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Date:         Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:21:49 EDT
Reply-To:     Oxroad@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jeff Oxroad <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Higher elevation -- anything to watch out for?
Comments: To: camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

In a message dated 6/20/2007 4:13:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time, camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM writes:

>Next month the Mrs and I will be driving through/over the Sierra Nevada >mountains. Maybe up to 10,000 ft (3000m) elevation. How well does the >1.9l's ECU handle that thinner air?

I have had a few trouble spots with my 1.9 at elevation in Denver--so what's that a mile high (?)-- actually only a couple of times. This after many trips there and to higher elevations.

Both times it was as I had just arrived. I shut down the bus to go into a store lets say for 10 minutes and it wouldn't start again. Kind of a flooded situation in that I had to pull the plugs, let it all dry out for a while, and then it fired up.

I was told that at elevation the gasoline is configured differently than lower elevation gasoline. I was also told that the condition I suffered those few times was due to not stopping as I gained elevation and fill (top off for lack of a better term) the tank with the "properly" configured gasoline as I got higher.

I was told that at every 1000 feet of gain or so you should fill what space you have in the tank with the elevation configured gasoline. This because as you go higher it's a difference configuration for the ascending elevation.

I can't swear any of this is fact, but filling up with the "new" gas as I gain elevation has kept me from having this problem. And I have been up higher than that 5000 feet up over the continental divide and up in the Wyoming and Montana Rockies without incident.

And to reiterate--because it was already three paragraphs ago--both times she acted up it was as I had just arrived after having driven from lower elevation up to Denver area and tried to restart the bus while it was still hot after 5 or ten minutes of down time.

The other advice I have I got from a guy with a 66 bus who had to climb from the Minden, Nevada area up to Lake Tahoe pretty regularly. He had gotten the advice from an old German fellow who claimed experience in the Alps with old school VW busses. "Americans always want to get into a higher gear," the old fellow had said. "So when they climb a hill they push up the revs slowly, slowly, slowly, as best they can, then shift up to 4th gear. Then the revs start to drop and they downshift to third and start over again slowly, slowly letting the revs get up."

I have to admit. That was my trick.

So the old fellow says, "Keep it in 3rd gear at about 3200 RPMs and just relax. You'll get there."

Best, Jeff 83.5 Westy LA, CA

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