MPG improvements on a Ford 400

[LEB Ben]

Joe...out of curiousity what made you decide to go with an AOD instead of an OD unit? Has the AOD been beefed any? Personally, I've never had any luck with AOD's behind stock small blocks, much less a decent 400.

 

[hollenjoe]

An AOd well built would kill any stock c6, they are getting really famous around hot roders, and OD units are way to expensive 3-4k. A good junkyard aod can be had around 100-200 bucks and a good 700hp rebuilt with stout parts can go around 1000 bucks, besides pantera fellas, why do you think small bellhousing pattern 400s are desirable? Now days an aluminium big block adapter goes for 300 bucks.

Theres also the wide ratio gears, you can have an awsome 2.84 1st (2.46 c6), 1.55 2nd (1.46 c6) a normal 3rd 1.00 and the 0.67 4th, for great acceleration and geat highway performace keeping very good mpg.

If you ca do the work yourself this is a heck of unpgrade..

Im about to finish my 400, in a month this will be my next project...

 

[hollenjoe]

These guys are using them to drag race behind 460 and to be able to go home on a 800 hp car, now my engine is putting 425 hp im not really needing a 1000hp aod,

http://www.429-460.com/transmission-tech-f7/aod-behind-a-bbf-t526.htm

As everything, for people, Aods are crap as 400 "m" are crap, they just werent any good in stock form, now potencial is a different thing, theres the real value for me... who runs anything stock these days?

 

[LEB Ben]

Thanks for all the info Joe...pretty good stuff there.

 

[TexasNomad]

turn the key off, worked every time on my 460...

 

[LEB Ben]

turn the key off, worked every time on my 460...

But then you can't drive it. Point of this thread wasn't to make a dentside fuel efficient. The point was with some routine maintenance and some slight upgrades, you could do better...and drastically IMO...but even after all that work, you still have a 10mpg rig.

 

[Truckin4life]

If your worried about fuel efficency, toyota has a car built just for you!

Trucks especially ones with Big Blocks in em DO NOT come with fuel efficency.

 

[LEB Ben]

If your worried about fuel efficency, toyota has a car built just for you!

Trucks especially ones with Big Blocks in em DO NOT come with fuel efficency.

No doubt...agreed 100%. But as stated several times now in this thread...it wasn't about becoming fuel efficient. It was more a 'look at what I did'...'these are the results'...'this is about as good as you can do.' Because there's always some newbie out there wondering how to improve his mpg's.

Kinda like the 6litre tuneup over on FSB. No one is expecting a hyper miler, but they are expecting their rig to run better, be a little more responsive and are willing to accept whatever other advantages come along with it.

 

[Truckin4life]

I say run race gas through it....

Then hit it with the occasional shot of da nawwwwwzzzzzzzz

 

[TexasNomad]

But then you can't drive it. Point of this thread wasn't to make a dentside fuel efficient. The point was with some routine maintenance and some slight upgrades, you could do better...and drastically IMO...but even after all that work, you still have a 10mpg rig.

well by that time im to blast to find the gas pedal..

 

[LEB Ben]

well by that time im to blast to find the gas pedal..

Start to finish, it only took about 10 hours. I'm sure throughout the course of a month you could piece together 10 sober hours to work on your truck.

 

[1985 Ford F-150]

Just filled up the 72 again and only got 3 trips in and out of work no city drivin just highway.

 

[LEB Ben]

FWIW...I realized the middle of last week I forgot to replace the air filter and my city mpg's jumped anoter .5mpg with included flogging. A couple tanks of normal driving have yielded an average 11.3 mpg's city.

 

[havi]

These guys are using them to drag race behind 460 and to be able to go home on a 800 hp car, now my engine is putting 425 hp im not really needing a 1000hp aod,

Speak for yourself, lol.