Fuel economy

[tritonmal]

diesel 2.5lt mn single cab alloy tray. 83000km

manual running arb bar, bash plates, spotties, winch, airtec snorkel, work lights

fitted with good year wrangler duratrack LT225/75 r 16 wranglers.

was averaging 200 - 220 km / 250 km ish on ¼ tank on a good day. ( mixed city, highway, country back roads, gravel roads )

now fitted tunit chip v-cr-r running program 4 = 110 km on ¼ tank ( mixed city, highway, country back roads, gravel roads )... Hard driving with hills would see about 120km to 150km to ¼ a tank. Note I'm using the top ¼ of the fuel gauge.

wtf!!! thought theses chips were supposed to improve economy torque and power? obviously mine hasn't.

Other than dropping chip bad to program 2 and egr blanking anyone got any thoughts. ?? Or am I a goose?

Other than increasing the amount of air (over fueling perhaps and running rich on program 4+ perhaps?) and I don't see how the EGR blank would do this , call me a goose, again, maybe...

Have dropped the chip back to program 2. We'll see how this goes .....

Then next step is to blank egr after further postulations!

[biggibbo]

Your a goose. More fuel = more power means more fuel consumed unless you are ramming more air in via the turbo. A generic fuel chip will not compensate and allow the volume of air required hence you will be wasting unburnt fuel. The EGR blank will also worsen instant economy as it again affecting the air to fuel mix the ECU is looking for and will stay there. Atleast over time the economy will remain static instead of deteriorating due to carbon build up. I would seriously look at ditching ur blank and going the resistor route.

[tritonmal]

Yes well that was my theory too. But wouldn't the resistor mod have the same end effect as the blank??

[Cowboy Dave]

No because the throttle body flap operates differently and the ECU is able to allow for the absence of the recirculated exhaust since it knows it won't be coming.

[tritonmal]

So "resistor mod" and chip or just the resistor mod?

[Cowboy Dave]

Matter for you - but the prospects of getting better fuel economy running that chip wouldn't be the best. I guess have a bit of an experiment and see how you go.

[Sofled]

I recently put on 265/75r16 and rather then getting 600+km from a tank a dropped to 500km ...... until I unbolted the muffler. .... im now on track to get 600km from 65l . I think its because the engine is able to work with less friction on exhaust. Real world results now looking at dea exhaust 3inch

[tritonliz]

thought i would post this for anyone interested or who has some ideas.

ML MY09 (08 build) 3.2did auto - ARB bar, rear step, razorback, side rails and steps, MT MTZ 265/70/17, baysie plates.

Interesting, thanks. I am getting similar figures but with the Mn 2.5 Auto.

[MilkmanDan]

Your a goose. More fuel = more power means more fuel consumed unless you are ramming more air in via the turbo. A generic fuel chip will not compensate and allow the volume of air required hence you will be wasting unburnt fuel. The EGR blank will also worsen instant economy as it again affecting the air to fuel mix the ECU is looking for and will stay there. Atleast over time the economy will remain static instead of deteriorating due to carbon build up. I would seriously look at ditching ur blank and going the resistor route.

Interesting, post blank I get upto 50klm more to a tank.

FYI and I run this in conjunction with my log book for tax.....

[Bobojo]

I'm getting 450 kms to a tank and mine is a my15, only done 6000kms also the same with the stock tyres

[deermaster]

thought i would post this for anyone interested or who has some ideas.

ML MY09 (08 build) 3.2did auto - ARB bar, rear step, razorback, side rails and steps, MT MTZ 265/70/17, baysie plates.

Interesting, thanks. I am getting similar figures but with the Mn 2.5 Auto.

