Dekri

Im just curious... do you guys with 90 runners have trouble on hills? When I go up snowboarding, driving up 6% grade hills, I can barely keep my rig going 55mph and chews through gas like no other.

green91runner

thats why its lovingly nicknamed the 3.slow... if you post up your details auto/std, tiresize, gearing.. then you might get some posts about how to better it. but you'll never remedy it completely.. well, unless you swap it out. lol

TONS of threads on this.

bike4miles

Yea, mine has a bit of trouble but it still gets good milage even if i'm running it well above 3,000 rpm on the hills. It's MUCH better now that I have installed a cone filter and fabricated a heat shiled.

Slowrunner

Yes mine does , but most vehicles do just not as bad.The main thing I worry about is over heating my tranny on long hills trying to keep up to the traffic. Gas mileage doesn,t change much on mine . I get between 425-450kms per tank on 92 octane with 235/75 tires and 410 gears.

Blair

It's pretty common with the 3.slow. Just it's nature. I have the 5spd and when it's running really well I can set the cruise control at the start of my drive home (almost ALL uphill, for about 50 miles) and it never kicks out, provided I keep it set somewhere around 60-65 mph. Any more than that and it kicks out, or starts to ping. As for gas consumption (and not wanting to start a new 'mileage' thread) I'm getting about 300 miles per tank, which is the best I've seen on this truck. This is after replacing plugs and wires recently.
If yours gets any worse, you may want to look at tune up items, like plugs, wies, cap and rotor, etc... If that doesn't work, check your compression. Loosing power is a symptom of many things: Blown head gasket, rings, etc...
Some guys here swear that their performance improved after changing the 'lifetime' fuel filter.

JEDI87

I have a 91 3.slow and an auto and I get about 218 miles per tank.I live in lake tahoe so there are a lot of hills but still,218,ouch!

westy44runner

yeah ive got the 3.0 and 32x11.5 BFG MTs, auto tranny...its terrible going up hills. The auto tranny's are worthless I have determined in combination with that motor for hills, it kicks out of gear constantly...you try to give it some gas and it will hold at around 4k rpms for 5 seconds..then kick back down...terrible combo!

Racer944

Yeah, I've gotta keep the RPM's up above 3500 in order to move quickly. I can get right at 225 miles before the light comes on.

X-AWDriver

My '99 still needs a good jump on hills and keeping it at 70 up I70 towards Evergreen eats gas up too.

Oh yeah,welcome from another Littleton member.

Bennito

Part of the problem we have up here is that you're driving uphill at 10-11 thousand feet. If I'm at 3/4 power (or so) at 6200 feet, I'd guess you're close to half power when you're hitting the tunnel (let alone if you go up over it).

Gas use will go down with less air, but running wide open will still eat a fair amount of gas up.

My 3.4L does well on the uphills in 4th at 65+mph. If I drop lower than that I"ll never get going again and will spend the rest of the hill climb between 3rd and 4th at 50 to 60 mph.

shazaam

Come on bro, it still goes uphill, what more do you want?

dexter

hahaha my old 96 was pretty quick up to vail and back same with berthoud, but the 2000 5 speed s/c its 5th gear rolling 100 the whole way.

green91runner

of course you 3rd gen guys will have less issues, you have the 3.4L, some with, some without the supercharger.. which puts out alot more power then the 3.slow. I love my engine, but it is just a bit underpowered for the weight, and drinks way too much gas.. (get about 13.5mpg right now, which is pitiful) but hey, it's worth it.

Ontos

Hey.....not all the guys with 3rd gens have a 3.4........

Some of us 2.7 guys still lean forward on the uphills...

green91runner

lol.. my humblest appologies. and i believe i've done that once or twice, shifts the weight a lil closer to the top