We Didn't Expect This - Here's What adding a Camper To Your Pickup Does to Your Fuel Economy!

[Music] [Applause] trucks like this one are becoming very popular it's a heavy-duty diesel truck in this case a ram cummins and it has a camper on the back a four-wheel camper in this case but building a truck like this lifted up on big off-road tires and overland rig how does that affect your highway fuel efficiency and your long range well that's exactly what i'm gonna answer in this video you will see a standard ram comment truck on this highway loop and you will see the result right there that i did actually a couple years ago and then i'll show you exactly what this built up four wheel camper hawk ram comments does on the highway test and i'm also going to show you a couple of little tips about how to identify the best ram diesel truck so let's get going i'm gonna do this test in the most scientific way that i can i'm gonna go about 50 miles or so on i-25 here north of denver and i'm going to let you know exactly the results i have uh at the pump not at the trip meter and i'm also going to show you a video i did at the same fuel station right here and i ran this very same loop and actually that was several years ago but it was basically the same engine it was the 6.7 liter diesel cummins with the six-speed automatic transmission 68 rfe and i can show you that footage right now so you can see my results okay so i'm getting on the highway now this is our northbound leg of the test we're on pretty much equivalent distance north and south the whole trip is approximately 43 and a half miles [Music] oh good all right let's let's see how much fuel we use on this loop same thing i'm gonna let it click on its own and then click one more time [Music] okay let's see what the calculation tells us um we went we're gonna use the the route distance which is 43.6 miles so 43.6 divide by 1.763 which was the gallons we used wow so the result is 24.7 24.7 based on the calculation it's a little bit higher than what the trip computer told me and that is really excellent [Music] all right guys so i'm using our standard method which is fill up wait about 30 seconds and pop off but because this truck has a custom norweld aluminum flatbed the filler is a little bit different so i'll show you that in a second [Music] [Applause] how's that's a beast looking thing you like this beast yeah [Music] probably yes so i'm going to wait about 30 seconds and pop off and then get on the road [Music] all right there it is it's topped off okay so i'm filled up i i put in about 27 gallons i was about a half tank yes uh this is an optional ram factory 50 gallon diesel tank i also happen to be full on def this truck has almost 9 000 miles it's fully broken in and i'm going to reset my trip meter even though i'm going to be using my altimeter app to uh gauge exactly the miles and the speed but there you have it all right guys i just got on the highway i'm using my altimeter app let me show you right there it's basically a gps app that shows me my elevation which is about mile high my speed and my distance exact traveled map so i'm gonna set my cruise control system to precisely 65 miles per hour why well because that was the exact speed i used several years ago on a base stock ram commons heavy duty truck this is a series of videos that i am doing that's brought to you guys by our friends at four-wheel campers they actually built this demo truck specifically to showcase their flat that hawk camper and uh like i said this truck has a norweld aluminum bed it has a suspension lift it's got bilstein shocks it's got 37's pretty aggressive tires it's got giant trail ready steel bumpers but the beautiful thing about the four wheel camper setup not just because it's a huge one and it can actually accommodate a family of four but it's also all aluminum aluminum frame aluminum construction aluminum skin it's very premium it's also relatively lightweight because of that i weighed it at just over 11 000 pounds just curb weight and it's quite a bit heavier than a standard four wheel drive truck that i showed you by itself that truck weighs around 7 500 pounds and of course it's going to affect fuel efficiency because also it's very very tall the aerodynamics is totally different and although this is a pop-up camper which is a little bit lower profile it's still huge that's why i'm doing this test the previous result was amazing i think and um 24.7 mpg in a heavy-duty diesel truck that was a two-wheel drive as you saw i put some extra about 400 pounds in the bed of the truck to make sure it has about the same weight as a four-wheel drive truck of course we run all these tests in two-wheel drive only because it's the most efficient way of doing it and i'm gonna get on the road and log some miles while i do that how about we roll the footage where i show you precisely how to uh find if you're shopping for a truck like this precisely how to find the right one and know which transmission you have and exactly what the configuration you have ram offers a number of different engine and transmission options in their heavy-duty diesel trucks so how do you tell which one you have well a couple of easy ways let me show you some tricks the first one is really obvious you can come up to the hood and see it says 3500 or 2500 in this case it's a one ton truck 3500 that's pretty obvious what if this was missing well you can also open the door and you can look at the manufacturer's sticker right here and if it says gvwr gross vehicle weight rating anything that's far over 10 000 pounds in this case 12 hundred pounds that means it's a one ton truck because if it was a 2500 it would be either ten thousand pounds or maybe something that's very close to that how do you know which engine you have because you have different options for example high output engine in a one ton truck standard output engine so here's another trick you can open the