Fuel Economy

Range Technology · December 21, 2012

Hi there. My name is Adam Raper and I am the founder of a fuel economy company called Range. We only support GM trucks and SUVs with Active Fuel Management and we have had great results in maximizing the amount of time vehicles can spend in 4 cylinder mode.

While I hope that you guys may try Range if you are interested in economy - I wanted to start a new thread to discuss fuel economy in general - tips, tricks, technology and allow you guys to ask some questions of our engineers about economy and AFM.

Range is new here, but I was previously the CEO of Superchips and worked with our engineers at Edge Products after that. So hopefully we can reconnect with some old friends.

Best,

Adam

8.1HD/ALLISON · December 21, 2012

Welcome! Sounds interesting. I often wondered if some programming could be done to change the AFM parameters. I never had any luck in keeping the trucks in 4 cylinder mode when I preped them back at the dealer, even on flat straightaways at 55 mph. I would be very interested if I had a vehicle with AFM, who wouldn't? Don't think that was an option on the 8.1 LOL Love to hear more about how this works.

Josh · December 21, 2012

Welcome to the site Adam!!

I've definitely noticed that these trucks could kick in the AFM a lot more than it does.. I know AFM drives a few guys on here nutty... but it doesn't bother me.

We will be installing a Range on Project Sierra very soon and will give everyone our initial thoughts as well as our longer test results.

We tend to do a lot of in town driving.. to the dump, to get gravel or mulch, lawn equipment and very soon snow blowers. We typically get 15-17 mpg avg for the tank.

Range Technology · December 21, 2012

Matt:

What was interesting with what we found is that the AFM "wants" to kick in more, but GM stops it from doing so. See below:

We can only assume they do this for driveability reasons - but we remove these restrictions and the vehicles drive great. We also widen the definitions of load so the V8 doesn't kick in so fast. The best part is that we don't have to reprogram the factory ECU. I will keep close to the vest how we actually do it - but it does not recalibrate.

Crazy, huh?

Adam

8.1HD/ALLISON · December 21, 2012

Wow, Technology is great isn't it? (when it works) lol I also wondered, for fuel economy sake, why don't they put it in v4 mode when you are stopped at lights? and when in park idling? Do you change that too?

Range Technology · December 22, 2012

Great question. They keep it in V8 mode while stopped and while in idle mostly to keep the cats warm. They also do so because dropping 4 cylinders at that low RPM would feel pretty rough. That is an area that they do not allow 4 cylinder mode at all.

8.1HD/ALLISON · December 22, 2012

Makes sense.

pm26 · December 22, 2012

Makes sense.

It does?

MikeNH · December 22, 2012

It does?

Yes. One of the car mags reported the same thing about idle quality concerns when AFM first came out on the V8 W-bodies (Impala, Grand Prix, Monte Carlo) back in like 2004/5 I think.

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AgDoctor · December 22, 2012

Drove my pile 760 miles last weekend hauling a trailer and 2 ATVs down the interstate(doing 75). Got a whopping 11 mpg there and back. I do have 275/70-18 E range BFGs though. I am not really complaining. Any extra mpg would be great though.

Range Technology · December 22, 2012

To introduce myself, I'm Ken Mosher ... I did a bunch of the engineering on the Range device. I had a 2011 Tahoe 4WD development vehicle for almost 30K miles of dyno and "real world" driving for this project. Quite interesting and the GM engineers are pretty smart with what they did.

Pretty cool stuff, if I do say so! Anyway, great community here and I've already enjoyed quite a bit from looking through the forums (especially some of the towing stuff ... very nice!)

8.1HD/ALLISON · December 22, 2012

Welcome Ken!

cs300823 · December 24, 2012

Welcome Adam and Ken I like the sounds of the new RANGE technology sure sounds like a good investment I am going to have to check into one of these real soon. ;0)