HP/Mileage Upgrades

[rhauf]

Ok. I've been wanting to install a lift kit and bigger tires of course, but the boss(wife)hehe says not right off yet. Ok. Well, I drive from North SaltLake to Tooele Army Depot 45 miles twice a day. I've decided to put some money into affordable horsepower/ gas economy. I've been looking at the G-Force chip, and E3 sparkplugs. Any experience with these products, and any suggestions for other products? I have a 4.0 V6, it's been recently re-built and runs/idles good. Gas mileage is ok,but I'm looking(allowed)hehe to put some money into it just not yet the amount needed to put a lift kit and 33's on it. I apprecieate any information y'all can help with. Thanx

I did not thoroughly read all the other replys, but thought i'd chime in anyhow.

avoid "performance chips" in OBD-1 vehicles. At best, they do nothing.. the rest of the time they make things worse.

avoid premium spark plugs. again, they are as good as stock plugs at best.

avoid gimmicks like "the tornado"

avoid "cold" air intakes - which most of the time are hot air intakes. (fyi, factory intake box is cold air intake) however.. a good quality filter, such as k/n or others wouldn't hurt. *just* the filter element i mean.

now honestly there isn't much you can do to improve mileage on a stock vehicle... but here are my suggestions:

1: synthetic oil of proper viscosity. reducing friction and drag in the engine will help for obvious reasons.

2: synthetic diff oil.. same reason as engine. plus its probably due for a change anyhow if its original.

3: proper gear ratios to match tire height etc. this will be more of a factor once you get your lift. if you have 3.73's already (some stock 4x4's did) that ratio will be OK for 33's.

4: when you put on bigger tires.. don't get really wide tires.. wider tires = more friction, and in reality they gain you very little off-road except in mud, and even then its only a slight gain. if you go 33's, get 33x10.5's.

5. show your boss whos boss.

 

[marcus0311]

The boss thing was ment as a joke.

 

[jpabst]

Ok. I've been wanting to install a lift kit and bigger tires of course, but the boss(wife)hehe says not right off yet. Ok. Well, I drive from North SaltLake to Tooele Army Depot 45 miles twice a day. I've decided to put some money into affordable horsepower/ gas economy. I've been looking at the G-Force chip, and E3 sparkplugs. Any experience with these products, and any suggestions for other products? I have a 4.0 V6, it's been recently re-built and runs/idles good. Gas mileage is ok,but I'm looking(allowed)hehe to put some money into it just not yet the amount needed to put a lift kit and 33's on it. I apprecieate any information y'all can help with. Thanx

All I can tell you is if you get a superlift 5.5 in. kit and get 33in tires and 10 in. wheels no matter what you're getting 13m.p.g. with it. Considering how much you're driving I wouldn't do it. I'm still running stock gears which would help but it's about a grand to do it for an extra 1 or 2 m.p.g. Just know you're spending money just to spend more money. The only consolation I have is that I drive three miles back and forth to work a day. Gas prices right now in south central Idaho are 3.75 for mid-grade as I'm writing this if we're actually supposed to see $5 a gallon as people are saying then I'm sure I'm trading this '91 Explorer I have in on with something as good as the mileage as you're getting now or as what I used to get. But hey do what you want if you have money to throw away that's cool. Just trying to be helpful.

 

[Spook]

I have a Mustang with the 4.6 that gets 20-25% better mileage than the X so even with premium gas it still cost less to drive. Saving the X for camping/fishing back country exploration but daily driver is the Mustang once the winter weather has finished.

 

[fishnhunt18]

I have a 92 EB exploder and I've added a Flowmaster 40 series muffler, custom air intake, and did some modifications to my throttle body. I have seen a lot of difference in horsepower, but not so much in gas mileage. We're talking about nearly a 20 year old vehicle with a partially rebuilt engine and transmission. Just doing an oil change and spark plug change every 3-5k miles will gain a minute amount of fuel effeciency, but not anything to noticable. I recently lifted the rear 2-3 inches with a rough country add a leaf and shackles I got from Checker's. I bought some F150 coil springs for the front to level it out, but I haven't worked on the front yet. I'd say my daily driver/off roader will never really have all that great of fuel economy, but it's more about stress relief and seeing the transformation. It all depends on how much hp and lift you are wanting. There are numerous do it yourself lifts, and some market lifts as well (rough country, tuff country, superlift, rancho, ets). Hope this helps. P.S. My wife understands that my exploder is my project and would rather have me working on it than playing video games. Praise God. Lol.