Hey! That's my car!
I just joined the Gadgetman forum and have signed on as a soon-to-be-certified Gadgetman.
I made the trip to CO and told friends about my experience with the groove and they said that I should learn it and then do it to their cars. A seed of an idea was planted, one thing lead to another, and now I'm part of the Gadgetman family.
Puling the empty trailer from Missouri out to Denver I had 36mpg.
In Denver with the trailer dropped, city driving, I was experiencing 43 to 46mpg.
Did a day trip up in the mountains and back. They whole day trip averaged 41mpg.
On the way back to MO the trailer was fully loaded and I had 34mpg. This is better then the 32mpg I had for a trip with the lightly-loaded trailer down to GA and back (before the groove). I wonder how much difference the altitude made.
The hills around Branson are crazy big. When I leave my driveway I feel like I am in the space shuttle, almost lying on my back, so it's not a good place to get an accurate mpg reading. I am getting about 43mpg now. I think the vehicle computer is confused because of all the hills, pulling a trailer, mountain driving and now just the car again back in MO. I'm not driving a lot right now so it will take a while for the computer to work itself out to see what the actual affect of the groove is.
With these hills, I am doing little to no down shifting like I was before on the big hills, so the extra power is very noticeable. And now I can get up to highway speed while I am still on the entrance ramp going uphill.
You were talking about the vac system. I am new to this part of it, so there is a lot to learn. Do you think there is something else to improve the groove's performance? I am willing and interested to try that next step.
Dan Grieve
Ava, MO (moving next month to a flatter place!)