Towing At Altitude

[JEBar]

brief quote from an interesting article on towing at higher altitudes where more info is available :

"While recently testing a 2015 Ford F-150, I looked through its manual and found this on page 251: "Note: For high altitude operation, reduce the gross combined weight by 2% per 1000 ft. (305 m) starting at the 1000 ft. (305 m) elevation point."

Interestingly, we could not remember reading or hearing about anything like this from any of the other manufacturers before. Clearly, this means that the truck's carrying capacity (found in the gross vehicle weight rating) and maximum towing capacity (found in the gross combined weight rating) would be negatively impacted at higher elevations in significant ways. In fact, this made us wonder why only Ford would offer such advice. Was it responding to some kind of pending litigation or was this just good customer safety awareness?"

 

[RUCRAYZE]

go ahead take a wild guess

 

[JEBar]

from reading the article in the link in post 1, I can't help but wonder how a 55 hp Elio will perform at 11,000 ft

 

[W. WIllie]

I'll let you know after I get my TURBO installed.

Willie

 

[JEBar]

it would be really interesting to hear your reports on performance prior to contrasted with after the install of a turbo

 

[Coss]

brief quote from an interesting article on towing at higher altitudes where more info is available :

"While recently testing a 2015 Ford F-150, I looked through its manual and found this on page 251: "Note: For high altitude operation, reduce the gross combined weight by 2% per 1000 ft. (305 m) starting at the 1000 ft. (305 m) elevation point."

Interestingly, we could not remember reading or hearing about anything like this from any of the other manufacturers before. Clearly, this means that the truck's carrying capacity (found in the gross vehicle weight rating) and maximum towing capacity (found in the gross combined weight rating) would be negatively impacted at higher elevations in significant ways. In fact, this made us wonder why only Ford would offer such advice. Was it responding to some kind of pending litigation or was this just good customer safety awareness?"

I'm sure you've seen Ford advertising Eco-boost motors.
Have you ever looked into what Eco-boost really is? Turbo Charging on a smaller motor.
You would have to research what effect higher altitudes do to turbo boost.

 

[JEBar]

the 150 Eco-boost has twin turbo chargers ... as noted in the article, turbo charging does help negate the high altitude problems .... the first generation Elio won't have a turbo so I suspect that its motor will be affected

 

[John-b-gone]

In a normally aspirated engine W/O any kind of fuel injection you can expect to lose about 5% of your horse power for every 1k of altitude. This drops to 1% when a turbo is added.

 

[NSTG8R]

In a normally aspirated engine W/O any kind of fuel injection you can expect to lose about 5% of your horse power for every 1k of altitude. This drops to 1% when a turbo is added.

Sounds about right. I remember having to do some "roadside tuning" getting over Loveland Pass in my '63 Chevy II. You'd get to around 8k feet, and the car would just fall on it's face. Got pretty good at it after a while and helped quite a few out-of-staters make it over the Continental Divide...Had to remind them to reset everything once they made it down to Denver, or Grand Junction, depending on which way they were heading.