Florida B.S. Thread

@Broverlanding You going to hit any trails in North Carolina?

 

We got off light here. I got a lot of texts wondering where I was since I haven't been able to get on TW for a while. We lost power at about 8 PM Sunday and it didn't come back on until Friday, but other than that we got off easy. After the storm went through, I spent a couple days cleaning up the yard and then about 03:00 Wednesday morning we fled the state and headed up to my aunt's house in the mountains of northern VA rather than sit around in the 90*+ heat with no power. Didn't have much cell signal up there unless we came down off the mountain and I didn't remember my TW password (or my email password) so I couldn't log in from my aunt's PC.

We had a lot of fun though. I drank almost 2 cases of beer while I was up there, haha. Considering I only drink a bottle of champagne on New Years Eve and maybe a 6 pack or less of beer at the TW camping meets, I think I exponentially increased my alcohol intake for this year, and recovered a bunch of the tolerance I used to have when I was younger. Gonna have to probable bring a 12 pack to the Camp & Ride to get anything out of it.

We had some amazing scenery...



This was a view of Shenandoah Valley. I got a ton more shots from Skyline Drive. Still have to go through them and pick out the choicest ones.

Glad to see that most everyone came through the cataclysm alive with only property damage for the most part. Hope Daria's aunt is okay. I almost feel guilty about going on a little vacation while everyone else was helping pick up the pieces, but I had to get Mom up there and out of the heat.

Just got back into town today at about 10:30 or so.

 

Glad to know all is well with you. Ill bring the moonshine to the Fall meet.

 

Maybe. We will see what time allows

Do you have any suggestions?

 

K, got some sleep and I started analyzing my fuel mileage data for Natty. Here it is, if anyone is interested.

2001 3rd Gen T4R--3.4L/Auto/4WD on 265/75R16 Toyo Open Country ATIIs.

Total trip distance: 1858.7 miles
Total Fuel Used: 92.1 gal
Overall MPG: 20.2

We did the trip in basically 4 legs each direction.

On the way up:

Leg 1: Tampa, up I75 to Ocala, US 301 to Baldwin.
Distance: 164.7 miles
Fuel: 8 gal
MPG: 20.6
(This was as expected)

Leg 2: Baldwin, I10 to I95/I95 to I26 to Orangeburg, SC
Distance: 255.7 miles
Fuel: 12.9 gal
MPG: 19.8
(Okay, we had to be going generally uphill, but it was still fairly flat)

Leg 3: Orangeburg, SC, I26 to I77/I77 to I81, Fancy Gap, VA
Distance: 237.6 miles
Fuel: 11.9 gal
MPG: 20
(WTF? We were in the mountains by this point and Natty was frequently dropping out of OD to maintain speed on the hills)

Leg 4: Fancy Gap, VA, I81 to New Market, VA/New Market, US 211(?) to Luray, VA, US 340 to Front Royal, VA
Distance: 297.6 miles (includes a few trips off the mountain into town)
Fuel: 14.5 gal
MPG: 20.5
(Okay, seriously, WTF? We were traveling on windy mountain roads with switch backs and steep inclines. Natty was frequently dropping as low as 2nd gear to maintain speed.)

Average MPG heading up: 20.2 MPG

Now it gets really mind boggling for me...

Return Trip:

Leg 1: The reverse of outbound Leg 4, stopped at the same fuel station (completely by accident)
Distance: 245 miles (I assume the difference is how many miles I drove running into town a few times)
Fuel: 13.2 gal
MPG: 18.6
(Okay, I can see maybe climbing up out of the Valley, over the mountain to New Market might have been more uphill than downhill, so that isn't terribly odd, but I still felt like I had to manually shift out of OD and several times down into 2nd gear to engine brake going down the hills more frequently this direction)

Leg 2: The reverse of outbound Leg 3, stopped at the same fuel station (deliberately this time)
Distance: 236.9 miles (Probably the difference of the exit ramps to the fuel stations and variations in the paths of the road)
Fuel: 11 gal
MPG: 21.5


Leg 3: Orangeburg, SC, I26 to I95, Jacksonville
Distance: 222.1 miles
Fuel: 11.7 gal
MPG: 19
(Really? If we were going uphill on the way up, wouldn't we have gotten significantly better mileage on the return leg? )

Leg 4: Jacksonville, I95/I10/US 301/I75, Tampa
Distance: 198.2 miles
Fuel: 8.9 gal
MPG: 22.3
(Okay, that's the best fuel economy Natty has ever gotten by more than a mile to a gallon, even with the size smaller tires (IIRC, she got about 22.1 MPG going to Bushnell and back for the Wreaths Across America event). Go figure on that. It's pretty weird but I'm not complaining though.)

Average MPG coming back: 20.4 MPG

Geez, you'd think I like statistics or something.

 

Yeah I get half that

 

@Taco No Baka

Altitude decreases an engine’s octane requirements because of the change in air pressure. The higher elevations have a lower level of air pressure, which means an engine needs less octane to properly fire due to the lower ambient pressure. In certain states, such as Colorado where the altitude is generally above 5,000 feet in the mountain regions, 85 octane gasoline is sold, while in lower elevations 87 octane is the lowest sold.
When an engine requires lower levels of octane to “fire,” the overall efficiency of the engine is also lowered, which means the engine works harder to achieve the same results. However, less fuel burns, which means the overall fuel-per-mile efficiency is increased because the engine is working at a reduced compression rate. In short, you can get higher miles-per-gallon at higher elevations, but the power of the engine is also somewhat reduced.

 

Uwharrie

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/uwharrie-national-forest-ure-permanent-thread.485479/

 

What is the date on this trip again? This might be the last trip with my truck

 

​

 

I thought you guys were heading to Uwharrie in November around Thanksgiving.

 

I think if you were to do this again adding wind direction and altitude change would explain some of the differences.

 

Black Friday, like what John said

 

Suh dood!​

 

I'm guessing the OGT wouldn't have done nearly as well. I wouldn't say half though. I know she's gotten about 16.9 MPG going over to Spruce's house from Tampa and that was on surface streets not the interstate. Both vehicles get similar economy (very crappy...in the 11-13 MPG range) with our normal day-to-day trips, usually so short the engine barely has time to warm up properly.

That was my understanding, though, I'm a little dubious about the idea that the engine being less efficient will lead to better fuel econ. Seems to me the engine making less power will just lead to more skinny pedal depression and thus more fuel flow. The ECU will probably lean the mixture out from the normal sea-level ratio, but unless you're operating at full throttle all the time, which I do rarely, then the throttle plate will just be open more to get more oxygen in there at a given power demand. Still, I'm not discounting it...other than I got shitty mileage going back over the mountain on the return trip and I got the best mileage ever between JAX and TPA.

 

Compared to the 1st Gen like you had, but definitely not 2nd or 3rd Gen

Nice Truck and Congrats

 

For sure. I really wanted a 3rd gen tundra but too much money for my liking lol

 

Most squeaky got while stock was 21.7 on I-10. Now I am happy to get 16 lol