Pa to Denver 454
I haven't been out west and was looking at going either route 70 or 80 and was wondering if there are any hard hills for an RV on these roads? Looking at going out in June. If there are mountains, is ...
Forum Discussion
We did 8000 miles back in 2011 with our 1992 P30 454 TBI chassis that took us in a loop from KY through Badlands, Yellowstone, Great Salt Lake, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Yosemite, Carlsbad CA, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Four Corners, Roswell NM, Tx and back to KY.
The engine and transmission did just fine in the mountains and long grades.
Did quickly learn to keep the RPM's no less than 3500 when climbing. The only time I got concerned was when by error we took the Old Priest Run into Yosemite that we had to pull in 1st gear and I think max was about 1800 RPM. That was the longest four miles in my life.
A set of good spark plug wires would be good to have if yours is getting some age.
By the way the 3500 RPM when climbing will help insure the 454 engine and transmission stay cool. When dragging out that Old Priest Run the engine temp gauge kissed the Red zone but did not enter it. I do not even remember looking that the transmission temp gauge.
One thing that helped on that trip was we had just moved to metric tires which gave us a 2.5% lower gearing ration that helped with the hills and MPG. On the 5-30 mile grades I would get out of OD before we lost RPM because once the RPM is lost they are hard to regain. We did a lot of grades in 2nd gear so we could keep up our RPM's and to improve time and MPG. If you ever find your gas pedal on the floor on an Interstate you are in too high of a gear it seemed in our case.
Engine braking was all we needed for speed control on that trip but in some of the parks that meant 1st gear in a few places but 2nd/3rd were fine for engine braking most of the time.
The engine and transmission did just fine in the mountains and long grades.
Did quickly learn to keep the RPM's no less than 3500 when climbing. The only time I got concerned was when by error we took the Old Priest Run into Yosemite that we had to pull in 1st gear and I think max was about 1800 RPM. That was the longest four miles in my life.
A set of good spark plug wires would be good to have if yours is getting some age.
By the way the 3500 RPM when climbing will help insure the 454 engine and transmission stay cool. When dragging out that Old Priest Run the engine temp gauge kissed the Red zone but did not enter it. I do not even remember looking that the transmission temp gauge.
One thing that helped on that trip was we had just moved to metric tires which gave us a 2.5% lower gearing ration that helped with the hills and MPG. On the 5-30 mile grades I would get out of OD before we lost RPM because once the RPM is lost they are hard to regain. We did a lot of grades in 2nd gear so we could keep up our RPM's and to improve time and MPG. If you ever find your gas pedal on the floor on an Interstate you are in too high of a gear it seemed in our case.
Engine braking was all we needed for speed control on that trip but in some of the parks that meant 1st gear in a few places but 2nd/3rd were fine for engine braking most of the time.
