I got that going 60 down the trace.. 430 miles on a 16 gal. tank.. not to bad for a v6 truck.. Kn air filter,removed air box silencer,No cats,bosch double platinum plugs,autolite professional series wires,bed cover,premium gas,motorkote engine and transmission additive.. Thats all i got done to it..Keep 28 lbs in the back tires and 32 in the front.

 

Of all the things you listed, going 60mph is the only thing that allowed you to get that kind of milage. The bed cover helps a little bit. The rest of those things are feel-good items that don't really do much at all. That tire pressure sure isn't helping anything!

Why are you using premium gas???

 

I find it hard to believe that just doing 60mph alone will get you 26.8 mpg especially on a 3.0L...So I'd have to say yea the tonneau cover and filter played a roll in this. but hey that's just my .02...

 

Well it will. A filter doesn't do that and neither does any of the other stuff. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the premium gas and the tire pressure made it worse.

BTW, what are you doing to calculate that milage?

 

The tonneau cover dosen't do anything. Trucks are designed from the factory to have the air enter the bed and swirle helping the truck move along.

 

Almost. It doesn't swirll and help it move. It swirlls and prevents the tailgate from acting like a giant wall. The cover does the same thing as that magic air bubble only it does a better job. The gain will probably never make up for the cost of the cover.

 

3.0?
4.0?
2.9?
2.8?

 

Unless you have a programmer or higher compression than stock the premium gas is a waste on a ranger. Not too mention it probably pollutes more as it will not burn as complete in a low compression engine, which also means it could very well be detrimantal to gas mileage. My cadillac requires 89 octane because it has 10:1 compression, my Roadmaster requires it because it has a programmer. I use it in my GMC because I am anti Ehtanol and in this state it is the only Gas without ethanol content. Old cars and ethanol don't mix.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question90.htm

"Many drivers ask about use of "premium" or "super" grade gasolines. These fuels contain additives to increase octane. Octane is a measure of how much a fuel can be compressed in an engine before it spontaneously combusts. It is not a measure of fuel power or quality. Only a small percentage of vehicles require high-octane gasoline for optimum performance (these are generally turbo-charged or high-performance vehicles). Check your owner's manual to see what type of fuel is recommended for your car. Unless your car needs high-octane gasoline, use of "premium" will not improve performance or emissions - it will just cost you more."

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/18-youdo.htm



~HJ

 

I have 3 years and 45k miles of fuel logs that demonstrates to me that a soft tonneau cover doesn't help or hurt my mileage by even a measurable amount. (But it does a great job of keeping the groceries dry!) .. And I have ~4 years and ~50k miles of fuel log from my last truck ('99 XL Sport, 2.5L I4, 2WD, manual trans) that says the same.

I too think the tire pressures sound pretty low. I aim for 36 psi all around... But then I do that to minimize treadwear, not boost mileage.

On the other hand, I have almost a year's worth of fuel log telling me that keeping it under 70 MPH and shifting below 2k RPM can yeild as much as a 20-30% bump in MPG on my LII. I can imagine that keeping it to 60 MPH would help that even more.

 

i believe the mileage because of the speed... at 60 mph the engine is right at the most fuel efficent RPM range... back when my truck was new i got 25mpg all the time when i would drive between gainesville and auburn mainly because of the speed limit... driving conservitive will always save you gas

 

from what you stated you drove 430 miles on a full tank and you have a 16 gallon tank.

you cant take 430/16 to get mpg

take 430 divided by the number of gallons to fill it up after driving 430 miles.

so do this next time.

number of miles since last fillup / number of gallons it took to fill it back up = MPG

just one fill up isnt a very accurate way to get mpg anyway, you need to average several fillups to get good accurate mpg numbers.

 

Does Motorkote engine and transmission additive really work?

 

what does that have to do with any thing?

 

haha^^

And why did you remove your cats?

 

damn iam afraid to know what my mpg is.....aint much...lol

 

I'm not sure I've got a spread sheet I think swoop1156 made, and I use it and I was getting around 22/23 mpg....but then again that's driving until the gas light comes on.

 

I run 200 miles back and forth to school, have a 20 gallon tank, and made it home with just under 3/4s last time I went home. thats going between 80 and 90mph. oh, which by the way, anybody elses truck vibrate at about 90-95. I think my driveshafts off, guess thats what happens when you change the rear end and not mark anything.

 

I had a feeling this milage wasn't calculated properly. The best way to calculate it like zabeard said. Reset your trip odometer when you fill up. Drive until you're on E. Fill up and see how many gallons it takes. Divide the milage by the gallons. You will be less than 26.8 but it will still be good.

 

Well when i first got my truck it was getting 19 mpg going the same trip i just made at 60 mph. Doing what i said i did it got 26.8.. i dont see how u could add it up wrong just dividing how many miles from gallons it took to refill it after the trip.. I started useing premium because my truck had a bad ping to it before and the premiuim stopped it so it must be doing something. Im not gunna say the things iv done isnt helping cause im getting the best milage iv ever got and its got 140000 thousand miles on it.. driveing in the city i still get like 320 per tank...

" ike34 Does Motorkote engine and transmission additive really work? "
Yea i noticed a difference when i added it . It was like 30 bucks for a little bottle of it though..

 

Premium will stop pinging, but if you have pinging in a stock engine you have problems. Premium will do nothing to increase gasmileage as what was stated. Octane just increases the point of Combustion, that's it. Now you might have a SLIGHt increas if your state is like mine where they don't have any ethanol content in their premium, but it will be so small ti won't be calcuable. But hey if you are getting that with a Ranger more power to you. You are the only one.

~HJ

 

Yea thats what im saying.... Heck there saying premiuim is bad for it and the upgrades are useless.. but hey. its working for me. useing mobil 1 helped also. I ordered a e fan the other day so im gunna see what that does also.

 

Unless you run it out of gas!

 

The amount of money you are spending on all this special crap is going to far exceed what you save on milage increases. If you need to use premium gas to fix a ping, that is i like putting earplugs in so you don't hear it. It isn't fixing the problem, it is just making it cost more.

So you actually calculated (milage since last fill up) divided by (Gallons put into the tank)?? Something isn't right if you have a 16 gallon tank and you put 16 gallons of gas in it. Did you push the truck to the gas station?

 

my is 12mpg