explorer gas milage

if have a 97 4 door explorer 5.0 all wheel drive the gas milage sucks to say the least. My question is i was told i have 373 or 410 gears can i swap both center sections and put 279 or something to help with gas milage?
my therory is it would bring my rpms down at 55 or 65 what im running most of the time..............what do you all think????????????/

 

no advice whats wrong everbody always give advice....................

 

those deep gears probably help get that big thing moving. what kind of trans do you have and whats the current gas milage? i would think if your in the high teens with mpgs your doing pretty well

 

lower gears equal better cruising gas mileage. 2.70 will cruise at ( I make the following numbers up) maybe 70 mph at 2500 rpm. Lower gears, such as 3.80 will give you 70 mph at 3200 rpm...higher revving at same rpm means more gas being consumed. But it will get there much faster.

 

those axles are 8.8's, they don't have a removable center section like the maverick where you can just change the pumpkin. You'd have to rebuild the whole axle, and it probably won't help the gas mileage, the engine will have to work harder to get all that weight moving. There is a writeup in the internet about wiring in a switch to turn the all wheel drive off, which is pretty benificial, try explorer4x4.com

 

current numbers are 13 to 14 on the highway................

 

Is your overdrive working ok?17-20 is about the best I've ever heard of in those,so I'd look into some tuning,you should be averaging around 15 city/hwy as long as you're not pulling a trailer or loading it down a bunch.

 

overdrive seems to be working fine. As far as tuning i have put new plugs pcv valve air filter you no basic stuff on it. I havent put plug wires on though. Do you think a flowmaster and a cold air kit would help or just a wast of money?????????

 

If your overdrive is working and you have a totally stock Explorer (no huge tires, etc.), you should be at around 1800 rpm or so at 55 mph. You don't want to cruise at an rpm much lower than that (my opinion). My sister has a '99 Mountaineer with 3.73 gears and limited slip, 5.0 (with GT40P heads), and overdrive tranny. Hers is two wheel drive and gets about 17 mpg going back and forth to work and about 23 mpg on the highway - running at 75 mph. I will say that she keeps this vehicle meticulously well maintained.

 

at 65 my tach is at around 2100..................

 

If your tire size and my sister's are the same, I would guess you have a 4.10 gear. That, plus the AWD, is the difference in the gas mileage between the two. She runs 75 mph at about 2200 rpm.

Your overdrive tranny drops your 4.10 down to about a 2.79. Her 3.73 gets dropped to about a 2.55. These are educated guesses and not actual. Based on these guesses, you probably don't want a gear ratio lower than about 3.50 to 3.55.

 

what size tires do you have, and are you still running the stock rims?

some after market tire and rim combos are very heavy.= poor mpg

Wider than stock tires of the same height have more rolling resistance. = poor mpg

 

i have stock wheels and the tires are 235 75 15 i dont know if that is stock or not on the tires though.........................

 

Based your tire height of 28.88 and 65 mph @ 2100 RPM, that equals a final drive ratio of 2.77 to 1. With overdrive automatic tranny, my better educated guess is that you have a 4.10 gear in that truck. A 3.73 would be better, but I'm not sure it's worth the cost.

 

thanks for your input maybe ill just buy somthing cheep on gas and park it for now.....