Gravity works

[davidbrady]

(04-06-2013 10:57)Ms. Bee Wrote:  For the layman, David could one liken this to not wanting to apply one's brakes going downhill on a bicycle in order to have more momentum going back up the next hill?

Hi Ms. Bee,

Yes, that's a perfect analogy. When you're fuel limited like on a bicycle you find ways to improve your efficiency. It comes very naturally when bicycling.

Since I got the channel I'd like to propose something else. For those of us with Detroit Diesel ProDrivers here's something you can do: Shave off a down arrow!

On the ProDriver there's five up arrows and five down arrows. No arrows means your achieving your long term average fuel mileage, one or more up arrows means you're doing better, and one or more down arrows means your doing worse.

When the cruise control engages you'll see that it'll often result in five down arrows, meaning your instantaneous mileage is way worse than average. So for a big fuel savings, try not to let it do that; that is, shave off a down arrow or put another way, drive so that you see at most four down arrows.

You'll find to do this you'll have to drive the turbo boost gauge. If you let the boost max out at 29 psi you'll see 5 down arrows, if you limit boost to 20 psi, you'll only see four down arrows.

At 1500 rpm with 20 psi of boost and four down arrows my S60 is a 350hp engine. At 1500 rpm with 29 psi of boost its a 500hp engine. All things being equal, boost cost fuel. More boost, more fuel.

So Shave off a Down Arrow, and watch your average mileage skyrocket!