TREDSDERT JLU Willys Sport EcoDiesel – Destroying 70+ Years of Advancement, One Mod at a Time

[Tredsdert]

Has taking that much weight off the Jeep increased the MPG? Sorry if that has already been asked, just curious.

TL;DR maybe, lately I've been noticing a 2 mi per gallon increase. Honestly something I'm going to test out on a long drive sometime soon.

I don't believe it has been asked. I've always heard the JLU EcoDiesel takes like 20,000 mi to break in before you'll start getting good mileage. Also if you have a lead foot like I tend to, it definitely kills your mileage. Within the first 10,000 miles we took a trip to San Antonio in it and on the way there and on the way back I was doing 65 pretty much the whole way and I was getting about 26 miles per gallon. At the same time my local drive to work and putzing around town, was netting me about 19 miles per gallon, but I do a lot of idling too.

Lately I've been noticing that my mileage has been a lot better. I'm doing the same sort of local driving in general, my drive to work each day has gone from 500 ft to my job, to 20 mi to my job. So I'm getting 40 miles a day of highway driving at 70, and still with the lead foot, I've noticed an average of about 21 MPG. I'm also nearing 17,000 mi on the JLUD, so I'm not sure if that has any play in it. But I'd be out to guess that the carpets and the rear seats and the spare tire and tailgate being removed have significantly lessened the weight of the vehicle. Also my Icon Rebound Pro beadlock rims weigh a lot less than the stock black rims which came with the Willys Sport.

The other day I rented a 5x8 trailer from Home Depot to pick up and bring home a 200 lb couch we had bought at a consignment store. Really nice couch, but because of the trailer I was driving fairly cautiously, slow speeds, 60 on the highway, 10 under on the side roads. I had reset Trip A when I picked up the trailer from Home Depot. After going to the store to pick up the couch, bringing the couch 20 mi back home, and then driving another 15 mi back to the Home Depot to drop off the trailer, I was running at 24 MPG, and that was with a full tank too.

I'll do test sometime this week or maybe next week and I'll get back to you for sure.

Great question, appreciate the ask!

Sponsored

 

[JSFoster75]

TL;DR maybe, lately I've been noticing a 2 mi per gallon increase. Honestly something I'm going to test out on a long drive sometime soon.

I don't believe it has been asked. I've always heard the JLU EcoDiesel takes like 20,000 mi to break in before you'll start getting good mileage. Also if you have a lead foot like I tend to, it definitely kills your mileage. Within the first 10,000 miles we took a trip to San Antonio in it and on the way there and on the way back I was doing 65 pretty much the whole way and I was getting about 26 miles per gallon. At the same time my local drive to work and putzing around town, was netting me about 19 miles per gallon, but I do a lot of idling too.

Lately I've been noticing that my mileage has been a lot better. I'm doing the same sort of local driving in general, my drive to work each day has gone from 500 ft to my job, to 20 mi to my job. So I'm getting 40 miles a day of highway driving at 70, and still with the lead foot, I've noticed an average of about 21 MPG. I'm also nearing 17,000 mi on the JLUD, so I'm not sure if that has any play in it. But I'd be out to guess that the carpets and the rear seats and the spare tire and tailgate being removed have significantly lessened the weight of the vehicle. Also my Icon Rebound Pro beadlock rims weigh a lot less than the stock black rims which came with the Willys Sport.

The other day I rented a 5x8 trailer from Home Depot to pick up and bring home a 200 lb couch we had bought at a consignment store. Really nice couch, but because of the trailer I was driving fairly cautiously, slow speeds, 60 on the highway, 10 under on the side roads. I had reset Trip A when I picked up the trailer from Home Depot. After going to the store to pick up the couch, bringing the couch 20 mi back home, and then driving another 15 mi back to the Home Depot to drop off the trailer, I was running at 24 MPG, and that was with a full tank too.

I'll do test sometime this week or maybe next week and I'll get back to you for sure.

