Engine rebuild and better MPG? (1 Viewer)

[Cj80cruiser]

I've been thinking about buying a small truck and keeping the 80 as just a toy. Recently I've seen a few T.V. shows that state keeping your old truck rather than getting a new car with better gas mileage is actually cheaper. I don't really want to argue this idea because this will vary from car to car and truck to truck.

This did get me to thinking though about keeping the 80 as a daily driver and dropping a few thousand into a motor rebuild and all the other parts that go with it. This would still be cheaper than a new car or truck. I'm wondering with Landtanks MAF and all these new parts and fresh engine would I be crazy to think I'd get 17-18 mpg? Any other suggestions on how to spend about 5 grand?

 

[jfz80]

yes, certifiably crazy i believe. Now if you drop the 315's and go back to 31's and dont lift it....a big maybe.

 

[NLXTACY]

I saw the same Extreme 4X4 episode. I'm keeping my no-payment, cheap insurance gas guzzler

 

[wfd175]

It depends entirely on how many miles you regularly drive.

In my case, I drive 150 miles per week. All in town basically I get 10 mpg. = 15 gallons per week
or about $60 per week for gas. = $240 per month.

If I were to take 5K and stick it into another vehicle, insure it, license it, pay sales tax. etc. The savings gap for a car that say would get 30 mpg or 5 gallons a week, = $80 per month on gas. or $160 per month. (Without the insurance cost/month, sales tax of $400)

5000/160=31.25 months or 2.6 years. I'm a little different than the average US citizen because I religiously pay off the credit cards. The "average" person living in the U.S. would be better off paying off a credit card with the 5k.

With respect to depreciation etc... I definately agree

 

[Cj80cruiser]

yes, certifiably crazy i believe. Now if you drop the 315's and go back to 31's and dont lift it....a big maybe.

That's a big negative on losing my tire size. I've seen other posts where people get mileage in this range with 315's. Doesn't mean it was true or tested correctly. What do you think is reasonable. I'm getting about 13mpg (highway) with a rough running engine and these 315's.

 

[Cj80cruiser]

I saw the same Extreme 4X4 episode. I'm keeping my no-payment, cheap insurance gas guzzler

Was it Extreme 4X4 or Trucks? I know they had an old Ford truck whoever was discussing it. BTW the new Trucks show sucks. I wish Tracy was back even though the way he talked got on my nerves. He did build some pretty cool rigs.

 

[landcruising]

Sorry for the rant

It was Extreme 4x4, they were showiing the cost of buying a new economy car at 12k and comparing what the average driver uses in a year. I beleive it was a 6 years cost recovery not including deppreciation. I am not sure you could find a new car with good milage for 12K but a good used honda maybe. They did not seem to calcualte insurance registration etc, IIRC.

What I found to be funny in this episode was making your own fuel using bio diesel and saving your old truck and running this. They were showing how it was as cheap as $1.20 a gallon to make bio but neglected to emphasise the cost of the equipment they were using at $8,000 until a small blurb at the end. This means you would have to make at least 1600 gal of bio compared to $5 today to break even. May be worth it but would take several trips to the restaurants, several hours of time, and over 2 years to recoup the cost plus modifications to your diesel if it is a newer model. In cali you would likley need permits from industrial relation dept, some secondary containment, a licence to store store fuel from the juristriction you are in and last of all a storm water management plan. You could take a chance and do it on the down low but I beleive a storm water violation can amount to $10,000 a day for non compliance. This was my experience when I had to remove fuel storage from a local fire station because the permits and manegment costs were more than getting it from the commercial station.

In San Diego it would be cheaper IMO to go across the border and fill up at $2.50/ Gal for what I have heard is the same refined gas from Longbeach. However you take the chance of getting bad or diluted gas which I have first hand knowledge doing. That was a $500 injector cleaning, filters drain etc. when I got across the border in El Centro.

Either way we will have to live with higher prices and be greatfull that in the US we live better than 70% of the worlds population. At least that makes me fell better when I have a $100 fill up each week.

 

[NLXTACY]

LANDCRUISING that is the SAME thing I was thinking as they were shilling the BioDiesel.

Petrol FTW! Er...ok maybe not but at least I'm in my garage wrenching and not comparing PH and adding KOH and watching and waiting and tasting. Screw that noise!

 

[Cj80cruiser]

Since biodiesel wouldn't help me anyways maybe I could run my truck on Moonshine. I've heard of people doing this but don't know the consequences to the engine. I'm half kidding about this idea.

 

[NLXTACY]

Since biodiesel wouldn't help me anyways maybe I could run my truck on Moonshine. I've heard of people doing this but don't know the consequences to the engine. I'm half kidding about this idea.

