Monday, April 20, 2009

fuel suckage

I reinsured my truck this weekend gone by and went for a drive down to Bellingham. I got a nasty surprise in my trucks fuel consumption. The Low Fuel indicator went off while driving on the I-5, I was cruising at an average of about 110Km. In my past experience I normally get at least a good half hour of driving after the Low Fuel warning goes on, and even then I have never ran out of fuel. I don’t think we drove for even ten minutes before I lost power. Surprised, I pulled into the slow lane and let her coast. It wasn’t long before the engine cut out after I shifted into neutral. I thought we would be stranded on the I-5, but we happened to be on a long gradual gradient so we coasted for about 5 kilometers, and at the end of that grade low and behold we had an exit with a gas station. With my hazards on I blew through a stop sign breaking only slightly in an effort to preserve as much kinetic energy as possible. I even cut off the road and cut a corner through a gravel patch to get to the gas station. We came to a stop about 25 meters shy of the pump and had to resort to pushing the old beast the last bit of the way. I must say I have been close before, but this was the luckiest out of gas experience I have had.

After I filled up, I kept an eye on the gauge. The consumption is horrendous. Unfortunately I didn’t track mileage but I could practically see the gauge move downwards while driving. I remembered a little later that I had dropped my tire pressure for extra snow traction last winter when Vancouver got pummeled with snow. I’m hoping that this is the root cause of my dismal km/L’s. I have decided that I’m going to optimize the truck for fuel consumption, starting with putting the correct pressure in my tires. Other ideas include installing a real-time fuel consumption gauge, K&N air in take, electric radiator fans and possibly an after market exhaust. I want to do these optimizations incrementally so that I can see how much value each change gives me.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Pirates

The international outrage over the Somalian pirate problem is hard to take. Yes the pirates are doing wrong but to look at the effect without considering the cause is, as always, foolish. Two interesting writeups about sea-based-piracy.

In Defense of Pirates (The Old Time Ones)

You are being lied to about Pirates

And just for the comedic value: Vikings versus Pirates