Edelbrock E Force coming soon.

[KrashEd]

Sds like to me if dad/mom still driving through that JBT/trailer on a lowboy and have them deliver it.

Lol, that's not a bad idea. They hung it up though.

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[AmishMike]

@KrashEd What is the latest? How did mpg compare stock vs. SC?
We have a 1400 lb. 16' trailer that I pull local but am planning a trip out west with. Stock auto Rubi with 35's. Fuel capacity is also a concern, those extra tanks seem vulnerable on a trail.
The Edelbrock is the kit I would go with but having been west and having trouble finding ANY gas scares me to try and find 91+ aside from carrying octane boost with me. Also, the crazy price jump at the pumps between octane levels is absurd.

 

[DAVECS1]

Checking in to provide a 4k mile update. Just got back from a camping trip to Colorado and things didn't go a smoothly as hoped... not necessarily related to the supercharger though, we had some issues with our new camper and I ended up shredding the new 5.38 ring and pinion in the front diff, which is a story in itself.

In terms of towing performance, the E-brock supercharger definitely helped and ended up with 8.7 MPG (per the onboard computer) for the entire trip; towing a 5K camper 90% of the time. We live in PA, so the bulk of the mileage was put on getting to Colorado and back. Keep in mind we are on mud terrain 37s and the diffs are geared deep. One of the things I learned helped with the MPG was to use the autostick to stay in the higher gears while on the highway (and monitoring the vitals while doing so) as the transmission wanted to be in the lower gears all the time. Also, since the JT is a brick towing a brick, it helped to tuck in behind a tractor trailer/front door on the highway, when we could. The worst state we went through was Kansas, which seemed to have a strong headwind westbound and eastbound.

Once in Colorado, we spent all of our time at higher elevations (7500 Ft+) and even with the supercharger, it wasn't what I would call easy getting over some of the passes with the thinner air. Up on some of the higher passes like Monarch and Slumgullion, we were dropping into third hole. Not saying I was expecting better or being unrealistic, just stating how it was. I don't want to imagine how towing at these elevations would have been without the S/C. Since the supercharger takes power to make power, a (reliable) turbocharger kit would perform better. Even better - if Jeep/FCA could take that 3.6 lump and factory turbocharge it, they'd have something going.

As far as tuning, the 93 octane tune is definitely better than the 91, at least was my experience. The 91 octane gave me some concerns in the third and fourth gears, 1/8-1/4 throttle like it was loading up and there was some surging. I noticed this when going from 9200 ft back down to 6000 ft (not towing), like the fueling/ignition did not adjust for altitude change. I checked the engine, etc., out making sure the coolant pump was running, no obstructions in the air box, wastegate, hoses, etc. I called Edelbrock and spoke with them, and their tech line told me to check the things we already checked. We started to think we got some bad gas at a Conoco in Cañon City or the adaptives were reset when we switched to the 91 tune and the vehicle adapted with us towing the trailer. The issue seemed to get better as we ran fuel out of the tank, if it didn't, we were going to datalog and send to Edelbrock (and still probably will). Other than that, you can definitely feel it more when the trans drops into overdrive which took some getting used to at first.

So that's the update. I have still have some questions, like how my Rebel (which doesn't require 91/93 octane) would have compared on this trip, is the next step a 5.7 or 6.4 for the JT, what are my options to get more onboard fuel capacity. I don't know that we'll be towing our camper halfway across the country again without some more changes to the Jeep. For this trip, I think it would have really sucked without the S/C and the lower gearing.

Well if Edelbrock is on the same page as I am. The surging is not detrimental to the truck. Basically there is a control in the software, that when the engine sees 100% calculated load, it activates a fuel enrichment routine. If you keep it in higher gears this happens more often. The system is designed to jump down a gear before it sees 100% load. Problem being 100% is no longer accurate with the supercharger. So as you are pulling in the higher gear, it is bouncing in and out of power enrichment and you can feel it. I have been working on a fix for this, but it my require pinging HP for additional tables. This same phenomenon is very prevalent using cruise control.

