2005 sliverado mod better fuel econ help

ok, i ve been reading through this enough now,
isn´t this forum supposed to help people with questions and not fight with each other?
you guys are worse than women!
and to the topic, i´m goning to university for automotive engineering and i live in germany right now where gas is about 6 dollars a gallon for regular, so people here really try to safe as much gas as possible! and the point to this is:

if you take the equations then there are two things you can safe a lot of gas with, the rest only chenges stuff in very small ways!
1. biggest part of all: "safe" weihgt. the less the vehicle weigt is, the better the milage, no matter what!!!!
so don´t carry unnedded stuff around in the back.
2. the friction in the drivetrain is the secound most important thing, if a tranny und t-case are set up right, if you use synthetic oil etc then you can safe some too!

unlike most people think, aerodynamics only playes a little role if you don´t go beonde 100 mph! which most of us don´t in a 4x4 anyways!

for examle. i just figured sth oput for the fun of it on my truck.
if i would build the whole body out of carbon fiber (noone can afford that, but still) i would save up to 1500 lbs of weight with the same if not more strenght! and to put it down to the milage: the way the truck is right now i get about 10 mil/gal. with the carbon fiber body i would get 12.37 mil/gal. if you would keep rotating masses down with magnesium rims you could save on rotating mass to and get even better millage!

oh and i forgot, it only makes a litlle difference, but runing led lights and hid headlight puts a lot less load on the alternator and also helps reduce consumption some! plus these lights don´t burn out and are a lot brighter too!

hope this helps to clear the fight!!!!!

Not sure why you say the fighting like women thing as I am not fighting per say I am strictly telling it like it is and what Detriot does not talk about. SOme would like to believe otherwise.  They do use hand built and tuned cars running 93 octne fuel and skew the test proceedure to their benifit. (they can take up to 30 seconds to get to 59 MPH during test and who takes that long in the real world??) Sure reducing weight will help MPG but reducing rotating mass is not going to help other than reducing vehicle weight because the mass of the wheel has not real effect on MPG at a steady cruising speed. (it will help it a little around town but money and effort would be better spent on narrower tires with smooth tread and higher pressure to reduce rolling resistance it you are realy serious about improving MPG.  Trucks have gotten consistantly heavier and less truck like too. I remember a 66 3/4 chevy I had that could take down a two inch sapling with its bumber and scratch the paint on it at best and it weighed less than a new like one and a 1/2 sapling would tear the plastic bumper off of a new HD GM P/U. I have a few 4x4's but I do not drive them daily as I has not ego issues that I must drive a 4x4 all the time when I do not need it. The plus side to this is that the saved gas pretty much pays for the 4 banger car AND the 4x4 last a LOT longer. To me a 4x4 is a tool and not a symbol.

i aggree on the point of not driving the lifted truck all da<y long, cause most of the time, on the way to work you hardly need 4x4 and also don´t really need the lift an big tires. i drive a turob charged 4 banger everyday and have the truck as a toy. like you said you cab save money everyday by driving a small car and use the saved money to gas up the 4x4 for play at the weekend!
over here in germany most people drive small diesel (turobcharged) cars that  get about 30 to 40 mil/gal. for just driving around town or going shopping that is way good enough!
but still i´m trying to reduce the weight of my 30 year old truck as much as i can too, but withour sacraficing the overall strength. light but strong, just like a race truck! ;-)
(at constat speed you are right about the rotating mass, but it takes more power to accelerate more rotating mass too!!!)