hood and look underneath right here and you are searching for a transmission dipstick so you need to figure it out you need to check where it's at this truck's been used so nothing on the driver's side now you look over here and you see this right here this is the transmission dipstick so let me pull it out a little bit [Music] there you go trans it says right there it says transmission if this was a high output engine there would be an ice and transmissions dipstick not on the passenger side but on the driver's side and if you do see that ice in transmission then you know you have a high output engine and an extra heavy duty transmission that transmission costs extra about sixteen hundred dollars depending on the year of your truck but i think it's worth it if you're building a rig that's going to be kind of heavy like this and you wanna go around the world in it i would recommend to get a high output engine and that ice and transmission as well and final trick and that also matters for fuel economy let me show you in the back you're also probably wondering okay what axle ratio do you have or do i have well this is a single rear wheel one ton ram truck it can only have two different axle ratios either a 373 or a 410 in this case and you can decode this also or look at your sticker your window sticker this is a 373. if this was a dually it would be for sure 410 but the 373 in this case is just fine for this engine it has so much torque it has no problem turning these tires and you're getting slightly better efficiency because of that so that's another tip about how to find and locate your best ram truck let me quickly show you the camper this is one of their largest and most luxurious and also highly optioned campers there's a big slide out bed right here in the front can turn into a king you can sleep lengthwise or also just widthwise you have your lithium ion batteries here you have your cassette toilet here you have an extra bed here so when we stayed in this over the weekend at the lake uh one person slept here and actually three of us slept up here uh me my wife and two kids so that worked out really well here's my sink right here and a two burner stove there's two bottles of propane on board everything else is electric there's a red arc manager right here this camper has of course this heavy duty top expandable top which is also used on like zodiac boats it's uv and salt water resistant this camper starts out at about 30 1000 goes up to about almost 40 like this one very simple but also nicely made very sturdy and also lightweight off-road camber [Music] okay i just made my turn around i was going north now i'm going south once again it's a it's a loop and i'm gonna start and then at the same fuel pump currently my uh trip meter is telling me about 16.2 in this big heavy truck so far it's looking pretty good [Music] all right so the uh highway loop is complete i'm pulling up back to the same fuel station right here to get some diesel and actually figure out the exact number i have my data here i went about 53.5 miles or so as i'm pulling up into this uh gas station my average speed is not shown but i went about 53 and a half miles and 55 minutes so i averaged approximately almost 60 miles per hour for this entire trip so not a lot of traffic that was slowing me down just a couple of turnarounds just to complete this loop and right here right now i'm pulling up to the pump and i'm gonna tell you exactly what the calculation is and the trip meter is still showing 16 or 16.1 mbg uh just remember that the trip meter is not precise because of the tire size so let me fill up and show you the result all right i'm gonna top off i mean wait 30 seconds and top off and figure it out all right i can't talk let me show you the gallons okay so let me show you my calculations so i went 53 and a half miles and i put in 3.387 3.387 gallons equals fifteen point eight i am still very impressed some unladen trucks like full-size half-ton trucks you know get 16 in certain conditions but this is a fully equipped overland rig that's a crazy cool result i'm really pleased and also what does that mean if i have a 50 gallon tank so let me double check okay so if you take 15.8 and you multiply it by 50 theoretically you could go 789 miles on one phillip uh which is absurd that's absurd you could go from here to albuquerque and maybe even tucson on one phillip that's huge distance um and of course you don't want to run it dry so i would say 700 mile range on a truck like this is doable so you can cross the rocky mountains go somewhere else off-road all in one tank which is awesome incredible that's why diesels are so nice for this type of work they're just steady highway um working machines and yeah if i was building an overland rig it would probably be a diesel truck uh like a three-quarter ton and a one-ton truck like this and as always go back to tfotruck.com for all the latest news views and real world overland rig reviews next time on for a few bucks less so it looks like the former owner had some real problems with these uh screws and they broke off here oh definitely there jeremy baby i know my mother can do it i don't like taking things with momentum but open this kind of gotta take some stuff oh sorry uh uh my shifter came off in my hand it stopped [Music] which

Channel: The Fast Lane Truck

Views: 119,639

Keywords: TFLtruck, cummins, ram 2500 cummins, ram, ram 2500, ram cummins, cummins ram, dodge ram cummins, 2021 ram 2500 cummins, 2020 ram 2500 cummins, dodge ram 2500 cummins, cummins diesel, 6.7 cummins, ram 6.7 cummins, cummins 2500 ram, 2018 ram 2500 cummins, 2021 ram 2500, ram hd, dodge ram, hd, 2019 ram hd, ram cummins 6.7, 2021 ram cummins, 2020 ram cummins, 2020 cummins ram, cummins ram truck, four wheel campers, road trip, mpg, truck camper, long haul, overland rig

Id: FpOrsfHYe2Q

Length: 18min 12sec (1092 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 26 2021