thought crossed my mind after falling asleep in my truck trying to stay dry one night when camping.ended up letting the truck idle for 7 hours before i woke up and realized it :doh:then i got to thinking. has anyone done any research on how many gallons per hour these things use at stock idle speed (800~rpm)? what about with high idle engaged around 1200 rpm's? also is there any danger in idling these trucks for hours at a time at factory idle speed?

According to my SGII on my truck with a 200F t-stat in im between .4 and .6 gph. but as for reality i don't know. I slept once for 8 hours and burned about 4 gallons of diesel so i think that sounds about right.

thanks for the info! i appreciate it!!

Check this out... http://www.autoblog.com/2011/07/22/worlds-largest-diesel-engine-makes-109-000-horsepower/

That engine is a "Low Speed Direct Drive" (LSDD) Marine Engine. Two major benefits - 1. no reduction gears required between engine and propellor. 2. These LSDD are almost as efficient as the theoretical "Carnot Engine". Top efficiency. The Carnot Engine is, per Physics - the most efficient use of energy coming from a heat source...and the theoretical efficiency is obtained by taking absolute temperature of heat source (max. temp. of fuel being burned) and subtracting the absoute temperature of the heat sink ...divided by absolute temperature of heat source. In the real world, it is hard to get the top heat source temperature, and the heat sink temperature is usually much higher than optimum...so efficiencies drop from the theoretical maximum fairly quickly. The shippers want decent speeds, but they also look for fuel efficiency ...so the LSDD is what is big on the market no.