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After a month of looking for an opportunity I finally got the chance to try drafting a truck up Mount Rose (the twisting, winding, climbing Nevada State Highway 431) from Reno to Lake Tahoe this morning. It was a FedEx panel truck that I picked up near the base of the mountain.

To make a long story short, even without a ScanGauge II (it should be here any day now) I could tell that I used 10-15% more fuel than on my normal solo-style drive just from how far I was pushing the gas pedal down (Should we even call it a gas pedal anymore considering it's more an air pedal, and the ECU handles the gas? hehe).

He kept powering out of the corners (like most folks on this highway do, even if there's just another 30 MPH turn up ahead) and I kept mashing the pedal further and further down to try and stay within a car's length of him. This is where I burned more fuel than usual.

It was worth a shot but from now on I'll stick to drafting on ground that lends itself to terminal velocities, though I rarely travel in those kinds of areas.

Hi BailOut:

___Once you receive your SG-II, you are going to find out about a lot of things related to the 4 types of drafts, what P&G is really worth, where to pull a FAS, best practices in the accel category for a given condition and how temps, road conditions and traffic can and will effect your overall segment FE. Not all close-ins are worth the price of admission and if it’s not working out, you will back out and find something else that works vs. the blind guess. I have a feeling you are going to enjoy your SG-II very very much ;)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

BailOut

It sounds like there were timing issues. Also when drafting. Corners can hurt us unless we are doing a close in draft. Im not a fan of close in drafting. But a pro at surfing, side draft and distance draft. When I feel like working it.

Drafting can help on hills tho.

psy

Hi BailOut:

___Once you receive your SG-II, you are going to find out about a lot of things related to the 4 types of drafts, what P&G is really worth, where to pull a FAS, best practices in the accel category for a given condition and how temps, road conditions and traffic can and will effect your overall segment FE. Not all close-ins are worth the price of admission and if it’s not working out, you will back out and find something else that works vs. the blind guess. I have a feeling you are going to enjoy your SG-II very very much ;)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Wayne,
Is there a tutorial somewhere on that? Since getting my SG-II, I don't think it is really helping me that much. I can see when we're up to temp and it does seem helpful to monitor TPS to see how really hard I am pushing but beyond that I am not getting much..

FYI, Little Red and I pulled our best segment yesterday, 87.6 for a 28.8mile segment from Pleasanton UP and over the Sunol grade, through silicon valley over to Mt. View.. a new route and I even made a bad turn and had to U to get back on course. Got a pretty good draft for a few miles from a semi at 60+, so the trip wasn't even that slow. FAS down the backside of the grade and other places made most of my improvement as well as spring weather I think..

Gary
Little Red (retired Beauty)
Dublin, CA

Hi Gary:

___The SG-II cannot interpret Lean-burn correctly so your mpg readouts will be FUBAR but your Insight’s OEM i and aFCD’s are far superior anyway. I used the iFCD as my guide and the FCD button and its output ==> as the segment achievement. Trip A was used for tanks and Trip B for RT’s back and forth to work or the occasional offbeat but lengthy segment. LMPG was LMPG of course. If you are battling those hills/mountains heading in towards the coast, you have to be FAS’ing down the entire back side if possible or you will never make up for the climb. Just the way of an Insight is all … Drafting in an Insight was also a waste of effort unless you found the odd steady 50 mph anything which in this day in age is all but non-existent.

___Here is a pic of one of those odd moments in which a panel van was traveling down the interstate in the mid to high 30’s for some reason while I was on the way back from the Tour De Sol last year. I pulled into a distant and let her camp for probably 75 miles pacing this guy but I am positive I will never receive that gift ever again?

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/516/37_MPH_down_Interstate_on_the_way_Home.JPG

___Great segment by the way. Once you start tightening up your FAS points or travel less hilly areas where you can maintain lean-burn while DWl and DWB at 50 mph or so, your 100 miler will be in the bag :)

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Thanks Wayne,
Great draft, yeah if I found one of those I would take it too! Out here I am finding I pretty much run in the mid 50's to keep the road rage away.. so when I get a good draft it is mostly around 60.. but I can see on the FCD that it is better than mid 50's by myself. On my good draft Friday we were being helped by other semi's and other traffic speeding past in the next lane too :Banane31:
Hey, in the picture you are out of gas!! I guess Little Red was running on the fumes left in the charcol cannister ;)

Yes, tightening up the FAS is helping, need more practice, and a hardware solution (key off-on takes alot of time so short ops are not possible). I am making lots of use of my "Calpod" switch to save the pack on the way up so I can FAS down and not have to use that to re-charge as in the past before I was FASing.

Gary

Problem with drafting, at least in my experience, is the more
manic-depressive right foot behavior one must do to better match
the speed of the target. But it totally screws up your terrain
timing. I found that I do better in the Prius by letting
the trucks slowly stream around me and just soloing based on
what *I* want to do, not what they're doing.
.
I suppose I could practice and get better, but I really don't
like the risk that one of them is going to throw an "alligator"
unexpectedly or kick up rocks or whatever. At my usual distance
I've seen trucks shed all kinds of stuff, and by the time I
get to it it's safely bouncing to a stop along the road
instead of flying up onto my windshield.
.
_H*