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View Poll Results: What kind of mileage do you get?
3-5 with Gas 13 2.97%
5-7 with Gas 40 9.15%
7-10 with Gas 46 10.53%
10+ with Gas 18 4.12%
3-5 with Diesel 2 0.46%
5-7 with Diesel 27 6.18%
7-10 with Diesel 160 36.61%
10+ with Diesel 131 29.98%
Voters: 437. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 11-28-2003, 06:27 PM   #1
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What kind of mileage do you get?

This is big question, especially for those who are just starting out.

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Old 11-29-2003, 03:10 PM   #2
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I have a 1991 Ford Ward 72 passenger with a Ford inline 6 cylinder 6.6L turbo and it gets 8.5 mpg with or without the jazuzzi being full of water
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Old 11-30-2003, 04:44 PM   #3
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Just made a 5000 mile trip with our 8.2L Bus with 6.17 rear.....8.5 mpg.....sure hope I can find another rear end soon.....



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Old 12-30-2003, 11:28 PM   #4
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1991 International BlueBird with DT360 & AT545

I drove my newly purcahsed diesel bus back to Texas from Baltimore, Maryland and got an average of 9 mpg. I really kept the thing pegging the governor...from 2800 to 3000 rpm for most of the trip whenver possible. It ran smoothly and didn't use any oil whatsoever. Love that bus.
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Old 07-14-2004, 06:25 AM   #5
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Greetings,
I haven't answered until now because I only drove it home and on short trips to keep it running and now I actually have a couple of trips under the old girl and LIFE IS GOOD!
With the genset running, because it's HOT here in central Texas (it runs off of the bus gas tank, so it drinks a little) I am getting a little over 6 MPG in my 66 passenger International gas with automatic. It is completely self contained and weighs 15550 empty. Loaded down for a 3-4 day trip with 3 people aboard probably adds another 2000 pounds.
Still well under the 26000 gross and just off of the overload springs, so the ride is pretty good, but it hits hard when it does touch the overloads!
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Old 08-11-2004, 03:43 PM   #6
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I finally took my bus on its first out of state trip. I drove it up to a lake in South Western Minnesotta.

I made a 50 mile pure interstate run just before leaving to get a rough estimate on gas mileage and range. On that pure interstate run I manage 10.3 MPG

During a two hour drive half on the trip the average fuel economy ended up being 6.64 MPG.

My bus is a 54 Pass with a 345 CI International V8
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Old 11-27-2004, 10:17 AM   #7
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My bus is a 1990 72 passenger Bluebird with a 5.9 litre Cummins and 4 speed Allison automatic. I did the conversion myself to accomodate our other hobby of showing Purebred dogs (we travel with about 20 in the kennel section at the rear and up to 4 humans in the front). Over the past 6 months we've put approximately 5000 km on it travelling from our home in south eastern Ontario (east of Toronto) to various locations including Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Kalamazoo. I've calculated our mileage over that period of time to be 10 miles per US gallon. 99% of the time I drive it with my foot on the floor at around 90 to 95 km/hr or 60 mph. I run Mobil Delvac 1 5W40 Synthetiic oil in the engine. Realistically, I feel that's about as good as you can get for this size of vehicle.
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Old 11-29-2004, 07:15 PM   #8
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Foot on the floor driving.

Do most of you out there drive with the pedal floored when cruising?
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Old 11-30-2004, 04:02 PM   #9
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I'm pretty much right there with Ron...pedal to the floor gives me just under 60 and I average just a shade over 9mpg (DT466 diesel). I'd like to re-gear to get the rpm down some but then I'd probably have to have the fuel pump recalibrated to give me a bit more horsepower. Right now it climbs the mountains quite nicely. I'll see how it does once I get the 'real' conversion finished.
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Old 11-30-2004, 07:48 PM   #10
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i have the 6.6 liter ford, and i drive it all the way to the floor. According to the mechanic, the bus drivers do the same thing. Over 276,000 miles on the original engine and still going!
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Old 04-01-2005, 09:31 AM   #11
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ram implosion wing for better mileage

there's a guy who's making a 'ram implosion wing' that looks like a spoiler that sits on the top of the vehicle and essentially creates a wind tunnel through which you drive once you get to about 50-60 mph.

there are loads of field reports that people are writing in saying how much it improved their mileage and on what type of vehicle.

no one with a skoolie, yet, but if anyone is up for the test, i'm sure it would benefit us all to get a little more out of our tanks.

i'm going to put one on my short bus when i get up the $ to buy a kit.