Yours is pretty similar to mine. I usually get 12liters per 100klm in my 3.2diesel. If I nurse it a bit I get even better like 11s and even got down to ten if I stay under 100klms per hour. That's real speed by the GPS. Before I put the 265s on mine I used to get 9s but we are only fooling ourselves if we take notice of that as with the smaller tires at 100klm per hour I was only actually doing a bare 91 to 92klms an hour. So when I measured fuel economy I was only doing say 91klms instead of 100. Mine is a 2007ML manual and have everything on you can think of with a massive canopy that sticks out too far, winch bull bar and side bars dual batteries roof rack with a tire stuck up there all the time as I do a hell of a lot of off road. Never want to be way out bush with only one spare. So really I am happy as and when I had my 2005Hilux I was only getting 13-to-14s with all the same sort of gear on and big tires.

[Danos]

Hey guys

Just got my car back from the recent recall service to replace the radiator cap and fluid and apparently they also did an ECU update.

Its early days but it seems the revving between gear change has gone even without the EGR ET mod (the mk3 plug and play resistors). I think it still might bunny hop at low speeds - not sure just yet.

Hoping it stays that way with a few more drives.

Danos

[mattyk87]

Have read of Tony's mod a few times? Might sound dumb, but how much and where do I get one? Easy to install?

[Cowboy Dave]

About $150. You unplug the MAF sensor, plug this in and plug the first plug into the new plug. 2 minute job from start to finish. You get it from tony@spvindustries.com or from our other forum sponsor 4wdsupplies.

[Bobojo]

Just buy a 6k8 ohm resister from jaycar for 40 c

[srb]

Just buy a 6k8 ohm resister from jaycar for 40 c

Except 6k8 is wrong. It will work at holding egr closed but will screw with other things. Been there done that. I'm not sure of the exact resistance though as I ended up getting one off Tony.

[mattyk87]

And I'm useless with that sort of stuff. Plug and play is right up my alley. If I was handy I'd have so many more mods without have to pay for install on everything. Lol

[mase]

G'day everyone, loving my triton but I am having issues towing my 7x4 tool trailer weighs just under a ton all up. I'm constantly having to drop back to 4th on gentle hills travelling at 100, 110 and still can't conquer a hill satisfactory in 4th also the fuel consumption is a bit thirsty too a full tank until the fuel light comes On I get a about 400k's. I will be getting a scan gauge soon to get exact fuel consumption figures soon. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm

[deermaster]

Amazing but I got the best fuel economy I have since I changed to bigger tires etc. I was towing my trailer with a quad on, but the catch was that I stayed under 100klms most of the time and tried to keep from over revving at any time. Like lots of the time I was only doing 95klcs an hour. Shit I have never driven that slow before but got close to tens and to me that's great. Just goes to show that driving slower and keeping the revs down actually works in giving you far greater fuel economy.

[AnOldFart]

Amazing but I got the best fuel economy I have since I changed to bigger tires etc. I was towing my trailer with a quad on, but the catch was that I stayed under 100klms most of the time and tried to keep from over revving at any time. Like lots of the time I was only doing 95klcs an hour. Shit I have never driven that slow before but got close to tens and to me that's great. Just goes to show that driving slower and keeping the revs down actually works in giving you far greater fuel economy.

Your right on target "deermaster"... That's because the 'amount' of air "Drag" experienced by a moving vehicle varies proportionaly, to the "square" of it's road speed / velocity. The result of this simple fact is a 23% increase in air drag experienced between travelling at 90Kms and 100 Kms despite only an 11% speed gain.... The simplest way to 'feel' this effect as I'm sure you would already know, is to try riding a bycycle behind the shelter of a tall wall or building first, ie, with no wind 'blowing' and then turn around a corner and ride instead, head on into an oncoming wind. There is a rapidly noticeable increased 'air drag' because we are now moving at a -relative- faster speed / velocity, in relation to the "still air" in the first test. The Drag Coefficient of a blunt nosed object is also greater than that of a smooth / sharp nosed object, that's why spire-point boat-tails, travel faster and further than wadcutters for the same amount of propellant charge, and I'm sure you'd agree that our old Tritons look far more 'ballistically' like a wadcutter than a 'spitzer' ...

