valhalla360 wrote:
....Sure, you will burn some fuel if you want to keep it at 70mph up a grade but considering your average gas engine starts with north of 350hp, even if it loses 25% (equivalent to around 8000ft altitude), that still leaves you 260hp, which should be plenty to keep the speed up with such a light load.
Most Colorado mountain passes have top speed limits of 50, and occasionally 60, mph. Switchback curves of 15 or 25 mph. More important to be able to speed back up from switchbacks, not keeping 70 mph (rare). My gasser does the speed ups fine. Also, I tend to get out of cruise control and even manually shift my auto tranny to avoid the "searching" in the climb up, then engine help holding back on the way down.
My toughest climb was Fremont Pass from Leadville to Copper Mountain with the lack of oxygen at 12000' and no passing lanes to let idiots go by. Pretty much steady 5000 rpm for power. :R
Rick
