Episode 695 – On Board Air Tanks

This Week In Jeep

Car and Driver Tested The Hurricane Inline Six Engine

Car and Driver have been around since 1955, and it didn’t take long for them to become one the leaders in automotive journalism. Barely a year after its start, the company created the “Testing Hub” where they push products, engines, and even vehicles to their limits. Then they take a deep dive into the numbers behind the tests.  Car and Driver got their hands on one of Jeep’s new twin-turbocharged “Hurricane” inline-six engines.

Apparently, the new motor is proving its worth, beating the old Hemi V-8 in both acceleration and fuel economy. Test results for the 2023 Jeep Grand Wagoneer L with the new 510-horsepower version of the twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six show that it’s both quicker and more efficient than the 2022 Grand Wagoneer with the 6.4-liter V-8—even though the six-cylinder SUV they tested was the bigger, heavier long-wheelbase L model. They managed to get the 6428-pound Grand Wagoneer L from 0 to 60 mph in just 4.7 seconds. This beat the old, 102-pound-lighter, V-8 model by nearly 3/4 of a second (0.7 seconds)  That advantage shrunk to 0.4 seconds and 2 mph in the quarter mile, as the off-the-line advantage of the turbo’s 3500-rpm brake torque launch wears off when faced with the raw gas chugging power of a Hemi V8. But that’s still DAMN quick for a full-size, truck-based SUV, beating out the Ford Expedition Stealth Performance model’s 4.9-second run to 60 mph and coming closer than anyone would have expected to the supercharged, 682-horsepower Cadillac Escalade-V’s 4.3-second sprint. Although Car and Driver said they would categorize the Jeep’s boosted six as quite responsive, turbocharged engines’ power delivery is never as instantaneous as that of a naturally aspirated engine. So with that, the inline six did suffer in some of the rolling start tests. For instance, rolling at 30 mph and accelerating to 50 the Hurricane was no quicker than the V8 and was actually a tenth of a second slower in the 50-70 MPH test. In the 75-mph highway fuel-economy test, the smaller-displacement turbo-six won out, too. It achieved a result of 20 mpg to the V-8’s 19 mpg; not exactly a huge difference, but impressive considering the extra grunt the smaller engine also provides.

The addition of the inline-six has complicated the Waggoner’s powertrain lineup somewhat. The inline-six is standard on all long-wheelbase L versions, although the Wagoneer L has the 420-horsepower standard-output version and the Grand Wagoneer L has the 510-horsepower high-output version. Among short-wheelbase variants, the 3.0-liter six is optional, as the base Wagoneer continues with its standard 5.7-liter V-8 and the base Grand Wagoneer with its 6.4-liter V-8. But based on the new engine’s strong performance, it seems a worthy upgrade if you’re shopping for one of these behemoths. My question is there anyone at Jeep that is trying to shoehorn one of these bad boys into a Wrangler yet? If not, I might be available for some testing, …just saying.

I Blame The Parents

It’s not often I cast blame. Oh sure, I may say it’s your fault, but I won’t blame you. That’s entirely different. The parents of these two teens, however, I fully blame for what you’re about to hear. Two teens were injured in an accident just before 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in Buchanan  County Missouri. The State Patrol reported a 2005 Jeep driven by a 15-year-old St. Joseph, Missouri, the girl was southbound on Highway 371 at SE Barnett Road. The driver of the Jeep was fixing her hair and allowing the passenger to control the vehicle.  The 15-year-old female passenger lost control of the Jeep. The driver attempted to regain control of the vehicle, overcorrected and the Jeep traveled off the east side of the road, struck an embankment, and rolled onto its top. Both the driver and passenger were ejected. Buchanan County ambulance transported both teens to Mosaic Life Care in St. Joseph. They were not wearing seat belts, according to the MSHP. I’ve said for years that a Jeep should very rarely be the first vehicle for anyone. 

There are rare and few exceptions, but the rule of thumb is a Jeep is just too much for a new driver. Despite these parents not heading my warnings, they also clearly did not instill the fear of blood gore, and dismemberment by forcing these young new drivers to watch timeless classics such as “Wheels of Tragedy” … “Red Asphalt” or “Death On The Highway” Had the parents done their job, maybe these two girls would have buckled up. They still likely would have lost control and flipped the Jeep, but they might have instead walked away.

I Thought Drug Dealers Preferred Cadillacs 

Four people were taken into custody after drugs and guns were located in a parked vehicle. Detectives were working in the area of Hillside Avenue late Monday night when they spotted a parked Jeep with four people inside and smoke pouring from the windows. Authorities say the Jeep smelled strongly of marijuana and detectives were able to clearly see multiple pistols out in the open inside the vehicle. All of this is a no-no in Tennessee, so out came the cuffs. Two of the occupants were found to be convicted felons and a third was previously convicted of domestic violence, prohibiting them from possessing guns. Oops. As the four suspects were taken into custody, police searched the Jeep, and seized more than 100 meth pills laced with fentanyl, along with various amounts of cocaine, Xanax, and marijuana. The front-seat passenger, 31-year-old Justin Dunnigan, was found to be a convicted robber. Police say most of the drugs, along with two scales and more than $6,000 in cash, were found in a backpack at his feet. Dunnigan is facing multiple drug and gun counts and is being held on a $245,000 bond. The driver of the Jeep, 35-year-old Marques Felder, is facing a charge of felony gun possession. He was previously convicted of domestic assault in Nashville and is now being held on a $16,000 bond. Rear-seat passenger Samari Rutland is facing two counts of felony drug possession and having a gun during the commission of a felony. His bond is set at $81,000. The final passenger, 35-year-old Lakesha Jenkins, was previously convicted of assault in Sumner County and is now facing a charge of felony gun possession. Her bond is set at $15,000. The Jeep was impounded and the criminals were locked up. The moral of the story? Don’t be a drug dealer.

