Ground transport mileage

[flyguy]

Was over to Fresno airparts about 2 weeks ago and again today. Before I noticed I got pretty good mileage driving my Ford Mustang on back roads at 55 mph, so I checked it carefully today. Cruise control, running the air conditioning most of the time, 55 mph, level roads, Zip traffic, stop lights/signs in 4 small towns. One hundred and 36 miles on 4.49 gallons comes to 30 miles per gallon. Not too bad for a 190 horse six and a 3500 lb car, IMHO. That is running at 1600 rpm in OD with a manual transmission.

Strangely enought though, I had an 83 Pontiac Firebird with a V8 and a TPI four-barrel that would do the same thing at 60 miles per hour with a locking 700R4 overdrive automatic. Of course that has got to be the slickest body that ever rolled down the road and it was running small stock tires at the time. Wish I could get a new one of those.
Darryl

[crispy critter]

Re: Ground transport mileage

Was over to Fresno airparts about 2 weeks ago and again today. Before I noticed I got pretty good mileage driving my Ford Mustang on back roads at 55 mph, so I checked it carefully today. Cruise control, running the air conditioning most of the time, 55 mph, level roads, Zip traffic, stop lights/signs in 4 small towns. One hundred and 36 miles on 4.49 gallons comes to 30 miles per gallon. Not too bad for a 190 horse six and a 3500 lb car, IMHO. That is running at 1600 rpm in OD with a manual transmission.

Strangely enought though, I had an 83 Pontiac Firebird with a V8 and a TPI four-barrel that would do the same thing at 60 miles per hour with a locking 700R4 overdrive automatic. Of course that has got to be the slickest body that ever rolled down the road and it was running small stock tires at the time. Wish I could get a new one of those.
Darryl

Darryl,
Is your 83 firebird a four barrel or TPI,there is a big difference. The TPI(Tune Port Injection) gives great power up to about 4500 rpms and great milage and is very simple to maintain once you figure it out(even easier then a carb). A small block chevy engine with a 4 barrel carb gets terrible milage however it will produce good hp & torque all the way up to 6000 rpms or more. Now with all that being said,the firebird in 1983 came out with either a 4 barrel carb or a cross-fire injection which is two fuel injected carbs(kinda like a bendix pressure carb)setting on opposite corners of the engine. These really produced some awsome power out of the little small block chevy V8's and they got pretty reasonable gas milage but were very troublesome and hard to keep in tune. They used this set up on a lot of the 81,82,& 84 Corvette's as well as the 82-84 camaro's & firebirds. They started using the TPI(tune port injection)system in the Corvette in and IROC Z camaros in 1985 and continued through about 1992ish.

[flyguy]

Re: Ground transport mileage

Oops sorry, I meant to say Throttle body injection. I may be confusing it with a later TBI I had on a S-10 PU with a 4.3 six.
The pontiac was definately a 4 barrel, but I think I erred on the TBI. Let me see if I still have the manual. It was a 305, only 145 HP, but was adequate on acceleration and great at highway speeds. Loved that car.
DC

Edit: Just checked the listings on the 3 gen birds and camaro page and they show the 305 ci, 150 HP (145 calif.) as coming with a quadrajet. Don't know why I was thinking it was TBI quad. Know I did have it on my 91 4.3 S-10. Was 2 bbl.

[Pat Murphy]

Re: Ground transport mileage

I have an 82 Firebird with the 5 liter (307) BOP engine, not a Chevy small block with the 4 barrel Quadramess carb, will get 15 mpg on a good day. It has the 200 metric (3 speed) trans and is turning 2400 rpm at 70 mph. With a 700 metric, 4 speed OD tranny, it will do 70 mph at 1650 rpm and get about 24 mpg. Great looking car and fun to drive.
Not as much fun as a T-craft.

[freightpilot27]

Re: Ground transport mileage

You had the air conditioning on?
jeez, im jealous, we had a blizzard here yesterday in Michigan.
We are almost 30 inches ABOVE average snow fall for this year.... so far.

[vetdrem]

Re: Ground transport mileage

I have a '64 vette roadster 327/365hp 4 barrel, 4 speed. I get asked all the time about my milage. I tell everyone that I get about 100 smiles/gal. and that the milage is really good, I fill it up, and I don't have to put gas in it again till it's almost down to the "E".

A major difference between the vette and the t-craft is that if I run down the runway at 60 mph in the vette and pull back on the steering wheel, not much happens, but in the t-craft, when rolling down the runway and pull back on the wheel, it gets REAL exciting, REAL fast.

[Larry Lyons]

Re: Ground transport mileage

Alright, you started this! My 32' Sea Ray gets 1.7 mpg, way better then my last boat (house boat) that got 2 gallons to the mile! I am still getting used to this much economy!
L

[Bird]

Re: Ground transport mileage

LOL I can remember in HS a car that my mom had that got 23 or 24 miles to a quart of oil

[Larry Lyons]

Re: Ground transport mileage

LOL I can remember in HS a car that my mom had that got 23 or 24 miles to a quart of oil

Musta bin a radial!
L