point out the fact that you're getting 372 miles to the gallon at that speed.

[/quote]

Better than belonging to the 'I'm blind to the realities of mechanical engineering' society, or the 'You don't know what you're talking about' society, or the 'I'm rubber you're glue' club, or the 'The laws of physics cease to exist in my kitchen' conglomerate.....

 

I do find it a little hard to believe that you get better gas mileage in 3rd than 4th. If you’re talking highway miles you should probably get a compression check done, my F150 certainly gets better MPG in OD on the highway with no load.

 

You mean tachometer, right...That alone makes you sound like like you're not car savvy.

Yeah, hundreds claim benefits from the Tornado, electric S/C's, and 300 mpg carbs...

Why don't you answer my previous post about pulling a load at the same RPM???

And if I do? According to you, if it's on the net, it must be true....

 

You know, I think Danco is on to something here! I tried this this after noon. In my 5.4 V8 powered truck w/3.73 rear end and automatic transmission, if I let the truck shift as soon as it gets to 2000 RPM I think he's right. I'll probably get great gas mileage!

And it's fun too. I love the look on people's faces as they pass me on double yellow because it takes me half a mile after every stop sign to get up to 55 MPH. I really enjoyed making the old folks on the road feel young again as they passed me in their Buicks. Better yet, is the look of frustration on peoples faces who are behind me as I feather my truck up a steep hill at 35MPH to avoid shifting down out of 3 or fourth gear and thus leaving the "golden range" of 2000-2200 RPM.

You know I think what this whole thing about is that if you were to take the idea of driving extremely gently and dumb it down to the level of someone who knows nothing about throttle plate angles and o2 sensors and open or closed loop or even how many gears their automatic transmission has, it would be best described as this. --"Don't let that little RPM gague go above 2, ok? Because if you do you're going to get like 6 miles to the gallon and you might even blow your engine. Heck it's possible that if you do that too often your whole vehicle might bust into flames."

Seriously, I guarantee this will get people great gas milage if they adhere to it strictly. However it doesn't have a single thing to do with the RPM of the engine. It has more to do with the driving style you have to adopt in order to adhere to this rule of thumb. Which incidentally isn't the finger I saw the most of on my little drive today!

 

hey guys it is almost comical on how you refuse to see the logic. hopefully some day you will re read this whole thread and relizie that.

anyhow 98 why i did not answer before, i did not have the time help you.

" By your theory, if I'm running 2000 RPM in O/D on the highway unloaded, I'll get the same milage as running 2000 RPM in O/D pulling 6000lbs..."

starting with Basic formulas of basic math.
what you wrote you would be doing the same speed. when you increase the (L) load and maintian (R)rpm you increase fuel usage(F) so logic demands that these three L R F are related and always will be. Change one and you change another other like it or not its logic.

decrease L maintian the R and F goes down. (downhill driving)

increase the F maintian the L the R goes up. (floor the gas pedal)

maintian the L maintian the F and maintian the R all stays the same (55mph)

NOW lower the R maintian the L and F goes down!
in an internal combustion engine you can only lower R To a point where volumetric in-effecancy starts to cause f to go up because of the engines, ineffecancy at converting energy/fuel to motion. the farther away you get from actually volmetric effcancy the more F you use to maintian L and R.

this is simple and self explantory so far we have been assuming that the R=speed or voloscity or V so we have been assuming R=V. this is true if it is a ratio of 1x1 or 1x1=1 direct drive.

now we have R and if we add another gear, overdrive, gearvendor etc etc.
we acomplish a 1x2 ratio. no longer does R=V. Rx2=V


if this gear box of 1x2 had 0.0 resitance and or the L was maintained exactly we would have effctivly doubled our V and be doing 110mph for the same F the same R the same L.

Sadly now when V goes up other factors add to L, wind, etc etc. each time we add L the R or the F must change. if R moves it will cause a change in V.

so because of the increase in V, wind and other L will increases. We cannot acheive a V of 110mph at the same F with a 1x2 gearbgox. but what we can achive minus the erxtra L is somthing around 78.5mph with the same F as a 1x1 =V of 55pmh

I hope all this helps.

 

if all this is still confusing to you. L,R,F,V do this test,
while driving with emergency brake on maintian 10mph(V)
maintian gas pedal(F)
Note the rpm (R)
decrease some of the load by releaseing the E brake this will decrease (L)

when you decreased L and maintianed F
what happens to v?
what happens to r?

 

I have yet to see any logic?!!? I've seen a bunch of suggestions and tips, NONE of which provide any specific data to back up the claims that the lower the RPM, the lower the fuel consumption. Notice none of the 'reputable' sources you have cited make that claim; you've extrapolated that from the information they've provided. They have not said that specifically.

The bottom line is that it takes a certain amount of energy to move a certain load over a certain distance at a particular speed. That energy source is the fuel. Therefore, it's going to take a certain amount of energy from that fuel to perform that work at that speed. The goal is to maximize the efficiency of that energy transmission, and that does NOT always happen at the 'lowest' RPM, plain and simple.

This is not a mathematical equation by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, your logic makes no sense: If you're locked in overdrive traveling the same speed uphill and downhill, ENGINE RPM AND ROAD VEHICLE SPEED DON'T VARY!!!! You have a direct link between the engine and the drive wheels. Same speed=same RPM. Therefore, if you're coasting downhill, engine RPM stays the same, fuel consumption drops. If you're going uphill, fuel consumption goes up, but ENGINE RPM does not because you're traveling the same speed.

Now you've lowered the RPM, so you've either lowered vehicle speed, or you've changed gears. By doing so, you may need to apply more or less throttle to maintain that constant speed, but again, once engaged in that gear, engine RPMs don not change because at a constant vehicle speed, you've got a constant engine RPM. THIS is exactly why I mentioned back on page 1 or 2, that whichever gear requires less skinny-pedal *generally* results in lower fuel consumption.

As I already mentioned, over and over and over again, *some* vehicles benefit from the overdrive gear because it allows them to use loss go-pedal, NOT because the engine RPMS are lower. Throttle position plays a much bigger role in fuel consumption than does engine RPM alone.

Think about this example (which is analogous to the truck strapped to a tree example mentioned earlier): Let the engine idle at 800 RPMs with virtually no load on it. How long will a tank of gas last? Literally days. Now, strap that engine down to a dyno and put as much load as necessary on the drivetrain to keep the engine RPMs at 800, but at wide-open throttle. By your logic, since fuel consumption is directly related to throttle position, the same RPM=the same fuel consumption, right? So, running at WOT uses the same amount of fuel as it dies idling in park, right? I don't think so.....

Hopefully one day you'll perform the test I suggested in my last post and prove us all wrong. If that turns out to be the case, I'll happily swap out my 4.10s in my Explorer for a set of 2.25s so I can squeeze 70 mpg out of my SUV, and I'll give you all the credit.

 

gi joe obvoilsly you cannot comprehend what i wrote or refuse to comprehend it, because i wrote it.
Please re read it when you calm down.