Has the High Diesel Fuel finally brought an end to the HP Game

[hammersley]

for the Mfg???? I think if they were smart they'd bring out a really detuned say a 200 HP or whatever with a substantial mileage benefit.....

 

[Skydiver]

I would buy a 125 hp engine if had enough gears to keep it running in the proper torque curve. Right now I would settle for a 50 horse commuter car. In 1981 I bought a new 52 hp VW Rabbit which got 48 mpg.



It won't be long till we see 75 mpg cars. The new Kia plant being built just across the Chattahoochee river has renewed interest in this market.



There are very few high mpg cars on the market today. In the last 10 years our market has been flooded with high horse power guzzlers.



My daily driver 96 Regal 3. 8 gets 30-32 mpg if I drive it easy.

 

[JH8128]

Mpg

for the Mfg???? I think if they were smart they'd bring out a really detuned say a 200 HP or whatever with a substantial mileage benefit.....

I think lower horsepower would give less fuel mileage. I could be wrong, i know when i turn the smarty down to 0 1/2 Stock power, I get horrible fuel mileage. I dunno just my 2 cents.

 

[catoiler]

That is true on a diesel but on a gasser hp=$$$$. The VW tdi's get 48mpg+ before the ulsd.

 

[JMetzger]

I heard today that Dodge is thinking of holding back manufacturing the new Dodge Challenger because of low MPG's. I know my son is trying to sell his 06 Charger & has put it in every selling add possible & has not got one call about it.

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

for the Mfg???? I think if they were smart they'd bring out a really detuned say a 200 HP or whatever with a substantial mileage benefit.....

Dunno about that - at least on my truck, the absolute BEST MPG I have obtained, both empty AND towing, is WITH all the power mods listed in my sig - for our diesels, the key to fuel MPG seems more related to how it's driven, rather than maximum available HP...



Within reason, of course...

 

[bigdaddydieseldan]

I doubt that it will decrease horsepower there is just way to much competition between all the automakers to cut horsepower

 

[EKlem]

There are two different versions of lower power that are being discussed here which have very different meanings in terms of fuel economy.

For those of you seeing much greater mileage with your mods, there are a few reasons. Dodge and cummins manufacture a drivetrain that meets emissions requirements and gets reasonable fuel economy considering what it is. Most of the programmers, even on the economy settings change the injection events so that they are timed earlier and often eliminate certain events(3rd gens), that are there for emissions purposes. Once you mod your truck, you get better mileage but increase your NOx and other emissions(some emissions like CO2 go down). There are also other things like injectors which can be made better than factory through different processees so that your truck gets better mileage.

What Skydiver and others are suggesting is a smaller displacement engine, not a detuned large displacement engine. There is an optimum power/displacement ratio that is relatively constant for a given type of engine design. For maximum efficiency, you want the engine to operate near this point the maximum amount of time possible. To take a few extremes, I don't think that anyone would argue that a 3/4 ton truck with a C15 would get better mileage than the same truck with a cummins 4bt. This is an extreme example but it shows that you need to properly size the engine. In marine diesels, you try to size the engine such that it will be operating at 70% throttle all of the time. In vehicles, it is more complicated because cruising doesn't take much power but acceleration and hills do. When they say lower power, they mean a similar power/displacement so they also mean lower displacement.

For most people who aren't towing, a 4bt rated at 150hp would be fine in our trucks and you would get better mileage. The displacement issue is not as extreme for a diesel as it is for a gas but it is important.