Grand Caravaning to FL
 

I'm taking a Grand Caravan to Florida to delivering a young'n to school down there. 2,000+ miles round trip. I'm going to try and use a hitch platform instead of a trailer for efficiency. I'm contemplating grill blocks.

Issues:

The back end is currently clean.

Question 1: Do the top spoilers on Caravans improve aerodynamics any measurable amount, or are they just decoration?

Question 2: Has anybody tried installing a Kammback(?) fairing on a Caravan?

The stock air dam was torn off by parking blocks. I secured the bumper to the frame to eliminate the interference.

Question 3: Does it make sense to reinstall air dam? or...

Question 4: Is the stock air dam too far back. Should I look at rigging one right up at the edge of the bumper?

If you get a hitch mounted platform and fill it to level with the bottom of the back windshield it might help. This would be due to it acting like an air seperator as it comes down the back of the van. Leave a clean sharp edge on the top back of it, to help separation. Should be much better than a roof box or trailer anyway.... if you really can't manage without a roof box, most of them would do better fitted backwards. Try to position it so the shallow angle points towards the top of the hatch.

Haven't had a close look at that spoiler... generally if they're angled down a touch, they're doing something on hatches and minivans, but if they're angled up, they're probably at the best decorative and at the worst, making extra drag.

The airdam, some of that is needed to feed the rad from underneath... if you get that back on you can probably block the upper grille. Some models of caravan can use lower airdams off S10 and S15 trucks.

If it ain't got a tranny cooler, get one fitted, if it's pre '99 on the original tranny, go to the dealer ask if you can have the latest tranny code flashed. Get a fresh change of ATF +4 in it for the trip. Air up the tires to max sidewall pressure.

Man you could almost fly for the price of gas and save a lot of wear and tear on the GC. Warm weather so don't play with too much grill block or any because that V6 if you got one is going to be burning a bit of fuel and gets hot. The one I drove I managed 29-30mpg and it had over 100k on the clock. With any luck having it loaded down may reduce some of the drag and definately get the air dam up from working. Remove any seats you are not using too.

Air fare has gotten way more expensive just in the last few months. I've got four people plus stuff to stock a dorm room. The 'van has made the FL trip three times.

How did you get 29-30mpg? Was that on a stock Caravan? 4 cyl or 6?

Hooked up the old scangauge and took it really easy on the gas pedal - it was a V6 2.x liter as I recall Normal tire pressure is 34-36psi for that vehicle. 2002/3 model I think, they got it December 2002 and I think it was a new model not an older one. With that many people and luggage you are not going to do that great in the mileage no matter what you do because of the weight so just keep the speed down is about all you can do. My trip was to Boston Logan and back to RI with the entire family of 5 plus me and on the return trip I got 3mpg less but still in the high 20's - 27ish.

V6es were 3.0 3.3 and 3.8 ('08s have a 4.0, 3.0 was discontinued around the turn of the century) the 2.4 was a 4 cylinder and was only available in shortie vans not the grands.

It was last year so it could have been a 3.x liter not sure but it was a gas sucking v6 because the hot idle was 0.4-0.5gph.

That reminds me: Any suggestion where I could find idle GPH specs for my vehicles? If I could, then I could easily translate my fuel injector duty cycle readings into actual GPH, which would be incredibly cool. I could probably also do it by injector size and pressure, but that would be difficult and error prone, I think.

I just had this discussion with a buddy of mine who's going to Disney World in July. He has a Pacifica and I showed him round trip cost was about $500 for him wife and two kids with meals along the way.
Non stop flight round trip was going to cost him $1,225
Plus he was going to need to rent a vehicle while down there to visit family for a day over on the east coast.

If fuel prices get much higher it is going to get prohibitively expensive to fly anywhere. People don't remember how expensive it was to fly before airline deregulation.