My current daily driver is a 91 D250 with a 5.9 cummins, but with an 80 mile a day round trip and diesel at $4.00/gl I have been giving thought to resurrecting my old 81 D150 stepside. It has a slant six and overdrive tranny. It has been awhile since I drove the old girl and I don't remember what kind of milage I was getting.

What is the absolute best case scenerio for mpg with this truck???

Right now it has a 1bbl setup and I know the 2bbl is supposed to get better milage but I have been dreading doing the changeover because of the extremely rusty exhaust studs that will most likely break off in the head. How much of a pain is it to get broken studs out of a head??
Is it worth it to resurrect the old girl??

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81 1/2 Ton, 2 WD,225, 4 Sp With O/D
81 3/4 Ton, 4 WD, 360, 727
70 1 Ton, 4 WD, 225, 4 Sp

Do you have to drive a truck? Can you car-pool? I would be surprised if you could get 20 MPG from the D150.

I moved closer to work 3 years ago to avoid a 80 mile round trip commute. Now it's just under 1 mile door-to-door, but it's a 20-45 minute drive to the small town or the big one so we still spend about $230/mo on gasoline.

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Joshua

Nate, I don't know what mileage you're getting out of your '91 CTD D250, but I bet it's better than what I'm getting out of my '89 318 D100. I really do need to sell the truck; I have no good reason to own one.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

My old 79 D 100 shortbed with a 1 bbl /6 and 3 on the tree and 3.55s would easily get 22 MPG on the road cruising at ~70. so you oughtta be able to do that at least if all is tuned right. but mine also had manual steering and manual brakes. Boy do I miss that truck! Had I known what could be done with shaving heads, cam swaps, etc., back then, I'm sure it could have been better yet. Then add the 833 OD that you already have,
driven right, and it'll be a relatively cheap driver. I'm only 2 states away; how's the body? If at least decent you could give it to me! In just over a year I'm gonna need a cheap driver for my then-to-be 16 year old son! Be cheaper on fuel than the Ramcharger that he's trying to talk me into finding for him.

My D150 also has manual steering and brakes which should help some on mpg. I also was thinking about adding an elec fan so that all the eng would be turning over would be the alt. and the water pump. With all that and the 2 bbl conversion ( still dreading the rusty studs) would mid 20s be reasonable??? Maybe upper 20s going downhill with a tailwind ?
Body wise the stepside is in very good shape. The body has some rust but the one really bad spot is the floorboards due to a leaky windshield gasket. I have new floorboards just havent put them in yet.
I love the simplicity of this truck but still am not certain its worth the extra insurance and tags to resurrect.

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81 1/2 Ton, 2 WD,225, 4 Sp With O/D
81 3/4 Ton, 4 WD, 360, 727
70 1 Ton, 4 WD, 225, 4 Sp

Buy a used Toyota Echo and park your truck. The car will pay for itself over your diesel in 2 years of 20,000 mile a year driving if you can find a good one for around $6000 at current fuel prices. Of course if your work requires a 3/4 ton truck this is a moot point.

It's difficult or impossible to find fuel economy guides on larger than 1/2 ton trucks. I used a 4.7L V8 2004 1500 Ram as a guide and went to www.fueleconomy.gov for my data.

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'63 Valiant V200 Convertible
225 Aluminum Block

I remember when gas hit a BUCK a gallon...I bought a diesel rabbit for the commute. Plus it saved on the wear and tear on my truck. 45MPG was great. Those TDI VWs are pretty nice.

My old 81 D150 long bed 225, 2bbl, 727, 3.21 geared truck got about 17 mpg on my standard daily commute which was half city half hwy. That was with no tuning and a fairly heavy foot. The slant was fairly worn out and I figured was only about 7.2:1 compression.

You should be able to do much better with a stick shift and some tuning.

TopHat

Well since the 91 CTD gets around 20 mpg and it looks like the best case scenerio for the 81 D150 is low-mid 20s mpg it probebly isnt worth the extra expense(tags, insurance, maintenance, etc..) of having another vehicle road worthy, it just kills me paying $4.00/gl for diesel while gas is a "cheap" $3.30! At close to 25 gls a week I go through that is a $17.50 difference just between gas and diesel. That adds up. For some reason everytime gas goes up diesel seems to go up by a much larger amount. I do need the heavy CTD sometimes so I cant get rid of it altogether, just wish it wasnt my daily driver.

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81 1/2 Ton, 2 WD,225, 4 Sp With O/D
81 3/4 Ton, 4 WD, 360, 727
70 1 Ton, 4 WD, 225, 4 Sp

Diesel has more BTU's per gallon.........

Gas ~ 115,000 BTU's
Diesel ~ 130,500 BTU's

So if the cost of GAS is $3.30, you'd want the diesel to be less than

(130,500/115,000)* 3.3 = 3.74

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

Why does anyone drive a big truck on a commute? I still have not figured this out. Carpooling with one other person would double your effective gas mileage.

That said, I don't see that it would be feasible to get better mileage than your diesel with your Slant pickup.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I have been looking around at this sight and other sites concerning slant sixes and MPG. One thing I saw on another site was that the feather Duster supposedly got 36mpg. How is this possible?? I know the FD was lighter but still its a fairly big car with a fairly big engine I just dont see how it can get 36MPG?!?!?!

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81 1/2 Ton, 2 WD,225, 4 Sp With O/D
81 3/4 Ton, 4 WD, 360, 727
70 1 Ton, 4 WD, 225, 4 Sp

I did that a few times when I had jobs 70 miles away... this would assume that the others either a) took turns equally driving up in their vehicle, or b) they actually chipped in the $$$ to pay for a tank of gas...


Gonna have to sit down with Dan to write a concise myth debunker/ FAQ on the Dart Lite/Feather Duster with lots of pics and X's and O's for sherriff Obie down at Alice's....

The 24/36 mpg you see is the advertised EPA requirements on the sticker... I have seen a few people get 'close' to that number but never get the '36' (my dad got 30 in his, a few people here with diligent manners in driving have reported 32...)... The key to getting a heavy car (yes the Feather Duster weighs about as much as a 1972 Duster...), is the combination of calibrating the carb for economy at certain stages, an Overdrive tranny coupled to a highway gear ratio that makes cruising at 55mph work in the low rpm band, a distributor curved to allow a lot of timing advance almost all the time, as well as a large EGR port to knock back the 'ping' from all that advance... (the aluminum panels, and bumper reinforcements help keep the weight down on the already 'fat' late duster... but looking at several factory examples, not every Feather got both hood and trunk lids in aluminum sometimes...)...


-D.Idiot

You should stop whining about gas/diesel being expensive.

Check out the pricing here in Finland.

20 Cheapest ones:
http://www.polttoaine.net/index.php?cmd=20halvinta

20 Most expensive ones:
http://www.polttoaine.net/index.php?cmd=20kalleinta

These are in euros per litre. Add 50% to the euro to get $, multiply with 3.8 to get gallon...

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Mopar or no car.

Bye the way, who the F**K is Tu Ning?

So I would need about $8.50 American to buy a gallon of gas. I'd be riding my bicycle. You must think we are loony driving around in 5000 lb. barges getting 14 mpg. 2 years ago some folks over here probably thought I was loony driving around in my Honda Fit (Jazz). Maybe not so much now.

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'63 Valiant V200 Convertible
225 Aluminum Block