Great question, appreciate the ask!

That's great mileage IMO, I averaged around 18mpg on my 2.0L Rubi, and about 20.5mpg on my 2.0L Sahara (even with Rubi tires/wheels).

You may want to download the Fuelly App, it's great for tracking MPG.

 

[failsafe306]

I finished up that mesh tailgate yesterday. Came out really nice. I drove it to work this morning, did 95 with zero issues.

I found a cheap product I can buy at Home Depot (Foaming Ammonia) and a toothbrush to take off the Rough Country wording. Not sure exactly what I want to spray paint on there myself, but when I figure it out I'll post about it.

That’s way better than the factory tailgate.

 

[gsbrockman]

I will use chicken wire and I will make it look extra tacky just for you guys!!

Chicken wire worked great for Jake and Elwood.

 

[Tredsdert]

That’s way better than the factory tailgate.

In some ways, yeah it is.

 

[Matanzas]

[QUOTE="Tredsdert, post: 2229249, member: 54814"

I found a cheap product I can buy at Home Depot (Foaming Ammonia) and a toothbrush to take off the Rough Country wording. Not sure exactly what I want to spray paint on there myself, but when I figure it out I'll post about it.
[/QUOTE]

“No Ragrets” obviously! Love the thread…

 

[Tredsdert]

"No Ragrets” obviously! Love the thread…

Lmao, that's not a bad idea!

I was actually thinking about it today at work. Not 100% decided, but I kind of like the idea of doing a three-tone tree line. With varying shades of green. Would be kind of cool and would take up a fair amount of space on the mesh and would kind of look like it belongs, especially on a green Wrangler.

Preciate the love!

 

[Mx5red]

I finished up that mesh tailgate yesterday. Came out really nice. I drove it to work this morning, did 95 with zero issues.

I found a cheap product I can buy at Home Depot (Foaming Ammonia) and a toothbrush to take off the Rough Country wording. Not sure exactly what I want to spray paint on there myself, but when I figure it out I'll post about it.

“ANARCHY” in big, messy red letters is an obvious choice…

 

[Mx5red]

“No Ragrets” obviously! Love the thread…

Hahaha love that one

 

[Tredsdert]

“ANARCHY” in big, messy red letters is an obvious choice…

Dang, that's an idea I definitely going steal for my hood! Later this spring I'm going to transfer my specialty license plate from my wife's car to my car (TREDS), and when I do I was going to take the TREDSDERT vinyl off my hood and I was thinking about replacing it with the word DIESEL, but honestly at this point I'm going to do some big sloppy red letters that say ANARCHY!!

Thanks bro, killer idea!!!

 

[gsbrockman]

Maybe you can incorporate some wooden bumpers into the mix, @Tredsdert

https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/fo...our-jeep-jl-today.3033/page-3365#post-2177228

 

[failsafe306]

I like the wooden bumper idea. I almost did this to my old 2 dr JK.

 

[Tredsdert]

I like the wooden bumper idea. I almost did this to my old 2 dr JK.

I mean, it's kind of cool in a rugged manly way, a zero ***** giving kind of way. Other than the fact that I already have a front bumper (RC Tubular Front Bumper) and I technically have the actual front bumper that came the Wrangler fitted onto the rear. But I will be purchasing at a future date, probably not for a while, the matching Rough Country Tubular Rear Bumper.

Biggest concern I would have with having actual wood on the vehicle would be rotting. Eventually it will rot. And then you have to replace it, hopefully it was super simple to put on, otherwise it would get kind of tedious pretty quick. I don't know the rate at which would rots. I guess if you used treated lumber, outdoor grade stuff, or even marine grade plywood or something like that, you might do a little better, but even then I'm not really huge fan of the look. At least not on my rig.

I forget if I've said it already, but I'm pretty sure I have in my first post on this thread, that my build end goal is going to be very common to pretty much every other Wrangler you see on the road, a pretty average looking vehicle with all of the expensive parts and such on it. But because that is an expensive goal, the process to get there will be the fun part of it. I'm probably looking at about another 6 years of just messing around with stuff on the Jeep before I finally get it to where I want it.

