EdNdonna wrote:
how's the rig doing?
It's doing well! I just went through Tipton 10 days ago (I am originally from the Shafter/Bakersfield area)! I have now gotten back from that trip and am able to give a more complete response.
The following is a report that I just posted on the FMC Owners Club website. It should bring you up to date as it includes a mileage check on flat ground and one in the mountains.
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Since I now have just under 5,000 miles on my conversion, I thought that I would do an update.
The first thing to note is that I am very happy with what I call the "drivability" of the coach. I like the ease of merging with traffic at speed, not slowing down for most hills, engine starting in a revolution or two, butter smooth shifting, a 700 mile fueling range, an even quieter interior and other smaller factors. Many people are interested in what my fuel mileage is as that is a significant factor with any motor home. Historically, with the 440 I got about 7.0 mpg most of the time. That is probably about average for an FMC.
As expected, I have seen a significant increase. Since fuel mileage varies with driving style, weather, terrain etc. I decided to do some close measurements under specific conditions to help define what was occurring rather than just post a series of numbers. So on a recent trip to CA I decided to do a flat land test and a mountain test.
The flat land test was from Redding, CA to Bakersfield then back north to Santa Nella, CA. That was a run of 674 miles over three days time. The first half of the trip was with a storm coming in and a lot of cross wind. The second half was with relatively calm winds. I also made five diversionary trips into towns for various reasons so it was not all straight down the freeway driving. I spent most of the time in the truck lane at 60-63 mph as it was a comfortable driving speed and I didn't want to be in and out of the 70+ mph left lane. The net result was that I got 14.7 mpg for that segment of the trip. I was not towing the Subaru Brat.
For the mountain segment, I went from Redding, CA home to Cottage Grove, OR. The beginning and end of the trip were at a similar altitude with an initial gradual climb from Redding to Weed at 3,900 ft. It then dropped down to the Shasta river and back up to 3,000 ft then back down to the Klamath river. Those were 4 or 5 mile 5 & 6% grades after some flat stretches. It then went from the Klamath river down in the canyon up to the top of the Siskiyou pass in Oregon at a little over 4,100 ft which is the highest point on I-5. After dropping down the 7 mile 6% grade into Ashland it became a series of ridge crossing with the first several at the 2,000 ft level then into the valleys in between. As I continued north, the ups and downs became less significant until I reached home in Cottage Grove. Again, I was primarily in the truck lane except when passing trucks on grades. When descending 6% grades, I slipped the Allison 6 speed tranny into third gear (which is the same gearing as second gear in the 727 tranny) and came down the grades at 50-55 mph without needing to use the brakes.
The mountain portion of the trip was 301 miles and the coach got 13.3 mpg which is a respectable number for mountain driving in my opinion.
With those two numbers in mind and the conditions that created them, I expect my long term number to be somewhere in between them. Towing the Brat will probably reduce those numbers by a mile per gallon. Even with this kind of fuel mileage, it will take a lot of miles to recover most of the cost of the conversion excluding the unpaid labor cost for myself and the others who invested significant hours as well.
But, yes, I am glad that I did it and hope to see all of you on the road or at a future rally. Schedule yourself for the June Mega Rally in Carthage, MO and you may have the opportunity to take my coach for a test drive.
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There is now a second FMC owner converting his coach to a Duramax with 6 speed Allison.
Here is the link to his thread.In the Rally section of the above FMC Owners Club forum is the information about the June rally. You are welcome to stop by and view the coach and maybe get that test drive mentioned above.
