Pa to Denver 454

[winpa4k]

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 snow still an issue? This is a 94 Brave is excellent condition mechanically.

I appreciate your input, hoping you can show me some perspective of the difficulty I be facing.

Thanks

[paulm999]

FYI, if you think of doing a day trip above Denver, say to Aspen or Vail, always check the weather up at the Eisenhower tunnels, even in the summer. I've encountered snow, ice, and blizzard conditions traveling up there on I-70 in early August.

[jonmad]

Lots of knowledge and experience on this forum.... What a great resource.... Just sayin.??

[Gale_Hawkins]

We found in the 32' Pursuit with the 92 454 TBI brake use was only required when grades were >10 which one does not see on interstates if we geared down the transmission. It was kind of funny on our run through the west by way of Yellowstone, CA and the Grand Canyon we never ever went down a grade worse than getting out of Kingdom Come KY state park. 🙂

[turbojimmy]

carp65 wrote:
The elevation to Denver is a slow climb beginning in western Kansas. No
real mountains until after Denver on I-70. Eisenhower Tunnel is 11+ thousand
feet. We have done it many times in our 2005 GeorgieBoy with a Ford V-10

I've done the climb from Denver to Copper Mountain (12,000 feet) lots of times in an SUV, but the thought of doing it in my RV scares me to death. It's hard work for my rental Suburbans (can barely do the speed limit up, and brakes get hot going down). I've seen RVs out there and I have a lot of respect for people that venture out there with them. Big rigs, too. Long, slow climbs and steep, long descents. You can see the runaway truck ramps get lots of use by the tire tracks in them.

It would be really cool to get out there in my old Allegro just to say I did it, but I don't see it happening.

[carp65]

The elevation to Denver is a slow climb beginning in western Kansas. No
real mountains until after Denver on I-70. Eisenhower Tunnel is 11+ thousand
feet. We have done it many times in our 2005 GeorgieBoy with a Ford V-10

[Gale_Hawkins]

Ken the 8.1L version seemed to be the apex of big block engineering in the USA then it got taken out by more advanced and lighter engines I guess. The heads on the 8.1 I think could move more air through the intake so that would have helped with cooling. Ours will kiss the red on hard low speed pulls in 1st gear but never did overheat. I expect you are correct on the water pump flow rate. I could not ask for a better engine for our use than our 1992 454 TBI engine but the house is showing its age.

[ckwizard777]

seems to be only a concern with the 454,every one that I owned ya had to watch the temperature and it always got better with higher rpm.
I don't have the issue with my 8.1 it's like the water pump flows better at lower rpm.
Other than that they are bullet proof.
Enjoy your trip!

[Gale_Hawkins]

turbojimmy wrote:

Gale Hawkins wrote:
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.

I learned this last year during my first season with my 454. It's an '84 and only has a 3-speed TH400, but when it started to get warm on long grades I instinctively slowed down and it got even hotter. One day it was getting warm again, but I need to get around a slow-moving truck in order to get to a left-side exit. I sped up to about 70-75 MPH and the coolant temp dropped like a rock! Now I've learned to keep the RPMs up when it starts to get warm. I have a trans temp gauge, too, but curiously it was never hooked up. No wires to the lights or the sender. It's on the to-do list.

TurboJimmy that was interesting how you discovered how to keep a 454 engine cool in a MH. It was like on our 3 day of our 31 day trip in 2011 and we got off the Interstate and headed up to Mount Rushmore. I was pulling those first grades in 3rd as it dropped out of OD/4th on its own but the engine temp kept rising and I got very concerned knowing we were going to CA and back to KY.

I got on the gas harder and it down shifted to 2nd and very quickly the engine temp not only dropped back to normal range but even a few degrees below normal. Clearly gas engines do not like to be lugged down on the hills. 🙂

At Wide Open Throttle (WOT) ours will up shift at 4000 RPM. That is at 35 MPH from 1st to 2nd and about 58 MPH for the 2nd to 3rd automatic shift point at WOT. Not having an OD gear as in your case has almost not negative effect in a MH. We did a lot of miles in 2nd and 3rd gear on that 8000 mile trip to the Pacific Ocean.

Mentally I use 4000 RPM as the red line since that was GM's programmed WOT shift point but from the best I could find GM actually considered 4500 RPM as the official red line in big trucks. Now we have the Ford 429 (same block at 460 in many MH's) and the red line is more like 5000 RPM it seems. It is in a 1989 Ford F700 truck with a 16' flat dump bed.

Many complain that the big block V-8 engines are bad about running hot. Short of a bad radiator and/or fan clutch from my personal experience over heating is due to operator error of running them at low RPM's when under heavy load is is the case 100% of the time in a MH. 🙂

[Veebyes]

Best CG near Longmont is the St Vrain SP. Be sure to stay on the power only side. Much nicer. The FHU area is like an open desert.

Also, if you can spare a little extra time, don't even worry with 70 or 80. Get on 36 at first convenient point. It is a mix of 2 & 4 lane, has bypasses around most major towns but slow downs for the few light or no light towns. So much more to see than riding the interstate with the trucks & everyone in a big hurry.

[Thom02099]

As others have said, there's no problems at all coming out here to the Denver area. You'll have more hills/twisties in western PA than you'll have anywhere else along either I-70 or I-80. Keep in mind that it's a very VERY gradual climb from the Mississippi River to Denver via either route. There's some gentle rolling hills in Iowa if you take I-80, but certainly nothing more than what you're accustomed to in PA.

If you take I-80, when you get to western Nebraska, take I-76 from Julesburg CO toward Denver and get off on exit 31/Hudson exit for CO 52. Take that west all the way to US 287, that will put you on the south end of Longmont, and head north to whatever your destination is.

[TomB_]

You will not have any major hills on I70 after Wheeling, WV until about 90 miles east of Denver, CO. The hardest part of this route will be enduring the 12 hours it takes to get past all those Kansas wheat fields. And if one of those fields catches fire, all you will smell for the next several hours will be burnt toast... 😞

Short story is your 454 will do just fine on the trip. :B

[turbojimmy]

Gale Hawkins wrote:
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.

I learned this last year during my first season with my 454. It's an '84 and only has a 3-speed TH400, but when it started to get warm on long grades I instinctively slowed down and it got even hotter. One day it was getting warm again, but I need to get around a slow-moving truck in order to get to a left-side exit. I sped up to about 70-75 MPH and the coolant temp dropped like a rock! Now I've learned to keep the RPMs up when it starts to get warm. I have a trans temp gauge, too, but curiously it was never hooked up. No wires to the lights or the sender. It's on the to-do list.

[hoopers]

I don't believe there are any passes between Denver and PA, at least anything worth worrying about.

Since you will be in Longmont, if you have a chance and like micro-brews, stop by the Left Hand Brewery. Very good.

Estes Park is not far from Longmont either. Pearl Street mall in Boulder is another popular destination.

left hand

[Gale_Hawkins]

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.