Hi all:
In December of 1964, our college SAE Club held an economy run throughtout
the Greater Los Angeles area. I went to a local Rambler dealer and they
gracioiusly loaned me a new plain Jane 1965 Rambler American stick
shift. This dealership had sponsored the previous year's Mobil Gas economy
run winner to Yosemite. They gave it to me a week ahead of the run for
practice, retarded the timing to 5 degrees after tdc (this what they told me)
and put some smaller jets in the carb. I added a vacuum gauge.
Just before the run, my navigator put 40# of air in the tires. During
the run, I drove without a shoe on my right foot. My navigator looked
ahead and advised me of the light situation. In total, we had to stop for
only 4 of the 88 lights on our run.
End result, we won the contest with 45 mpg!
Dan Reitz
Northridge, CA
******************************************
I had a similar experience.
My high school driver's ed. teacher tried
to impress upon the class that the best drivers were the ones who rarely
had to use their brakes - explaining that this gave maximum fuel economy, was
easy on the car's mechanics, the brakes lasted forever, and these driver's would
be safest, because in order to minimally use the brakes, you had to be an
extremely observant driver, anticipating the road situation far in
advance. These principals weren't lost on me.
My 5400 lb. Fireflite got 17.44 mpg on a
cross-country trip with the wrong pushrods installed. That is a 361, 4bbl,
torqueflite, with 3.23 gears and 7.60 x 15 BFG Silvertowns combo. The mix
up occurred when I put 906 heads on it and was told to use the original
pushrods.. This burned up 3 sets of mufflers from the valves not fully
closing.
When finished this time, the M-block 383
will mate to a 5 speed geared as a 4-speed w/ OD. A special cam and the
906's will be employed, and gears may be altered to taste. I am betting on
25 mpg or better.
Sometimes you just want to peel the rubber
off the rims, but 99.99% of the time I just love to pamper my cars and
anticipate lights, no jackrabbit starts, etc. My 440 Mag Coronet max's out
at about 16 mpg on a good day going downhill in a hurricane, but the
DeSoto manages a far greater range with that smaller bore, even though it
outweighs the Coronet by a almost a ton.
My beef with new rigs is that I can get
comparable mileage with my old cars and the new ones are just flat-out ugly by
comparison. If I am going to get under 20 mpg, I will do it with fins and
chrome, in a car with no payments and insurance is1/10th what it is on a new
car. I'll make up the difference for original crappy build quality on my
DeSoto. The payoff is decent performance in the best looking car ever
made. The day Dodge makes a car with fins and chrome again and the only
plastic on it is the vinyl seats, they *might* see me in the showroom
again. We were told by the powers-that-be that the reason cars lost chrome
bumpers and real metal and style was "safety and economy". I'd rather take
a bread truck in my DeSoto than any full size car for sale today, and if 20-25
mpg is the best anyone can offer after fifty $#@! years of
research and development ????? Gimme a break ! We were lied
to. The whole industry is a sham ! It is bad enough they look like
bars of soap and you need $200,000 diagnostic equipment to work on them.
But don't tell me they are great cars. I have a garage full of great
cars. I KNOW what those look like !
B.
Back to the Home of the Forward Look Network