Well you ARE in Alabama

Go ask your neighbor!

I'm half kidding

 

[Brian894X4]

I think with most vehicles, it would take a while to make up the difference when buying a new rig, but with an 80 that can get as low as 9-12 mpg, it probaby would make far more sense to buy a different rig.

However, why everyone thinks they have to go out and buy new vehicles is beyond me. My 2nd rig (besides the wife's car and my SAS truck) is a tiny little Honda CRX that I've owned since 1998. I had a minor engine problem that I original thought was a major one and a literally considered having it hauled away to the wreckers as a somewhat worthless car. It's sure not worthless now. I drive that thing every single day now and I'm happy to have it.

But if I didn't have it and the 80 was my daily driver, I'd definately consider going out and buying a $2000-3000 used Honda civic or Toyota corola to get back and forth to work and around town. That kind of money can easily be made up real quick, especially if you drive any kind of distance on a regular basis and at these prices.

But you better buy quick, because the value of these used Hondas and even new ones are going up real quick. I'm sure I didn't throw mine away like I almost did.

The nice thing about only spending a few grand on a car is if it has any major problems, gets stolen, or gas prices someday collaspe, it's not that much money thrown down the toilet. And Hondas and Toyotas will easily last hundreds of thousands of miles as we all know, so find yourself a 100K miles beater Honda and Toyota and she'll barely be broken in.

$5 a gallon is almost a certainty at this point, so doing the math, at an average of 11 mpg, a 50 mile roundtrip commute would cost $23/day or $450/month just for gas. A 30 mpg car would cost $160/month, a difference of $290. Under those circumstances alone, a $2000 30 mpg car would pay for itself in just over 6 months. Of course that doesn't include insurance and maintainence though.

Sorry, I know you didn't really want to go this direction, but I couldn't resist.

 

[Cj80cruiser]

Well you ARE in Alabama

Go ask your neighbor!

I'm half kidding

HA!!

 

[Beowulf]

I'm wondering with Landtanks MAF and all these new parts and fresh engine would I be crazy to think I'd get 17-18 mpg? Any other suggestions on how to spend about 5 grand?

First, the Landtank MAF housing and the newer Toyota MAF are for 95-97 trucks ONLY. Yours uses an AFM fuel system.

IMHO, the best you can expect on a regular, repeatable basis would be 16MPG highway. That is with no lift, no heavy armour, stock tyres, and doing accurate MPG calculations. (Rarity around 'Mud these days. ) Definitely no safari style roof rack.

To accomplish this you would need to get yourself some good DD tyres on a set of alloy (i.e. light weight) wheels, pump the tyres to 40psi or more if you can stand it, use good synthetics for diffs, Xfer, and engine, and drive like a grandpa (meaning 55mph MAXIMUM). Good tune up, cleaned intake, fresh plugs and wires and all the other things to get your engine running PERFECTLY! You will see some trips at 17, maybe even 18, but I believe your day-in day-out average will be closer to 16MPG highway (probably 14 city)

You *might* be able to squeeze out another 1MPG by removing the front DS, installing selectable front hubs, and locking the center diff. This basically puts the truck in 2WD.

IMHO, you will have a neutered truck but you could still call it a DD and it is still a Land Cruiser and it still looks pretty good albeit a bit anemic compared to your lifted rig on 35" mud tyres.

My 2c.

-B-

 

[Falco80]

Fuel is on the rise thats for sure. I paid $1.55p/l Aus this arvo for juice, and that was the cheapest in my area! I'm kinda lucky i don't need to drive my 80 everyday to work, but i can see in the near future using it only on weekends and the odd trip. I don't beleive rebuilding your donk will give you better fuel economy figures. Buy a cheap runabout and use that to commute to work. You'd be surprised how awesome your 80 is to drive after it's been garaged for a week!

 

[F0RSAKEN]

Actually a rebuild with a slightly enhanced performance as your goal, would net you better fuel efficiency IMO. Bore it out slightly to 4.6 or 4.7 liters, port the head, raise compression to 10:1 or 10.2:1 (something the stock engine management should be able to adapt to), get a full high flow exhaust (header + high flow cat + decent high flow muffler), and not only would your engine make more power thus putting less strain on it to get the pig moving, it would probably be more efficient.

But maybe I'm just a retard.

P.S. You probably could only do what I've mentioned for under 5k if you did the work yourself.

