Gas tanks and fuel economy

[ghmorris]

Thanks Paul.

In a boat, a vacumn gauge is the best thing since sliced bread as it warns you that you have a bad tank of fuel before you plug the filter solid and lose power. Saved me grief more than a few times, or at least warned me that Break Out Another Thousand was about to happen yet again!

The one thing I haven't been able to get a straight answer on is fuel filter change intervals in the Deli. Seems its heavily dependant on what quality of fuel you are buying. Best estimate seems to the 30K km if you are buying decent fuel??

George

[BCDelica]

Thanks Paul.

In a boat, a vacumn gauge is the best thing since sliced bread as it warns you that you have a bad tank of fuel before you plug the filter solid and lose power. Saved me grief more than a few times, or at least warned me that Break Out Another Thousand was about to happen yet again!

The one thing I haven't been able to get a straight answer on is fuel filter change intervals in the Deli. Seems its heavily dependant on what quality of fuel you are buying. Best estimate seems to the 30K km if you are buying decent fuel??

George

Three of the two manuals I have, including the Russek service manual, state changing the diesel filter every 20,000 km's.

And would like to state that the diesel pickups are better designed then any if seen in me limit experience. Within the pick cylinder the pickup is from the bottom, with it the low level shut off float riding in a metal sleeve and the outer screen quite fine for a plastic screen - was supprised how much stuff was collected on mine at first. Hey, don't think we've even done 20,000km on diesel yet - 140,000km between our two with most on WVO.

Kev

[FalcoColumbarius]

According to the NZ manual (translated from the Japanese manual), the automatic transmission Delicas hold 75 litres of fuel; the manual or standard transmission Delicas hold 65 litres; the gasoline versions hold 56 litres. The Miss Lil' Bitchi (my van) is an automatic, therefore 75 litres. The little amber fuel pump on my instrument cluster lights up roughly after using up 58 litres of fuel, leaving 15+ litres in the tanks. Figuring that I average 8.5 kilometres per litre (city driving) I should have roughly 128 kilometres or more of city driving left in the tanks.

To figure what your kilometreage is:

• Fill your tank(s) with diesel.
• Set your odometer to 0.
• Drive around until your little amber fuel pump lights up on your instrument panel (if you get to 550 kilometres and the light hasn't come on then perhaps the bulb is burnt out. Go directly to a fuelling station).
• Fuel your tank(s) right up and make a note of how many litres you have put in.
• Take the number on your odometer, divide it by how many litres you have just put in and that will tell you how many kilometres per litre you are consuming, i.e.; 528 kilometres divided by 58.415 litres, equals: 9.038 kilometres per litre.

Using this model I should have sixteen and a half more litres of fuel left in the tanks, ergo: 16.5 Times 9.038 equals: I should have roughly 149.127 more kilometres of driving left in my tanks.

Nota Bene: The size of your tyres will determine the accuracy of your speedometer/odometer readings. Mine are 235/75R15's. According to my GPS & other postings on this site my speedo is accurate.

Falco.

Falco,

That's a bit incorrect.

The two tank system in the auto is 75L according to the manual.

Just because you used 58.5 L of diesel, doesn't mean you have 16.5L left that is usable.

When you run a tank dry, there will always be some fuel left residing in the tank so it would be more like 12 liters or so that is actual usable diesel.

Jesse

Whoa! Two years later and a follow up. The most fuel I have ever put into the tanks in one serving is 73+ litres. So I suspect that most of the fuel is "usable". Another thing to consider: I think that the tanks hold 75 litres. I don't think that includes all the pipes, i.e.; the filler pipe or the fuel line. I would think that would hold at least another two or so litres.

Falco.

[fexlboi]

Figuring that I average 8.5 kilometres per litre (city driving)....

Wow, that is the most fuel efficient Delica I have ever seen. 8.5 litre AVERAGE is really hard to believe, specially for city driving.

....Mine are 235/75R15's. According to my GPS & other postings on this site my speedo is accurate.

The stock tire size is 215/80R15 which means the circumference is different. The stock speedometer gear is not adjusted to the bigger tire size, which is not a big deal, cause you won't see a lot of difference on your speedometer, but in the long run you will see a difference in your fuel economy calculation. The speedometer is almost never 100% correct. The only way to compare your numbers is GPS distance, but even then it won't be accurate if you don't measure the amount of fuel you put in (at the same outside temperature)

[FalcoColumbarius]

Figuring that I average 8.5 kilometres per litre (city driving)....

Wow, that the most fuel efficient Delica I have ever seen. 8.5 litre AVERAGE is really hard to believe, specially for city driving. (It's amazing what a little wax can do.)

....Mine are 235/75R15's. According to my GPS & other postings on this site my speedo is accurate.

The stock tire size is 215/80R15 which means the circumference is different. The stock speedometer gear is not adjusted to this size, which is not a big deal, cause you won't see a lot of difference on your speedometer, but in the long run you see quite a bit difference in your fuel economy calculation. The speedometer is almost never 100% correct. The only way to compare your numbers is GPS distance, but even then it won't be accurate if you don't measure the amount of fuel you put in (at the same outside temperature)

Yeah, in fact that is from a two year old post, yes? At that point my GPS sucked, I just didn't know it at the time. Currently my GPS (Garmin) consistently puts my speedo out at 5%, that is to say: If I am driving at 105 KPH on the speedo ~ my GPS speed is 100 KPH. By the way, my first measured fuel up since I blanked out the EGR worked out to 8.7 kilometres per litre of city driving. I think Butch might have some 215/80R15s kicking around the shop... I should compare. My diameters are around the 29.5 inch mark.