 

[Tredsdert]

So I took off the sound bar yesterday and started pulling it apart, I don't have any sound deadening mats as of right now, but I did buy some polyfill a while ago and have been meaning to see if it will affect the sound at all.

Before I added the polyfill it sounded pretty good overall definitely met all my expectations. The bass was decent enough and the mid-range was pretty cool and the treble was there I guess. I wouldn't say it was as good as my wife's Subaru which has the Harman Kardon sound system on it, but it took care of me. The only place where I felt it needed improvement was on the highways it felt like all the sound was escaping in every direction but down. Some songs I would have it on completely full blast, and still not be able to hear the song.

My understanding of polyfill is that it tricks the sound waves into thinking the space is bigger than it is, so you can make a small little box sound like a big one with a little bit of polyfill.

It was strangely easy to yank apart too.

(Sorry for the fuzzy photo, it's already put back together so I'm not about to yank it apart for a better photo.)
If you do do this, I wouldn't mess with this tube thing, unless you have a replacement gasket. It has a neoprene gasket underneath it that shreds when you take out the screws. It was a real son of a gun trying to get it back in place in pieces so that was still effectively doing its job. I ended up using a little bit of clear coat as glue to make it stay in place.

From the reading up I've done on using this stuff, too much polyfill is bad, and not enough polyfill is bad. One of the videos I was watching about how to install polyfill before I did this was basically saying how it's a guessing game and professional speaker makers and audio guys Well basically keep adjusting how much polyfill is in there until it's perfect.

You guys know me, I don't care about perfection. So I stuffed enough in there that I felt it was adequate, without being so much that it's pushing the speaker back out when I reinstalled it.

I got it all reassembled and put it back on the cross pillar, and I was thinking about the four other speakers in the dash. The two up top I know our super easy to access, and the ones beneath them are a little more difficult to access. So at least for today I went in and yanked out the two upper speakers on the dash.

Same thing on the front, no real measuring of the polyfill, just filled it to where I felt it was right.

I should probably add that I cleaned up all of these spaces with a Shop-Vac and tried to wipe down anything I thought might be a little bit dirty with a microfiber cloth.

Now that it's all put back together, I was testing it with a couple different genres that I listen to, electronic music with heavy bass, rap with some mid-range and heavy bass, death metal with mild bass mid-range and treble, and some bluegrass with a lot of mid-range a fair amount of treble and next to no bass.

It sounds noticeably better, at least at a standstill. Like the base sounds deeper and more full. The mid-range and treble aren't just high-pitched staticky, playing with the settings on the equalizer actually makes a difference now. I can really hear it. It's kind of hard to describe since I'm not much of an audiophile, but overall I feel it made a difference. I think at this point the only thing I would do to improve it further is at a future date I will upgrade the speakers themselves. I've always been a fan of those ones with the tweeters in the center. I won't ever install a subwoofer, I can't stand how much space they take up. But for now I'm happy with how it turned out.

So for like $4 with tax at hobby lobby or whatever your local craft store is, you can definitely improve your base speakers with just a little bit of time. And honestly it's like super quick. I did the second set of speakers on the dash only because the sound bar went so quick. At a future date I will pull off those lower dash speakers trim and access those and add some polyfill.

After I get the back seat situated, then I will be looking into getting some inexpensive upgraded speakers in there too.

Any recommendations on speakers will be greatly appreciated. I'm probably looking to spend like $160 total, like $80 for the sound bar and maybe another $80 for the dash. I do want to keep the speaker locations the same, I've seen that kit you can buy to add a bigger speaker on the sound bar, and that's not something I want to do.

Hope you all had as good of a weekend as I've had so far.

 

[Mx5red]

So I took off the sound bar yesterday and started pulling it apart, I don't have any sound deadening mats as of right now, but I did buy some polyfill a while ago and have been meaning to see if it will affect the sound at all.