Tech Talk with Jeep Talk

TOPIC/QUESTION: Adding Compressed Air Tank(s) To Your Jeep

Last weekend I headed out to the Millican Valley OHV Trail System. This amazing area of central Oregon provides year-round riding for Class I, II, and III users and includes 255 miles of designated routes, nine staging areas, and three play areas. With an average of 300 days a year of sunshine, the trails there are dusty beyond belief. The best thing to combat a dusty offroad trip is not hermetically sealing yourself up in your Jeep like some instrument out of a doctor’s office drawer. No No. I got two words for ya, …on-board compressed air. Being able to blow off the dash, your face, clothes, or anything or any place you want. And let me tell you just how nice and refreshing a 120 psi blast of cold compressed air feels under the belt line on a hot dusty day. Yes, siree bub. Here’s the kick in the shorts though, I’m not going to help you pick a compressor, or tell you how to wire it up, nor am I here to tell you how to plumb it either. We can save all that for another Tech Talk. For now, we need to focus on the one thing not mentioned that makes it possible to do things like trail-side air filter cleaning. Sure a compressor will pump up a tire, and the dual compressors out there can actually move some CFM, but you really don’t get any kind of pressure, or (and this is the most important part) you don’t get any supply either. About all the volume you’ll get is how much air can be stored in the hose. So let’s get you a tank! Air compressor tanks are designed to hold and store a volume of compressed air at high pressures. Tanks are usually made of steel or aluminum and come in three common shapes. 

Spherical Tanks, which are, well, spheres. These typically run in the 1 to maybe 3-gallon size but are reserved (typically) for smaller volumes. Pancake Tanks look like two big salad bowls welded together at their lip. These typically run in the 3-gallon capacity and are usually good for at least 125 psi. Depending on your setup and ability to fabricate mounts, I’ve seen a pancake tank sitting inside the wheel of the spare tire. Lastly, we have the most common tank shape, and that’s the Cylinder Tank. 

These can range in size from 1.5 gallons up to tank sizes that would dwarf your Jeep. But for most vehicle applications, people opt for the 3 to 5-gallon size because of size and fitment. Cylinder tanks are good for high-pressure systems and have no problem holding pressures up to 175 psi in some cases. But not all tanks are rated for high pressure, so be careful in what you choose. All tanks will be equipped with at least a couple of ports on their ends or top side, and a drain port on their underside. Most tanks come with feet, or in some cases mounting brackets opening up the possibility for creative mounting solutions. Jeeps aren’t known for having a lot of extra room so finding a location to mount your tank is going to be one of the first things to consider. 

Once you have an idea of where you want your tank to be, you need to figure out just how much of a tank you can fit in that area. Typically in a Jeep like a Wrangler, Jeepers opt for one of three common mounting places, the roll bar, oftentimes finding room on the underside of one of the diagonal bars. Or usually, you’ll see a tank, or sometimes two tucked up next to the frame rails on the underside of the Jeep.

Of course, you could always just bolt it to the cargo floor, but that takes up valuable room for coolers of food and beer. If you do decide to mount your tank under the Jeep, you’ll likely want to keep the size to the 3 or 4-gallon cylinders. And I would narrow your search to aluminum tanks for the sake of keeping the rust away. These tanks rarely run more than 6 inches in diameter and are perfect for mounting up under a Jeep. Their small diameter size means they won’t protrude below the frame interfering with skid plates or rocks. You can fork out the big bucks for big recognizable names, but at the end of the trail, that tank will rarely be seen and will be covered in so much road grime, mud, and trail dirt, that nobody is going to be able to identify the manufacturer anyways. All you care about is size, rating, and price. The rest is the fun part. Figuring out which compressor you’re going to run, or if you already have one, then it’s time to figure out the plumbing. There are things that will be needed obviously, like the airline, pressure switches, safety valves, and of course quick disconnect ports for hooking up that airline and blow-off gun. 

 Adding an air tank to your Jeep is a lot easier and more affordable than you think.

All said and done, with every component, hose, fitting, and accessory (minus the compressor of course) you could easily get this done for under $300, and if you use some ingenuity, I bet you could do it for under $200. 4-gallon tank prices run on average about $130 give or take. 1-gallon tanks are as low as $40 making the possibility of a $100 system very real. But know this, the smaller the tank, the less volume of compressed air you will have, which means you may only be able to blow off your hat before having to wait for the tank to refill. 

Links Mentioned in this Episode

NEXEN Tires USA https://www.nexentireusa.com/

Trails 411- POWERING Your Adventure https://www.youtube.com/user/backcountrydriver

The 4×4 Radio Network http://4x4radionetwork.com/

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