My fuel findings are really meant for me. I am happy to share them along with the relevant information, like tyre size, &c., but in the end it is about how much fuel I have left and how many kliks I can get out of them and whether I should really pass this service station with the hopes that there will be a cheaper or better one up the road. As far as the MLB's fuel efficiency ~ I keep her tuned? I use a good fuel additive? I still think the hot sex wax job has something to do with it.

I also think it has to do with driving style, how you accelerate, how you brake and how you shift. If there is a red light up ahead I will lay off the accelerator and roll to it rather that riding the gas and braking at the last moment.

Falco.

[pajerry]

Wow.. I need a tune up. I am running with no black smoke on 33's and get about 350-380kms to gas light (mostly city/trail). I haven't calculated the proper mileage with the 10% tire size difference etc. in a long time since it was so low I gave up.

I know, different vehicle, but with a seemingly much smaller truck running a 2.8L on 33's, it should be similar?

How about upping the boost with washers at the wastegate? Does this need to be followed with increasing the fueling? Maybe I have a turbo leak?

Anybody have a SWB Paj on 33's with some figures I could compare to?

[RichD]

I'll probably need to cross-post this back to the other more current mileage thread, but after the past three weeks, two road trips (loaded), very mixed driving (city and highway, hills galore) running both sets of tires, I have been able to confirm my mileage at 8km/L.

I'm running 23575R15's and my speedo/odometer is consistently 2% off (almost all of them are, even with stock tire sizes), so I've adjusted my math appropriately. I get 470 kms to 60L of fuel.

If Falco is getting 8.5km/L, I would like to compare our vehicle configuration and look to make similar changes.

[marsgal42]

I gassed up Gumdrop yesterday and the numbers were just a hair over 10 litres/100 km. My driving these days is almost entirely Highway 1 between Burnaby and Langley.

In city driving I usually think about refueling after 350 km. On the highway, 500. Yesterday I was up to 550 km and still didn't have the fuel warning light on. Stock tires, speedometer reasonably accurate, checked with GPS.

At school you never believe the fuel gauges, and always use a dipstick to see just how much is really in the fuel tanks. On Friday I started a plane, taxied it over to the fuel pumps and gassed it up, all by myself, the very first time not having an instructor with me. CLEAR PROP!

...laura

[Mephisto]

I think people are just getting confused with converting km/L and L/100km.

I wish I still had the money to get my pilots license, I was about ten hours in when I decided to go back to university. Quite jealous, nothing like flying a plane and what a rush the first time you control the landing.

[marsgal42]

...nothing like flying a plane and what a rush the first time you control the landing.

The standard at school for landings is to float down in the ground effect (easy in a low-wing plane) and let the wheels kiss the runway. If I said what my first such landing felt like they would delete the posting and probably delete my account.

If you see a green over silver Super Exceed parked on the south side of Langley Airport (the Flight Museum entrance with the stuffed DC-3) and see a red and white Cherokee 140 flying around, it's probably me. I've flown three of the school's four planes, but always come back to C-FKKF.

...laura

[FalcoColumbarius]

I think people are just getting confused with converting km/L and L/100km.

L/100km doesn't really mean anything to me. To say I have 8.5L per 100 km doesn't help me, as fancy as it might sound. To say 11.4 highway kilometres to the litre tells me that if I am driving on the highway and my little amber fuel light comes on then I know that it usually comes on at 58 litres. So to be safe I will presume that I have 15 more litres of fuel: 15 X 11.4 = 171 more kilometres of similar driving. I like it simple. Doing it backwards while driving, for me, is not simple. Everyone has their preferences.

Falco.

[thedjjack]

my guess why the auto have a second tank is to give a similar range to the 5 speed. Auto makers like to give cars at least a 400km range. The second tank provides this range?

[RichD]

I think people are just getting confused with converting km/L and L/100km.

I'm not sure why it would be confusing. Range from full divided by amount of fuel replenished to Full yields kilometres per volume of fuel.

480km on 60L of fuel is 8km/L.

L/100km is just an extrapolation; 60L divided by 4.8 is 12.5L/100km.

I'm actually getting more like Falco's 8.5km/L on last two tanks as I ran the road tires and did mostly highway driving this weekend.

[mararmeisto]

I routinely got around 8 to 8.5 km/litre in my L300, the best I ever got was something 9.5 km/litre while I was on a roadtrip one summer. Best fuel economy was ALWAYS under 100km/h with the best being around 90-95km/h.

In my SWB Pajero, I've been averaging about 8.2-8.4 km/litre, and the best I got was 10.02 km/litre one roadtrip. Best economy so far is around 100-110km/h.

[FalcoColumbarius]

When I was working in Aldergrove, everything was highway miles and I started doing routine road tests from week to week. One week I drove the whole week at 80 KPH; another week I drove at 90 KPH. My best results were driving at 105 KPH (speedometer reading). For some reason I get better mileage with the engine running at 2,600 odd RPM than at 2,000 (80KPH) RPM. I think the injectors go into some sort of overdrive and use less fuel.

My best recorded fuel economy was 11.4 kilometres per litre (8.7k/100L) and that was from North Vancouver to Boston Bar on the TC1, averaging 105+ KPH.

I run my tyres at 42 PSI (235/75R15)

Falco.