 

[AmishMike]

Well if Edelbrock is on the same page as I am. The surging is not detrimental to the truck. Basically there is a control in the software, that when the engine sees 100% calculated load, it activates a fuel enrichment routine. If you keep it in higher gears this happens more often. The system is designed to jump down a gear before it sees 100% load. Problem being 100% is no longer accurate with the supercharger. So as you are pulling in the higher gear, it is bouncing in and out of power enrichment and you can feel it. I have been working on a fix for this, but it my require pinging HP for additional tables. This same phenomenon is very prevalent using cruise control.

David, thank you for relating that in lay-man's terms with cruise control.

 

[KrashEd]

@KrashEd What is the latest? How did mpg compare stock vs. SC?
We have a 1400 lb. 16' trailer that I pull local but am planning a trip out west with. Stock auto Rubi with 35's. Fuel capacity is also a concern, those extra tanks seem vulnerable on a trail.
The Edelbrock is the kit I would go with but having been west and having trouble finding ANY gas scares me to try and find 91+ aside from carrying octane boost with me. Also, the crazy price jump at the pumps between octane levels is absurd.

Mike, Jeep has been fine being daily driven, long trips, etc. We were getting about 16-17 MPG in the summer and a little worse (15ish) since the switch over to winter gas, keeping the foot out of it. I don't really have a long distance towing comparison before the install because we didn't take a long trip with it towing our trailer. I was seeing low 7's on some short hops with the 37's and 5.38's, so adding the supercharger definitely helped. It is never going to pay for itself; it is nice to have the additional power.

Just a thought, if you're concerned with the price of premium fuel, did you consider maybe just doing gears? More bang for your buck there.

 

[KrashEd]

Well if Edelbrock is on the same page as I am. The surging is not detrimental to the truck. Basically there is a control in the software, that when the engine sees 100% calculated load, it activates a fuel enrichment routine. If you keep it in higher gears this happens more often. The system is designed to jump down a gear before it sees 100% load. Problem being 100% is no longer accurate with the supercharger. So as you are pulling in the higher gear, it is bouncing in and out of power enrichment and you can feel it. I have been working on a fix for this, but it my require pinging HP for additional tables. This same phenomenon is very prevalent using cruise control.

Makes sense. I haven't pulled any data to say otherwise, but I know it's on the rich/safe side. Surging was only noticeable in third and fourth. We don't feel any surging while using cruise, but now that you mentioned this, I am going to be looking for it. Not sure if you're tuning the trans yet for the Maggie, but there is likely some tuning that can be tapped into there to help drivability. Edelbrock made some noticeable changes there.

 

[DAVECS1]

Oh I have made a couple trans changes

 

[DAVECS1]

If your getting surging in third and fourth, that is the throttle model and torque model fighting each other during acceleration, causes the throttle body to oscillate a bit.

 

[KrashEd]

If your getting surging in third and fourth, that is the throttle model and torque model fighting each other during acceleration, causes the throttle body to oscillate a bit.

Roger that. If that's the case, I should be able to see that in the in the MAP and TPS, correct?

 

[DAVECS1]

You will see it in commanded throttle body opening. I can send you channel list and chart layout.

 

[AmishMike]

Mike, Jeep has been fine being daily driven, long trips, etc. We were getting about 16-17 MPG in the summer and a little worse (15ish) since the switch over to winter gas, keeping the foot out of it. I don't really have a long distance towing comparison before the install because we didn't take a long trip with it towing our trailer. I was seeing low 7's on some short hops with the 37's and 5.38's, so adding the supercharger definitely helped. It is never going to pay for itself; it is nice to have the additional power.

Just a thought, if you're concerned with the price of premium fuel, did you consider maybe just doing gears? More bang for your buck there.

