Hi , I have an '06 dually crewcab stock looking for up grades. looking for better fuel mileage mainly. my 02 is stock except a bully dog cold air intake it sees 20-22 mpg . this 06 gets 16-18 at best. any help would be great. Thanks

 

Welcome to DTR!

16 to 18 MPG seems to be the norm for an '06 ..... that's what I get with mine, unless I keep my foot really light I can start knocking on 19 MPG. The second gen trucks have always gotten way better mileage and its an "apples oranges" comparison.

You could try a cetane booster (FPPF +8 Cetane Booster) to see if it helps improve your mileage. Other than that, keeping the air filter as clean as possible is the best way to have good mileage.




Kris

 

I've got an 07' and had the same mileage you posted with stock software, 5" exhaust and Valant intake. Uploaded Smarty REVO software level #9 and my mixed milage went up to 20-21mpg , driving for milelage mind you....

 

I have an 06 six speed with a airaid cold air intake, straight pipe from the turbo back, and a bully dog triple dog power pup with crazy larry. If I leave it on the economy level and take it easy I have gotten up to 23mpg before.

 

programmer, air filter, bed cover, and properly inflated tires. I have had the smarty and the PPE tuners and both are good. I gained 2 MPG on the highway with the rotax bed cover. Fighting the urge to blow the doors off the POS riceburner next to you is always good too. Good luck!!

 

Keeping the stock size tires is a good choice for mileage. It seems like every year the mileage gets worse. There is a farmer I know with a stock 92 that gets 26 occasionally on highway trips (60-65 mph). My friend with a turned up 94 gets 20 or so with normal driving and some burnouts. My 99 got 19 if I drove it right. My 01 dually got 18 if I drove it right and my 06 now gets 15-16.

*****also the overhead computer is a big liar on most trucks. Be sure when comparing with other people that you are both talking about "pump-checked" mileage. Usually with a chip or programmer I've noticed the computer "thinks" it's getting better mileage than it is!

 

Mods in sig. With the Smarty on level 7, I consistently see 2mpg better mileage (hand-calc'd) vs stock. I get 17-19 hand-calc'd with the smarty (the OH reads 25-28). BUT you have to keep your foot out of it.

 

A bed cover, or leaving the tailgate down, helps. I can put a bag of trash at the back of the bed, and the air hitting the tailgate will push it up to the cab-it takes a lot of air to move a heavy bag of trash like that. Every little bit of wind resistance that is dealt with will help.

 

No programmer, but bed cover and a 6 speed keep me about 17 town, and at 60-65 I can still pull 20 and Change.. But my truck started as a base model with 245/17's. I plan on going to 285/17's since i have a 1.5" lift up front and 1" out back (mainly to fill the gap). Plus, 4wd trucks tend to have slightly lower mpg's than the 2wd cousins...

 

you can get a huge increase in mpg on the 06 by removing the in cylinder egr. change the camshaft out to a pdr. change the nozzles to ddp 35 or 50 hp get a smarty jr and set on default tow and go to a 5" turbo back exhaust using Donaldson M090072 resonator and M101181 muffler. pdr sell so many of the cams that they are out of stock a lot of the time if they are out call colt and tell them what you are doing you are looking for a low rpm high torque cam for towing. if you use only the parts and sizes listed you will decrease egt by 300* increase mpg to 24 mpg and reduce carbon in the oil by 75% how this works takes up two pages but it does work and the engine runs a lot smoother

 

You would never be able to make up the cost with the added fuel mileage....

 

I started with modding the stock air box using the PSM mod and saw no real mpg gains, maybe .5 in the overall. I was getting the normal 16 mpgs. I changed out the intake horn for a better flowing one, saw a little gain there also. I changed the intake plenum for better flow to the #1 and #6 cyls, mostly for the #6 since that is the one that gets the hottest, saw better EGT temps.

I tow a lot, tow heavy, so mileage to me is not what I was looking at the most, it was towing performance. I installed twins to get better towing performance, and they certainly changed everything to a much more positive experience.

Adding the 5" exhaust made a world of difference too. You do need to have your in/out air flow more balanced, what you do to one end you need to do to the other.

I am seeing over 20mpg running empty, and seeing the 16mpg I started with when towing 12K.

You can go to a cam to get rid of the 3rd injector event and clean up your oil, I just went to a bypass filter to get rid of the soot particles that do the greatest amount of damage.

CD

 

Making changes for mileage is tricky. For example, you could spend $350 for a fancy air filter, and gain 1mpg. Do the math on that one.

A bed cover does help. Dropping the tailgate will make things worse. Every test ever done on this subject proves. Of course, there's always one guy who claims that his truck is differant.

Oddly enough, keeping the water temp a little on the high side gains some mileage in the iwnter. I don;t know why, but it does. So keep the winter cover on as long as possible.

I want to try an experiment of blocking the radiater and keeping the intercooler uncovered and see what happens.

A computer tune will usually gain 1-2mpg. But, again, that's expensive and will take a while to pay for itself.

Driving style effects your mileage the most. Cruising the back roads at 45-55mph, I get 23-25mpg. Crusiing down the highway at 80mph, I get about 19mpg. Around town driving and commuting I get about 15mpg.

The bottom line is this is a 3.5 ton vehicle that's about as aerodynamic as your garage. It takes a lot of energy to move it around.

 

Your foot, tire size, style and inflation make the most difference. When I first upgraded my tires to aggressive tread and larger my mileage went to crap. I was freaking out, I can't see driving a 15 mpg truck on the highway daily. I only had 40psi in them. filled them up to 60 and the mileage went up to 20ish on highway. Now I have a slightly less aggressive tread in the same size and picked up another 1 al around. Then the 5" exhaust gave me another 1 with the Volant intake. I regularly get 21 and 22 on long freeway runs but only if I control the urge to put my foot down. The mileage drops off to as low as 17 if I put the foot down. I did not notice any difference with the bed cover but it is a hard top, diamond plate unit with tie-downs.

Mostly, if you want mileage, control your foot and keep the speed down. I know how hard it is as I love driving this truck.

 

boB you gain nothing at all with the air filter change. the psm kit and the new mopar filter is the very best you can get. most like the afe stage ll actually loose about 0.5 mpg. i run a fleet of trucks and drive more miles than other's on here. but i paid $800 for the nozzles $550 for the cam shaft $700 for the exhaust and about $600 for the smarty jr. that totals about $3,000 pay back was just shy of one year. the only reason the exhaust is high i like quiet. i was getting 15 mpg stock and now getting 24. some of the other things we did when trying every thing we could to improve mpg although some of them worked they fall into the category of very long term pay back. the cfm+ is one of them. the dynatrac free spin hubs will take a 1,000,000 miles. i destroyed the straightening vanes in the filter to turbo before i realized what they were and when i went to get a new one i was shocked at what they wanted for it. that is when i installed the coolhose and t.a.g. this brought the turbo efficiency back up and even had a slight improvement but at a very long pay back. the airtabs on the truck and trailer works and pay back is short.