[quote=jrb_nw;136488]What is your elevation there?

The desert floor here is 4350 feet elevation. Were not far from Cloudcroft, NM which is at 8665 feet.

You mentioning Denver. I once bought a small engine converted Olds Cutlass diesel. It would only do about 24 mpg combined. We took it to the Colorado mountains on a vacation. It smoked heavily and got rather hot going up some inclines. I even advanced the fuel injection pump all the way to give it some help. It was a little faster but still smoked. It was embarrassed with all the cars behind me and they could not pass due to oncoming traffic.

I was using a good brand of diesel. I kept the car till it hit 40K and traded it for a new '81 VW diesel rabbit. It was two years later and I wanted to go back to Colorado. The wife was worried the tiny 4-cyl diesel might not pull those mountains. I convinced her that this engine was designed by Mercedes and is sitting atop every 18 wheeler freezer truck around the nation. We headed off on the trip. The Rabbit got about 65 mpg highway and 52 to 55 while driving in Dallas. This was back in 1982.

Coming out of Raton, NM headed north toward Colorado. I remember having to stop a red light at the base of that long climb. The same hill the Olds like to have not made to the top. Its a long, rather steep climb up before the highway levels off. I ask my wife to turn around and look out the back window for smoke. I wound it out in low, shifted to 2nd. A nice long winding gear in this car. We were actually passing lots of other cars. I hit 3rd still with it on the floor. This thing was actually accelerating up that mountain. I took it up about mid rpm in 3rd and eased it into 4th. I think were nearing the top at about 70 miles per hour. We were both impressed how that little car would move She said there was only a hint of white smoke when I was in second gear. You know, that little fume burning injected diesel was only 50 horsepower. But it had lots of torque for power. I it had 25 to 1 compression. It was never cold natured and used no choke or butterfly. They determine the rpm by varying how much diesel thats injected into it.

We sure enjoyed that trip in the diesel rabbit. I remember we used the front vent windows when going downgrade. That was to get it slow from 85 down to 60 where I could then gear it down, starting with 4th.

VW puffed out the body a few years later and the car seemed to loose its appeal. We then bought a couple 4-cyl Cavaliers. Then I bought this excellent white '94 Prizm that I found was made by Toyota in Fremont, California. I was hooked. I drove the GM Prizm (Corolla) for 10 years and sold it for $1500 with 189,000 miles. The engine still sounded like clockwork and would start before you could let go of the key. I used synthetic in it all time. It used about half quart changing at 5000 miles.