1,900 mile roundtrip coming up

[Project84]

A group of friends and I are going to Florida for a vacation. Lots of sharing of the steering wheel but here are the details.

So far as I know we have a Toyota Sienna reserved. There will be 6 passengers and luggage for a 7 day stay for each person.

I'm planning to use the ScanGaugeII and maybe even do a quick-and-easy grille block and some aero mods in the form of painter's tape on the panel seams (hood and headlights).

Review pic below and feel free to give suggestions on which to block (isn't blocking the top one generally thought of as better for FE?)



If you review the pic below, you'll notice adding a temporary HAI would be quite the job. Exhaust and intake plumbing are on opposite sides of the engine, and the intake tubing is quite short. I'm still open to ideas.... I know HAI's are key and I'd like to somehow involve one with the trip... safely involve one.


Any other ideas? Please feel free to chime in.

[Project84]

Also curious, where should I set the tire pressure w/ 6 passengers??

[theholycow]

Do your friends know about and understand your gas-saving habits, modificatons, and techniques?

According to http://www.toyota.com/sienna/specs.html the 2009 Sienna is equipped with either P215/65R16 or P225/60R17 and has a curb weight of 4270 pounds. Add the combined weight of your friends and check a load-inflation chart for the minimum safe inflation, then guess from that how high you can go. I bet you can go to 51psi or whatever the tires' marked maximum is and have plenty of room for improvement still. Those are somewhat small tires for that amount of weight.

[bowtieguy]

this time of year, you'll be using a/c constantly no doubt. couple that w/ so much weight and different driving styles, your city mileage will be terrible.

a quick, easy grill block can be done w/ foil tape. it's easily removeable as well, not leaving sticky residue like duct tape. i'd put it behind the grill.

off subject, where are you headed? living in central florida, i can give you inside info if that is your destination.

[Project84]

Headed to "Rotunda West, Florida"

If you do a google.com/image search for it you'll find an aerial photor of what looks like a wagon wheel... the house we'll be in is inside the wagon wheel. It's all being set up through a friend, that's all the details I know.

I'm thinking of just using blue painter's tape for the grill block and taping the front seams. I may or may not even mess with a HAI.

I've told everyone I pulled 45+ MPG out of my Saturn and they all freaked out and suggested I drive the whole way to FL. Not gonna happen, folks! LOL I've been talking to the other two guys and between the 3 of us we're going to aim for 20mpg combined average round trip. Doubt it'll happen, but we'll see.

[theholycow]

Well, you can't be expected to do all the driving, but maybe they'll want the opportunity for you to train them...

[Project84]

I just caught the news... we'll be using one of those luggage rack cases for extra capacity. There goes what little aero we had.

[bowtieguy]

wow, you're going pretty far south in the state. i was going to suggest Busch Gardens over Disney World. and it looks as tho you'll be driving right near it. if you've never been, i highly recommend it.

[LxMike]

Not too far from me!

[Project84]

Just to update....

We ended up getting two cars for the previous price of the Minivan... Minivan was promised to us and never came, so he tried putting us (6 people plus luggage) into an '07 Explorer. We pitched a ***** and he caved. Gave us an '09 Altima 2.5 and an '09 Mercury Sable.

Since we then had 4 drivers instead of 2, it was kinda moot to try to achieve better than OEM fuel economy. Plus, we were expecting 15mpg out of a minivan loaded w/ all of us, and we ended up getting 30-31 from each car the entire trip... so it all evened out and we kept our budget right in line.

Ended up being a total of 2,9XX miles put on each car in 7 days.