 

[jfz80]

quote [I am not sure you could find a new car with good milage for 12K but a good used honda maybe] quote ???? i must have lower standards than thou

Id have to agree w/ Brian and Beo here. I myself am looking for just this arrangement as my gas bill is more than my rent/ month !!! so its the sub 5k cars and there are decent ones to be found. One owner crx i missed last week w/ all records adn 202k but $3k. 2003 corrolla i drove last night, 2001 civic were both at $5k and 140k miles. Lots of old camry's here w/ under 150k for 3-4 thousand. Unfortunately my business needs the support of a truck, so im after a 2wd taco or p/u.

in a perfect world (w/ a garage) id have one of each, and a moto too

 

[Miescha]

I'm getting about 13mpg (highway) with a rough running engine and these 315's.

Geez, maybe I'm doing the math wrong (but I don't think so) - I'm only getting 12-13mpg on the highway, and I just did a ton of stuff to my 80 and I didn't see any performance or mpg changes (though maybe I haven't driven enough miles to see the difference). Everything I did is listed in this thread (post #21) https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/223319-memorial-day-wrenching-project-catch-up.html and still no noticeable improvements.

The nice thing about only spending a few grand on a car is if it has any major problems, gets stolen, or gas prices someday collaspe, it's not that much money thrown down the toilet. And Hondas and Toyotas will easily last hundreds of thousands of miles as we all know, so find yourself a 100K miles beater Honda and Toyota and she'll barely be broken in.

This is the logic I used when I recently bought a used 75k miles 1996 Camry for my daughter rather than have her put 2,500 miles on the cruiser this summer. Basically, I paid $2,500 and I'll have ~$3,200 invested once I've completely over-hauled the thing (though I'm not sure it really needed much - I'm just being cruiser-anal). Here is the thread with the details https://forum.ih8mud.com/other-vehicle-tech/224213-fsm-1996-camry-opinions-general.html

Keep your 80 and buy a nice used gas-sipping vehicle. But then again, I only drive 10-12 miles a day most days, so what the heck do I know

Cheers.

 

[bugsnbikes]

Compression and volumetric efficiency are the name of the game with the Landcruiser engine. With such a torquey engine-- milling the head for a higher compression ratio will likely yield some nice results cheap. Probably 90% of the people pre-head gasket failure need to do this anyway---so the true cost of having the head milled for 1-2pts of compression bump is really a "while you are in there-you might as well" type cost. (very nominal machine work).

Id be curious to hear from people who have had their head milled for a compression bump........and not just a cleanup-flat decking of the head.

With even a 1-2mpg gain--- on 20k miles per year---jumping from 10mpg to 12mpg would save about 340gallons of gas or $1500per year. So in the first year you would have paid for the HG job and machine work and save $1500yr thereafter.

Robbie would be a good person to ask about how much compression bump he thinks it could take. Typically there is only so much milling you want to do on the head--before it starts to effect the combustion chamber shape and you would want to have the block milled which would be more costly.

The main concern is heat associated with the compression bump. We all know that the cruiser cooling system is already somewhat overtaxed.....so special attention would be needed to addressing the added heat issue which again gets into costlier aftermarket radiators and at some point starts to defeat the overall savings.

My guess is Robbie would have a good idea of how much compression bump a cruiser engine could take before it gets into necessitating a cooling system overhaul. Just a guess would be that "city" mpg would be impacted by 2mpg with a 1pt compression bump and timing bump.......but you really would need to make sure the engines cooling system was in tip top shape and that you were running a higher %water in your coolant to assist with cooling(this would probably not be applicable for those in colder climates).

 

[IdahoDoug]

First off, the 80s cooling system is not overtaxed in any way, shape or form. If you're having issues, there's something amiss with your system ranging from a previous owner's neglect to an aging fan clutch to 150,000 miles of dust accumulation in the radiator fins.

I've had both my 80s heads milled .010 and saw no fuel economy increase. Spending a ton of money to accomplish a MPG increase or so is questionable. Do the math as some above have and it will be apparent the choice is keep and drive the 80, or sell it and get a better fuel economy DD. Expecting to get significantly better economy in a 5500lb brick is a pipe dream whose folly is only exposed by pen and paper. Do that and you'll nod your head knowingly and forget about it. And I agree with Beo's point above that many on Mud these days are using faulty MPG measurements to "measure" unqualified MPG improvements from various mods. Slowing down is free and will provide measurable improvement.

DougM

 

[bugsnbikes]

Actually id argue that most peoples 5500lb bricks are doing significantly worse than 14city/16hwy by at least 2-4mpg due to 5500bricks that turn to 7k tanks real fast. Couple that with Roofracks-RTT- skinny pedal abuse- big fat tires-- and its easy to see how 10mpg city/12mpg can become the norm.

Id be curious to know what the .010 head milling equates to in compression point change on the cruiser? What lift you are running and how much added weight you have on your stock cruiser and what baseline mpg you were getting before the head milling given your driving habits.