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I realize that gas mileage is a difficult thing to improve. I know that reducing the forces due to kinetic friction is the best way to improve mileage. Since I can't remove any weight from the bus, and I can't change the shape of it to reduce wind friction, I'm kind of stuck.
I do live in an area that is very flat in most places(Minnesota). I know that with a different gear ratio It will take more power to accelerate and to climb hills but most of my driving is on flat ground and at highway speeds. With the engine turning at 4k at those speeds, it has to be sucking down more gas than it needs to. At this point, I don't think that it is so much a question of power as it is the speed that the engine must turn. I picture someone riding a bike in a low gear and peddling very fast. Then someone else in a higher gear, going the same speed, but peddling half as fast. I believe that the second person is doing less work. It may have taken them longer to get to that speed, but maintaining it is easier.
Even so, I can't imagine that it is good for my engine to be spinning at 4k rpms for 4 hours at a time on the road. If I can get the rpms down and still maintain a reasonable speed, I wouldn't be too sad if my mileage didn't change.
You are correct that my bus was designed by engineers who knew what the best combination of parts was. However, they never planned on my bus being driven without a load of passengers, and they thought it would rarely be driven on a highway.
I appreciate the response! :)
Brent Rader
The two bike riders would be both producing the same amount of energy to do the same work. The laws of physics being what they are, that's how things work. To determine just how hard your engine is working the majority of the just tee a vacuum guage into one of the hoses connected to manifold vacuum and connect it with enough hose to get it to where you can see it from the driver's seat. As you drive, watch the gauge. The lower the vacuum, the harder the engine is working. Inversely, the higher the vacuum, the less lightly loaded the engine is. This will tell you if the engine can handle a numerically higher gear ratio without the carburetor "tipping" into the power circuit, hence feeding a richer mixture to the engine, dropping the MPG . |
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