[deermaster]

Amazing but I got the best fuel economy I have since I changed to bigger tires etc. I was towing my trailer with a quad on, but the catch was that I stayed under 100klms most of the time and tried to keep from over revving at any time. Like lots of the time I was only doing 95klcs an hour. Shit I have never driven that slow before but got close to tens and to me that's great. Just goes to show that driving slower and keeping the revs down actually works in giving you far greater fuel economy.

Your right on target "deermaster"... That's because the 'amount' of air "Drag" experienced by a moving vehicle varies proportionaly, to the "square" of it's road speed / velocity. The result of this simple fact is a 23% increase in air drag experienced between travelling at 90Kms and 100 Kms despite only an 11% speed gain.... The simplest way to 'feel' this effect as I'm sure you would already know, is to try riding a bycycle behind the shelter of a tall wall or building first, ie, with no wind 'blowing' and then turn around a corner and ride instead, head on into an oncoming wind. There is a rapidly noticeable increased 'air drag' because we are now moving at a -relative- faster speed / velocity, in relation to the "still air" in the first test. The Drag Coefficient of a blunt nosed object is also greater than that of a smooth / sharp nosed object, that's why spire-point boat-tails, travel faster and further than wadcutters for the same amount of propellant charge, and I'm sure you'd agree that our old Tritons look far more 'ballistically' like a wadcutter than a 'spitzer' ...

yep mine is a fat wadcutter for sure. I was really happy to get the higher milage especially while towing a reasonaby heavy trailer. Shit hot, I might have to start driving a lot slower from now on. Imagine driving to Darwin sitting around the 90s to 95klms an hour. It would take me a lot longer as I usually sit around 130 or even 135down the hills and we seem to get there reasonably quickly. Like the NT part takes us around 12 to 13hours driving 35klms slower most of the way it would add another 4 and 3/4 hours so looking at it that way by taking another 4.3/4 hrs on the NT bit it would probably save us around 64liters of fuel in that 1500klm bit of the trip. So quite a big saving when its up to $2-00 a liter at times. Be safer too

[RHKTriton]

The biggest killer with 4x4s is air drag. Ski bars on a typical car can cost up to a litre/100km, so just imagine all the metalwork poking out along the underside of your unit.

Then there is tyre width. Tyres that are one or two cm wider add a fair patch front on.

We could reduce drag if we could keep the air flow from getting under the floor.

[tritonliz]

ok maybe i should say the MY09 autos?

not sure if there are any differences in the auto boxes between the super and easy select...?

also the engine mapping may have been changed in the later models to cause issues at lower RPM as the bigger tyres seem to overly accentuate the bad mileage. let's be honest there are heaps of you running bigger tyres with the diesel and still getting what i consider good economy- it has to be something!!!!

I have a 2010 MN Diesel Auto and get about 500kms to tank with 265/70/16 Cooper ATR and steel bulbar..2 inch lift. Took off roof rack and reckon that gave me extra 50kms per tank as before was only getting 450kms or it could have been Cowboy Dave cleaning the MAF sensor. That is all stop start through Sydney driving though so I guess that isn't bad.

[sthnbelle]

I have an 2009 MN with bulbar, snorkel, canopy, drawers, roofbars on the canopy and I can achieve 10.5/100kms.
It has dropped since I put the 235/85 16's on but I have added that into the calculation for the mileage for the extra 5% of kilometres travelled.
This is all done driving up and down the mountain ranges along the border.

Chris

[deermaster]

The biggest killer with 4x4s is air drag. Ski bars on a typical car can cost up to a litre/100km, so just imagine all the metalwork poking out along the underside of your unit.

Then there is tyre width. Tyres that are one or two cm wider add a fair patch front on.

We could reduce drag if we could keep the air flow from getting under the floor.

I have a roof rack and always have a spare wheel up there and it didn't make any difference to the milage I got. Still around same 12.liters to 100klms