Gary Lewis

Yes, Scott is right. The C6 is a big part of your problem, for two reasons. First, it doesn't have an overdrive, so your engine is spinning higher RPM than my engine or Bill's engine is at the same speed. In my case, I have a manual with OD, in Bill's case he has the E4OD - with OD. So if you were to put an overdrive unit, like the Gear Vendors that Scott suggested, on there it would drop your RPM and help the MPG. The other reason is the torque converter is always slipping on a C6. In other words, the engine is turning ~300 RPM more than the input shaft to the transmission because of the slippage in the converter. And that is all wasted energy, which you won't get back by installing an overdrive unit. It gets turned into heat, and you need to make sure you have a large enough tranny cooler to get rid of the heat. Now for the question about EFI. There are essentially two types of EFI: port injection and throttle body injection. Port injection means that there are injectors for each cylinder and they are positioned near the intake valve so that the fuel goes as directly into the cylinder as is possible. With a throttle body the injectors are where a carburetor would have been. Bill has port injection on Darth and coupled with the E4OD he gets about the same MPG I get with Big Blue, albeit with a heavier truck due to it being a crewcab and dual rear wheel. So port injection helps, and I'm hoping to pick up about 1 (maybe 2?) MPG when I go to port injection later this year. But I don't believe that throttle body injection will give you as much. While port injection tailors the fuel/air ratio for each cylinder, that isn't possible when you are injection in the center of the intake. So the AFR cannot be as precise and the MPG isn't likely to be as good. Having said that, unless you are going to drive the wheels off that thing it isn't likely that going for port injection can be cost beneficial. It isn't an easy task. I haven't completed mine so am not the best person to definitively say that, but I've done enough work on it to know. But Bill is the one to answer the question as he has done it.

The padded clamps haven't come in yet, so I did other things today. The first thing I wanted to do was to fix the tank vent problem, but the rear tank was still pushing fuel out, so I ran a hose into a gas can and let it drain. During the time that it drained I remembered that while the padding I added to the front springs helped dramatically, there has still some banging and clanging on bumps. So I did some more inspection and found that the top of the curve of the spring, where it curves around the spring mount, can easily hit the metal of the mount. So I slipped two layers of pieces of inner tubes over the curve, and it that made a big difference. I shot a video of before and after, but for some reason I can't get Youtube to accept it. So here is the best I can do: Then the draining was done and I could work on the vents. The best place I could find was up the side of the bed. So I measured where the filler neck is vs the bottom of the bed, and then measured up from there and put the top of the hose above that point. To support the hose I drilled through the end of the bed and inserted a bolt in from the front of the bed and a nut from the back to hold the clamp. And then I ran the 3/16" line from the vent lines into a 3/8" tee and then used 3/8" line from there up to the filter. Here's what it looks like:

My F250 w/a recently-built 460, headers, and a manual transmission with overdrive gets between 11 & 12 MPG if running at 65 MPH w/o a head wind. And if I remember correctly that's not too far off what my '72 F250 w/a 390 topped with a Quadrajet and running a C6 got when running at that speed. But when it was loaded down with our 9 1/2' self-contained camper we got from 7 - 9 MPG depending on the conditions, with 7 being with a head wind and 9 being under the best conditions. So, I don't think your 6 MPG is that bad. However, you didn't say at what speed. And as has been said, speed kills - MPG.

Who is THAT Gary Lewis! What did he do to get a spectacular reputation? Anyway, good find, David. Good documentation for Dave.

Yes! That's the one. Thanks, Scott! But it looks like Chris is past that point now.

Was that someone Frogger 2662? Bucket Seats thread - 9/1/20 I'm thinking it was Snakebite8 in this thread: http://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Newer-bench-seat-td80682.html

Interesting. Didn't know that existed, but would have solved the problem that someone had recently when installing buckets in an extended-cab truck with a bench.

Rick - I know how much you like originality, but since neither of them are original I went for the chrome one as I think it is prettier. (But you need a different nut for that one.)

Yes, Ford called it "speed control", and the story I heard was that someone patented the term "cruise control" so Ford couldn't use it. And in their literature they called it speed control, as shown below. But apparently Specific Cruise System, Inc got to call it what they wanted to in their own literature. That's a different system than I've seen before. It has the same turn signal-mounted control that the Dana ones used, but has a different servo and control valves. And it uses a Ford-style vacuum reservoir and vehicle speed sensor.

Yes, it is expensive. But those thing are getting hard to find.

E2TZ 7N280-D 82/87 F100/350 U150 T-18,19,435

Man, prices are headed UP! I think the pandemic may be fueling that, with people sitting on computers looking at things and having time to work on their projects.

REALLY! You still have that???? In Steve's back yard? Wow! So, when are you going to fix your truck?

Good, I'm glad you've done the doors. And yes, that makes a huge difference when you close the door.

Pretty! And pretty cheap. Looks like it was used on most of the Dana 44's.

I don't know what "EGR Tube" means, nor how it is used. I'm wondering if Bill does, so I'm going to tag him for help.

That's funny! Ok, Jim (the self-ascribed "Jim #2) has made a good case for the simple approach of using some form of switched power for the voltmeter. So we need to include that approach in our bag of tricks. And, I'm thinking that we may want to have a tab for Other Options, or somesuch. On it we could show other approaches but not flesh them out as thoroughly as we need to do for the other, recommended approaches.

Thanks, Dane. The ground wire, which goes out the other corner of the cab and then to the frame, is going to be a bit more difficult to protect. I should have pics of that tomorrow, but I want to make sure that brush won't snag it.

Looks wonderful, John! And it does make a huge difference. But what about the doors? Are you going to use some of the Killmat on them?

$700????? Man, if that was next door I'd have it. I SURE don't need it, but ......

It is a good price, and the horn pad is in decent shape.

Sorry that I am late to the party... When I first arrived in Skiatook, the timing on a recurved distributor was @ 17+ degrees BTDC. The fuel mileage was good, but there was an occasional drag when starting. The ignition was handled with a MDS 6A ignition box. Gary did magic on the vacuum advance. We drove while Gary monitored AF ratios [up to 17:1]. When I left, the timing was a "fat" 14 degrees BTDC. The truck routinely consumed 87 octane gasohol. Gary, when you and I had our gas mileage comparison between my truck and "Blue", we both used 100% regular [87 octane] from the same pump. This was to limit the variables and that was the fuel you use in your truck. Thanks for the correction on the gas, David. I knew we filled up at the same pump and it was 100% gas, but forgot that we did the adjusting and testing on an earlier tank.

I got the hot lead to the inverter installed today, and a start on the ground lead. Here's the lead, the left one, connected to the aux power relay: And here's part of the run under the rocker and into the cab via the grommet. But I'm not really done as I didn't have enough of the 5/8" rubber-covered clamps, but they'll be here tomorrow so I can finish this run. Last, here are now-you-see-it and now-you-don't shots of the run inside the cab corner. Also, not visible is the extra grommet I put on the wire inside the corner, just in case I need it some day.

Looks great! What voltage range does it have?

I used CPVC pipe cement and some spare pieces of PCV as a splint on the backside to fix one A-pillar trim piece. That seemed to work nicely.