New here and looking for tips.
 

Hello all. My name's Drew and I drive a giant diesel truck. In the last year, I modified my Ford to over 600 hp and watched my fuel miliage jump 30% as a result. When I can resist the urge to race all the Corvettes and Mustangs, that is.

I've recently started thinking about how to improve my driving habits and this seems like the place to get ideas. The first thing I had to do was give up my dream of lifting my truck, putting huge bumpers on and so forth. It hurts, but hopefully biodiesel will be readily available and affordable soon.

Welcome. What did you do for the modifications? Just a tune? If so, which one? I've been impressed with BullyDog's products when I've seen them demonstrated.

Your truck is almost certainly equipped with load range E tires, maximum 80psi. Go ahead and pump them up to their maximum. 80psi in my much lighter truck generally handles well, just a little skittish in the rear when the bed is empty and the road surface is slippery. Your heavier truck will stick better at the same pressure, though all that power will always make it easy to break the tires loose.

Most discussions here are for gas engines, so anything about engine-specific stuff may not apply to your diesel. For example, with gas engines we discuss using wider throttle at low RPMs to reduce pumping losses; but diesel engines don't HAVE a throttle, and therefore don't have throttle-induced pumping losses.

You can see my list of mods in my garage. There are too many to list. I do have a chip, but I can tell you right now not to mess with Bully Dog, Banks, or any other company out there. I had a 120hp Bully Dog chip, and my truck with the new DP tuner chip is almost twice as fast on the 80 hp "economy" setting. There are up to 16 positions and over 30 programs and each one that goes on the chip is custom tuned to your exact truck to work with all your other modifications. If looking for a tune, go with DP tuner or Tony Wildman. You can't go wrong.

And as for gasoline engines, I also have a Jeep Cherokee, but it's mostly a toy for now, so FE isn't a big deal. No hipermileage on the trails and in the mud!