Are you saying that you saw an increase in mpg with the sc? That is what I am wondering. I know, more air=more fuel etc. but there is a sweet spot in there somewhere where the added power actually can save on fuel especially under load etc.. The aerodynamics of these bricks really kills mileage exponentially after 65 mph and that only gets worse pulling a trailer. I am really looking for power/efficiency in the 70 mph range (not fast but keeping up with some traffic). Plus being able to hit the skinny pedal to get out of a potentially bad situation at highway speeds would be nice.
I know this is a 1/2 ton with a 3.6l. I am used to bigger trucks with big blocks for tow vehicles; you know torque. I could get double the mileage with 8x the load. Not apples to apples. I can live with it the way it is BUT if a sc helps cure it then......

 

[DAVECS1]

Are you saying that you saw an increase in mpg with the sc? That is what I am wondering. I know, more air=more fuel etc. but there is a sweet spot in there somewhere where the added power actually can save on fuel especially under load etc.. The aerodynamics of these bricks really kills mileage exponentially after 65 mph and that only gets worse pulling a trailer. I am really looking for power/efficiency in the 70 mph range (not fast but keeping up with some traffic). Plus being able to hit the skinny pedal to get out of a potentially bad situation at highway speeds would be nice.
I know this is a 1/2 ton with a 3.6l. I am used to bigger trucks with big blocks for tow vehicles; you know torque. I could get double the mileage with 8x the load. Not apples to apples. I can live with it the way it is BUT if a sc helps cure it then......

At part throttle you can save a bit of fuel as the supercharger can pull higher gears at stoich if tuned right. So your burning the same AFR at a lower RPM. Once you go into loaded scenarios it really depends, but 3/4 to full throttle is using fuel enrichments and depending on how deep you are, even if your pulling a higher gear loaded your running in an enrichment mode burning more fuel for the power.

I have had some users of my tune come back and report they have soot on the tail pipe. Well what I have found is you can hold that higher gear on a slight grade, with load, and the truck will hold the acceleration enrichment to keep making the power needed to operate. This does not hurt anything as the CATS are hot under load and the flow is good, also it is similar to how a V8 works. The only drawback may be emissions and fuel mileage. given you can set the gradient of enrichment, so we are talking 13:1 instead of 14.7:1 if tuned correctly. The 3.6 works really hard to stay in stoich operation in stock configuration, thus the reason the gearbox is so busy. back shifting and gaining RPM helps the bring the AFR down

 

[KrashEd]

At part throttle you can save a bit of fuel as the supercharger can pull higher gears at stoich if tuned right. So your burning the same AFR at a lower RPM. Once you go into loaded scenarios it really depends, but 3/4 to full throttle is using fuel enrichments and depending on how deep you are, even if your pulling a higher gear loaded your running in an enrichment mode burning more fuel for the power.

I have had some users of my tune come back and report they have soot on the tail pipe. Well what I have found is you can hold that higher gear on a slight grade, with load, and the truck will hold the acceleration enrichment to keep making the power needed to operate. This does not hurt anything as the CATS are hot under load and the flow is good, also it is similar to how a V8 works. The only drawback may be emissions and fuel mileage. given you can set the gradient of enrichment, so we are talking 13:1 instead of 14.7:1 if tuned correctly. The 3.6 works really hard to stay in stoich operation in stock configuration, thus the reason the gearbox is so busy. back shifting and gaining RPM helps the bring the AFR down

Dave is all over this! This is essentially what I've seen. When towing, I would say the combination of gearing and the supercharger allowed me to hold a higher gear longer and it wasn't working as hard to pull the load, even with some grade. When getting into the mountains and hills, that's out as you have to get into the throttle and hit that enrichment spot. That's probably any vehicle towing a load though.

Not towing, I would say the gearing and Supercharger keep the MPG close to what we had with 37s, 488s, and no supercharger. I am sure we are paying some penalty for running 538s vs 488s or 513s, but I went that deep knowing I was getting as much mechanical advantage while towing as I could. It's nice offroad too.

 

[KrashEd]

I know this is a 1/2 ton with a 3.6l. I am used to bigger trucks with big blocks for tow vehicles; you know torque. I could get double the mileage with 8x the load. Not apples to apples. I can live with it the way it is BUT if a sc helps cure it then......

Mike, If you are local to Lancaster/Mount Joy, you are welcome to come by and check out the rig.

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