MPG diesel help

dIt's a 1984 Volvo 6 cyl. diesel. A 270 I think. First time operation of 1984 42' Gibson houseboat. I'm trying to develp a fuel plan for a trip down the Ohio/ Mississippi Rivers. A expected 5 mph current will be helping me. This is a laid back, no hurry trip. What GPM consumption should I expect?
Thanks,

Re: MPG diesel help

Howdy,

Are you asking how to calculate or how many gallons per hour this engine will burn?

You REALLY need to fill up the boat with fuel to point that is reproducible.

Take it out and run it for a few hours at what ever cruise RPM you plan to run it regularly.

Take it back to the fueler and refuel it. Take the gallons to fill and divide by hours you ran it. That'll be gallons per hour.

Get yourself a GPS and figure out how fast it's going in still water. Let's say it's going 10 MPH (statute or nautical miles per hour)


If you burn 3 gallons per hour and it goes 10 knots, (I.E.you'll go 10 miles for every 3 gallons burned) 10/3=3.3 mpg. If you go another 5 knots due to a "tailwind" then you'll go 15 knots and you'll get 15/3=5(mpg)


I don't know what your Volvo 6cyl will burn per hour. If you want to know fairly accurately you need to run it a few hours at cruise RPM and fill it back up to know for sure. It also might be a good idea to get a fuel flow gage for it.



Regards,



Rick

Re: MPG diesel help

I wanted a ball park miles per gallon figure from someone. I want an expected figure BEFORE I start out. I need a budget & planned fuel stops before we take the trip.d

Re: MPG diesel help

I dont think your going to find many people here with Volvo powered houeboats

But i would thing there would be Web Sights that are just for houseboats were you could get better info


Tommays

Re: MPG diesel help

Well I typed A 270 Volvo Diesel 1984 Gibson into Google and found ted on a houseboat forum . . . 8)

ted's other forum

Anyway, apparently it is a 130 horse. I am guessing that with a 130 your top speed is around 12 MPH and that you cruise around 10 MPH. I am also gonna guess that you would burn roughly 6 GPH at @ 10 MPH so you'd be getting around 1.6 MPG not counting the current. I could be off by a lot although I think I am close on the GPH. You probably burn about 10 GPH full tilt. You'd think that you could do a quick test run for a couple of hours to verify that info though . . .

Re: MPG diesel help

Thanks QC ' Yeah, I asked around. Thing is, there is a quality of advice found here that is best. AND, even though there may not be any HBers here, I hoped for those that just had the 270 in "something" Any scrap of info adds to the picture.
The current is expected to be 5+ mph., and steerage is all we need. 10 mph will be fast (untill we dodge a tow).
U was (am) just looking for general fuel usage rates from as nany as I can find.
Thanks,