here are a couple of links to the info:

http://quantumgravitics.tripod.com/
http://quantumgravitics.tripod.com/id3.html
http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Ram ... Wing/data/
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Old 01-14-2006, 08:12 AM   #12
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My bus is a 59 passenger Thomas with a 366 Chevy (gas) engine. I've been playing around with driving speed vs. fuel efficiency. It seems I can nearly double my fuel efficiency when driving 55-60 as opposed to 70-75, according to my speedometer. When pushing it hard, I may get as low as 3.7 mpg or so. When taking it easy, I've seen as high as 7 mpg and slightly above. I'm yet to determine what my rear gear ratio is, since the tag was completely wore out on it. I'd love to change the rear end, or put some different gears in so I could get better mileage at the higher speeds. I guess for me, and I imagine most anyone, if you're not in a hurry, driving slower can really pay off, especially with gas prices now.
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Old 01-14-2006, 08:18 AM   #13
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Here's a question - What kind of gasoline does everyone use? I've always just pumped the cheapest into my bus, which is usually around 87 octane with ethanol (up to 10%). I've always heard that ethanol doesn't get the mileage as regular gas does. Do you think a person could achieve better mileage with higher octane, non-ethanol, more expensive gasoline? If there was an increase in mileage, would it cover the higher cost of the fuel?
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Old 01-16-2006, 11:51 AM   #14
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i expiremented with different grade fuels using my little vw fox last spring on my way from michigan to texas and back. I almost always put the cheapest fuel in my vehicles, but for the trip, i tried several tanks full with 87 octane and carefully checking mileage, then repeated the expirement with premium higher octane fuel. To my suprise, my mileage increased slightly with the premium fuel. The extra cost to fill the tank was negated by the couple extra miles per gallon i gained. In the end, I decided that i wasn't saving any money by using the more expensive fuel, but it wasn't costing me anything either. I just didn't have to fill my tank as often.

I think it would be interested to see the expiement repeated in a skoolie.
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Old 02-12-2006, 10:02 AM   #15
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1984 Ford B-700 here, 460 with a Holley Economaster, 5-speed Spicer, highway gears (60MPH is ~23-2400RPM), 10R22.5 drive tires--about 7MPG, 87-octane gas.
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Old 02-25-2006, 11:51 AM   #16
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What kind of mileage?

I just brought home my 1983 International S1700, 392 V-8 running propane into an Allison automatic (non-lockup type) and a 6.57 rear end. Averaged 55 mph - and too high an rpm to do it (got some work to do in this beast!). Averaged 3.25 mpg - of course, propane has less "oomph" per gallon than gas so some of that is expected. Fix the transmission slippage, and maybe a new rear end ratio - I hope to bump that up a bit.
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Old 02-27-2006, 03:48 PM   #17
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With mine, if I keep my old Holly carb in good shape... which means rebuilding about every 5 years or so.... I get a good solid 8mpg. Not too bad for a 33' land yacht. cheers! sturgy
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Old 04-27-2006, 07:11 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adamb
My bus is a 59 passenger Thomas with a 366 Chevy (gas) engine. I've been playing around with driving speed vs. fuel efficiency. It seems I can nearly double my fuel efficiency when driving 55-60 as opposed to 70-75, according to my speedometer. When pushing it hard, I may get as low as 3.7 mpg or so. When taking it easy, I've seen as high as 7 mpg and slightly above. I'm yet to determine what my rear gear ratio is, since the tag was completely wore out on it. I'd love to change the rear end, or put some different gears in so I could get better mileage at the higher speeds. I guess for me, and I imagine most anyone, if you're not in a hurry, driving slower can really pay off, especially with gas prices now.
Any idea what RPM's your 366 is running at 70 mph?

I have a 87 Chevy with the 366 dunno the ratio either but its about 3600 RPM at 65 mph I got about 6 mpg running around the country side just taking a joy ride running 60-65 mph

Will it hurt the 366 to run 3600 RPM for the next 40k miles? Anybody know the design RPM ?
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Old 04-27-2006, 10:08 AM   #19
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The 366 is a well built industrial gasser. This means all the internals are forged including the crank, rods, and pistons. Unfortunately it has big block mass and they are notoriously unbalanced. That tends to lend them well to a long life of low rpm cruising. That said...I know a guy who uses the crank from a 366 in his 406 BBC powered mud racer because they're cheap and the forged nature makes them strong. Out the backdoor of the race track he's turning 6500 rpm (1:1 tranny ratio, 1.96 t-case, 5.38 gears, 38.5 boggers).

I think it would be better to slow that motor down, but on the otherhand....I think you'll have a hard time killing it. Install an oil cooler and perhaps a HVHP oil pump (cheap for a big block chevy) just to make sure everything stays well lubed and cool. If it weren't for those stupid peanut ports, I think a 366 would make a great rodding motor, especially with that tall deck for running a long stroke
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Old 08-15-2006, 03:38 PM   #20
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gas mileage

22,000 pounds in RV form when empty (no bikes, camping gear etc), 427 gas motor, allison, 10:00R20 tires, 6:83 rearend, 3200 RPM at 60 MPH and i get 6.1 MPG with a load, probably a little better unloaded. drops to 5 MPG in a 40 MPH headwind across S.D. rides like a dream, was comtemplating air ride but rides fine as is. sportyrick
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