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I've got a new 2008 Dodge Charger Police car with the 5.7L HEMI. I'm getting around 12 MPG on 89 Octane. What kind of fuel mileage should I expect if I purchased a Predator and ran an 87 Octane tune? High fuel costs are killing many departments' budgets and I'm looking for a way to save some bucks in the budget. I know I should have gotten the V6 if I was concerned about fuel economy but I couldn't resist the HEMI Any thoughts?

thanks,

Jeff Pearson
Chief of Police
East Mountain PD
East Mountain, Texas

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It's my police car. It's not my personal car.

There is no 87 tune. Theres a 91 and 93.

Sounds like you have the same issue as I do. The car sits idling alot and the gas just goes away. I do Security work and the same thing happens when its hot outside (and I need to run the A/C). My 300 SRT8 got 8.4mpg, my Grand Cherokee SRT8 is getting 8.9mpg, both on 93.

empdtopcop wrote:I've got a new 2008 Dodge Charger Police car with the 5.7L HEMI. I'm getting around 12 MPG on 89 Octane. What kind of fuel mileage should I expect if I purchased a Predator and ran an 87 Octane tune? High fuel costs are killing many departments' budgets and I'm looking for a way to save some bucks in the budget. I know I should have gotten the V6 if I was concerned about fuel economy but I couldn't resist the HEMI Any thoughts?

thanks,

Jeff Pearson
Chief of Police
East Mountain PD
East Mountain, Texas

Just curious. Did you puchase it as a police cruiser or a stock? If you did get the police edition, what's the difference in the stock R/T 5.7 and the Police cruiser?

When I was on my way back from the Blue Ridge Parkway, I believe it was South Carolina that I stopped in a there was a County Sheriff with a 5.7 Charger and he said he had a Predator tune installed and it made a huge difference from the other company that was supplying the chips to law enforcement. That is what made me find out more about the Product and it's great capabilities. I do recommend a CMR Tune.

I saw an SRT8 Charger Highway Patrol car in NYC this weekend. Crazy shit. I knew they had the 5.7L cars, but I had no idea there were SRT8 Interceptors.

Isn't 12 mpg really low for a 5.7L? or do you have it floored most of the time.

Quick wrote:Isn't 12 mpg really low for a 5.7L? or do you have it floored most of the time.

Gotta be from sitting with the radar in the A/C or something along those lines. LEO's use more gas than most shipping companies...

I'd say that adding a proper tune will allow you to see slightly better mileage, but only while cruising at highway speeds, not much that can be done to lessen fuel consumption when idling...

Thanks

Just out of curiosity, could he lower the idle down when in Park or would that do more harm than good?

BlueSunshine wrote:Just out of curiosity, could he lower the idle down when in Park or would that do more harm than good?

Prolly not a good idea with the extra load most police cars have, like laptops, lights, and other electronics. The alternator would likely get a bit upset if you lowered the idle.

This car is a Police package car. It is a marked police car with the 5.7L HEMI. I don't know what the difference is between this car and the R/T. I don't drive around WOT all the time but I do need to open it up sometimes. As I'm sure many of you know, it's difficult to drive slow in these cars. They want to go fast. I recently drove it to a training course in Ft Worth and got about 19 MPG on the trip. When I'm working on the street, doing a lot of stop and go and idling. With 89 octane I'm seeing MPG of 12-14 depending on how easy I am on the throttle. What I'm really looking for is a way to run 87 octane and get the same mileage that I get when I run 89. It's cheaper to run the 89 vs. 87 because the better mileage makes up the difference in price. If I could do an economy tune and run 87 that would be nice. Any thoughts or helpful ideas would be greatly appreciated. Would a Diablo Predator be of any help to me other than to make it go faster?

You can use the Predator to dial in the timing for use with 87 and then log for KR to be sure all is well.

Thanks

Or have someone close to you do a custom tune.