diff --git a/prompting/llms/vllm_llm.py b/prompting/llms/vllm_llm.py
index 382982d47..58fca8af0 100644
--- a/prompting/llms/vllm_llm.py
+++ b/prompting/llms/vllm_llm.py
@@ -24,19 +24,6 @@
 from prompting.llms import BasePipeline, BaseLLM
 from prompting.mock import MockPipeline
 from prompting.llms.utils import calculate_gpu_requirements
-from vllm.model_executor.parallel_utils.parallel_state import destroy_model_parallel
-
-
-def clean_gpu_cache():
-    destroy_model_parallel()
-    gc.collect()
-    torch.cuda.empty_cache()
-    if torch.distributed.is_initialized():
-        torch.distributed.destroy_process_group()
-
-    # Wait for the GPU to clean up
-    time.sleep(10)
-    torch.cuda.synchronize()
 
 
 def load_vllm_pipeline(model_id: str, device: str, gpus: int, max_allowed_memory_in_gb: int, mock=False):
@@ -44,7 +31,7 @@ def load_vllm_pipeline(model_id: str, device: str, gpus: int, max_allowed_memory
     if mock or model_id == "mock":
         return MockPipeline(model_id)
 
-    # Calculates the gpu memory utilization required to run the model within 20GB of GPU    
+    # Calculates the gpu memory utilization required to run the model.
     max_allowed_memory_allocation_in_bytes = max_allowed_memory_in_gb * 1e9
     gpu_mem_utilization = calculate_gpu_requirements(
         device, gpus, max_allowed_memory_allocation_in_bytes
@@ -52,7 +39,7 @@ def load_vllm_pipeline(model_id: str, device: str, gpus: int, max_allowed_memory
 
     try:
         # Attempt to initialize the LLM
-        llm = LLM(model=model_id, gpu_memory_utilization = gpu_mem_utilization, quantization="AWQ", tensor_parallel_size=gpus)        
+        llm = LLM(model=model_id, gpu_memory_utilization = gpu_mem_utilization, quantization="AWQ", tensor_parallel_size=gpus)
         # This solution implemented by @bkb2135 sets the eos_token_id directly for efficiency in vLLM usage.
         # This approach avoids the overhead of loading a tokenizer each time the custom eos token is needed.
         # Using the Hugging Face pipeline, the eos token specific to llama models was fetched and saved (128009).
@@ -68,7 +55,14 @@ def load_vllm_pipeline(model_id: str, device: str, gpus: int, max_allowed_memory
 
 
 class vLLMPipeline(BasePipeline):
-    def __init__(self, model_id: str, llm_max_allowed_memory_in_gb: int, device: str = None, gpus: int = 1, mock: bool = False):
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        model_id: str,
+        llm_max_allowed_memory_in_gb: int,
+        device: str = None,
+        gpus: int = 1,
+        mock: bool = False
+    ):
         super().__init__()
         self.llm = load_vllm_pipeline(model_id, device, gpus, llm_max_allowed_memory_in_gb, mock)
         self.mock = mock
@@ -109,7 +103,13 @@ def __init__(
 
         # Keep track of generation data using messages and times
         self.messages = [{"content": self.system_prompt, "role": "system"}]
-        self.times = [0]
+        self.times: List[float] = [0]
+        self._role_template = {
+            "system": "<|begin_of_text|><|start_header_id|>system<|end_header_id|>\n{{{{ {} }}}}<|eot_id|>",
+            "user": "<|start_header_id|>user<|end_header_id|>\n{{{{ {} }}}}<|eot_id|>",
+            "assistant": "<|start_header_id|>assistant<|end_header_id|>\n{{{{ {} }}}}<|eot_id|>",
+            "end": "<|start_header_id|>assistant<|end_header_id|>",
+        }
 
     def query(
         self,
@@ -125,29 +125,25 @@ def query(
         response = self.forward(messages=messages)
         response = self.clean_response(cleaner, response)
 
-        self.messages = messages + [{"content": response, "role": "assistant"}]
-        self.times = self.times + [0, time.time() - t0]
+        self.messages = messages
+        self.messages.append({"content": response, "role": "assistant"})
+        self.times.extend((0, time.time() - t0))
 
         return response
 
-    def _make_prompt(self, messages: List[Dict[str, str]]):
-        composed_prompt = ""
+    def _make_prompt(self, messages: List[Dict[str, str]]) -> str:
+        composed_prompt: List[str] = []
 
         for message in messages:
-            if message["role"] == "system":
-                composed_prompt += (
-                    f'<|begin_of_text|><|start_header_id|>system<|end_header_id|>\n{{{{ {message["content"]} }}}}<|eot_id|>'
-                )
-            elif message["role"] == "user":
-                composed_prompt += f'<|start_header_id|>user<|end_header_id|>\n{{{{ {message["content"]} }}}}<|eot_id|>'
-            elif message["role"] == "assistant":
-                composed_prompt += (
-                    f'<|start_header_id|>assistant<|end_header_id|>\n{{{{ {message["content"]} }}}}<|eot_id|>'
-                )
+            role = message["role"]
+            if role not in self._role_template:
+                continue
+            content = message["content"]
+            composed_prompt.append(self._role_template[role].format(content))
 
         # Adds final tag indicating the assistant's turn
-        composed_prompt += "<|start_header_id|>assistant<|end_header_id|>"
-        return composed_prompt
+        composed_prompt.append(self._role_template["end"])
+        return "".join(composed_prompt)
 
     def forward(self, messages: List[Dict[str, str]]):
         # make composed prompt from messages
@@ -164,7 +160,10 @@ def forward(self, messages: List[Dict[str, str]]):
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     # Example usage
     llm_pipeline = vLLMPipeline(
-        model_id="HuggingFaceH4/zephyr-7b-beta", device="cuda", mock=False
+        model_id="casperhansen/llama-3-70b-instruct-awq",
+        device="cuda",
+        llm_max_allowed_memory_in_gb=80,
+        gpus=1,
     )
     llm = vLLM_LLM(llm_pipeline, system_prompt="You are a helpful AI assistant")