Before I added the polyfill it sounded pretty good overall definitely met all my expectations. The bass was decent enough and the mid-range was pretty cool and the treble was there I guess. I wouldn't say it was as good as my wife's Subaru which has the Harman Kardon sound system on it, but it took care of me. The only place where I felt it needed improvement was on the highways it felt like all the sound was escaping in every direction but down. Some songs I would have it on completely full blast, and still not be able to hear the song.

My understanding of polyfill is that it tricks the sound waves into thinking the space is bigger than it is, so you can make a small little box sound like a big one with a little bit of polyfill.

It was strangely easy to yank apart too.

(Sorry for the fuzzy photo, it's already put back together so I'm not about to yank it apart for a better photo.)
If you do do this, I wouldn't mess with this tube thing, unless you have a replacement gasket. It has a neoprene gasket underneath it that shreds when you take out the screws. It was a real son of a gun trying to get it back in place in pieces so that was still effectively doing its job. I ended up using a little bit of clear coat as glue to make it stay in place.

From the reading up I've done on using this stuff, too much polyfill is bad, and not enough polyfill is bad. One of the videos I was watching about how to install polyfill before I did this was basically saying how it's a guessing game and professional speaker makers and audio guys Well basically keep adjusting how much polyfill is in there until it's perfect.

You guys know me, I don't care about perfection. So I stuffed enough in there that I felt it was adequate, without being so much that it's pushing the speaker back out when I reinstalled it.

I got it all reassembled and put it back on the cross pillar, and I was thinking about the four other speakers in the dash. The two up top I know our super easy to access, and the ones beneath them are a little more difficult to access. So at least for today I went in and yanked out the two upper speakers on the dash.

Same thing on the front, no real measuring of the polyfill, just filled it to where I felt it was right.

I should probably add that I cleaned up all of these spaces with a Shop-Vac and tried to wipe down anything I thought might be a little bit dirty with a microfiber cloth.

Now that it's all put back together, I was testing it with a couple different genres that I listen to, electronic music with heavy bass, rap with some mid-range and heavy bass, death metal with mild bass mid-range and treble, and some bluegrass with a lot of mid-range a fair amount of treble and next to no bass.

It sounds noticeably better, at least at a standstill. Like the base sounds deeper and more full. The mid-range and treble aren't just high-pitched staticky, playing with the settings on the equalizer actually makes a difference now. I can really hear it. It's kind of hard to describe since I'm not much of an audiophile, but overall I feel it made a difference. I think at this point the only thing I would do to improve it further is at a future date I will upgrade the speakers themselves. I've always been a fan of those ones with the tweeters in the center. I won't ever install a subwoofer, I can't stand how much space they take up. But for now I'm happy with how it turned out.

So for like $4 with tax at hobby lobby or whatever your local craft store is, you can definitely improve your base speakers with just a little bit of time. And honestly it's like super quick. I did the second set of speakers on the dash only because the sound bar went so quick. At a future date I will pull off those lower dash speakers trim and access those and add some polyfill.

After I get the back seat situated, then I will be looking into getting some inexpensive upgraded speakers in there too.

Any recommendations on speakers will be greatly appreciated. I'm probably looking to spend like $160 total, like $80 for the sound bar and maybe another $80 for the dash. I do want to keep the speaker locations the same, I've seen that kit you can buy to add a bigger speaker on the sound bar, and that's not something I want to do.

Hope you all had as good of a weekend as I've had so far.

I don’t think you need to spend a lot on the speakers, though if people do then more power to ‘em. Infinity, Kenwood, and the mopar Kicker speakers out of a Dart or something are common go-to’s.

Sometimes expensive speakers don’t sound that great replacing stock because they need more amplifier power to drive them effectively. So if you’re not upgrading the amp and all that, which is a pain/investment in the wrangler, then it’s counterproductive to get big speakers.

Sponsored