Insane Gas Prices...help

[Alarus]

I make about 600 a month right now (looking for a better job) and was wondering if you guys could give any/all tips that would help save gas (other than the ovious slow down and that kind of stuff, allready doing that) im talking like intake, gears, tricks,
heres a question, would changing to an electric fan help or hurt? (not only mileage)
'73 w/302, C-4

 

[latamud]

I suppose in the long run an electric fan will help. Highway gears, like 2.70's. A smaller Carb, Holley 450's go for $175 new at Summit and Jegs. A clean air filter, clean fuel filter. I'm thinking of installing O2 sensors and gauge to measure lean/rich moments. Its to help tune for my supercharger. There's another idea, they advertise gas economy with superchargers if you drive right. Supposedly you drive the same speeds but use less effort. Something like that. I don't believe it, I was getting around 8 miles a gallon on the highway with 2.70 gears and a 4 speed on 6 lbs of boost.

 

[UK70Stang]

Not that this helps you practically (it might just make you feel better) but here in the UK I filled up my motorbike yesterday for the bargin (equivalent) price of $6.50 per gallon.

How does that compare? Makes driving my Mustang pretty expensive.

 

[latamud]

Not that this helps you practically (it might just make you feel better) but here in the UK I filled up my motorbike yesterday for the bargin (equivalent) price of $6.50 per gallon.

How does that compare? Makes driving my Mustang pretty expensive.

How does that compare to your monthly income? You pay roughly 3 times more for gas. Maybe you make 3 times as much as us too? Just curious.

 

[Max Power]

Latemud, any minimal amount of research will tell you that they do not average 3 times the salary in the UK.

Alarus, Anything you do from the list you mentioned will cost you far more in the short term than save in the long term.

Say you spend $150 to convert to an electric fan. It will take you a year and quite a few miles to even make that money back in fuel savings, before you start saving, as an example.

 

[UK70Stang]

How does that compare to your monthly income? You pay roughly 3 times more for gas. Maybe you make 3 times as much as us too? Just curious.

Yeah, good point. A bit of looking tells me you get $5.15 minimum wage and we get the equivalent of $9.14 (todays exchange rate) soon to rise to about $10. So I guess our petrol isn't as expensive as it seems but it still hurts doing 10 to the gallon!!

I totally agree with Max Power as well, buying things to save petrol won't see any returns for a long time. Best to check that everything is in tune since that is relatively free.

FYI Max Power is a magazine over here for what you'd call Ricers. Check it out and laugh hard!!

www.maxpower.co.uk

PS Probably best not look at that if you're in your office....

 

[jikelly]

I was getting around 8 miles a gallon on the highway with 2.70 gears and a 4 speed on 6 lbs of boost.

Gee that seems really low. What intake, carb, and cam are you using? What was your mileage before the supercharger was added?

 

[Max Power]

FYI Max Power is a magazine over here for what you'd call Ricers. Check it out and laugh hard!!

www.maxpower.co.uk

PS Probably best not look at that if you're in your office....

Yeah, I am aware of that mag, but the handle for me originated with the Simpsons. Homer was a superhero for a day and he called himself Max Power because it was the highest setting on the hair dryer.

"Son, there is the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way."

"But Dad, isn't that the wrong way?"

"Yes, but faster".

 

[Gud T.B. Blown]

Alarus, Anything you do from the list you mentioned will cost you far more in the short term than save in the long term.

i agree with that completely. and if you're only making $600 a month, any of the upgrades is going to take a significant part of your monthly income and at best a year to recoup.
on similiar note, my buddy works at a 4WD shop and gets requests like this all of the time from truck owners. usually it's somebody with a 3/4 or 1 ton 4X4 , big block, lifted with huge tires, looking to increase their gas mileage. he used to try to tell them that nothing would really help much so they would go down the street to the other 4WD place and buy the headers, exhaust, throttle body spacers etc... anyway. so he just gave up and now sells them whatever they ask for. from the feedback he get nothing works more than 1 mpg and you can attribute that to different driving habits.

 

[brianj5600]

Free things like... 1. make sure the vacuum advance is functional 2. add initial timing, to the ping thresh hold 3. inflate tires to the max pressure on the sidewall

 

[bnickel]

this one will cost a little bit, but has been proven to free up some hp and mileage, change all fluids to synthetic. it will cost a bit initially but after the intila purchase the onely one you'll have to worry about for a while is the engine oil. you can alo try the timing advance option with different grades of gas as well, try each grade of gas and advance the timing to the ping threshold with all 3 and record your mileage,gas price per gallon and total amount of fill up, then use whichever grade gets you the best mileage per dollar. there are other things you can do as well like converting to electronic ignition like pertronix or something if you don't already have one, this one will cost you a little bit of cash again but will not only improve mileage somewhat but will improve drivability of the car. the best bet is to just make sure the car is in a good state of tune. also changing the jets in the carb to the leanest you can without being too lean will help a lot as well.

 

[65ShelbyClone]

I agree that unless you're going to be making the same wage and driving the same distance for a long time, economy parts wont pay for themselves soon enough. The electric fan is good idea no matter what, but wont return more than probably 1mpg. Advance the timing as far as you safely can, make sure your carb isnt running rich, air up your tires, and drive like a senior. Hopefully you arent running premium gas if you dont need to.

My '65 notch got around 16mpg with a toploader and 9" with 3.50s. It had a 600 DP and Wieand X-Celerator on a 289. I once squeezed 24mpg out of my 5.0.

 

[krash kendall]

Go the next size up on your rear tires (within asthetic reason). You will see the improvement on the highway. Poor man's overdrive you could call it.

Max Power - "it's a name....you musn't fear....cause anyone can say it...." or something like that.

 

[84convertablegt]

not to be a smart as*, but how about buying a 300 dollar ford aspire or something. mustangs, although they can be made to run well and get decent gas mileage, were not designed to be economy cars that are good on gas. especially an old carbed car. fuel injection has a better chance. not everyone is lucky enough to have there old mustang be a weekend only 2nd car i realize, but you cant worry about gas mileage and drive a classic stang imo unless its simply an indicator of your tune.

 

[Alarus]

lol yeah, ive even broke down to looing at a geo metro 3cyl 5spd...and i hate those cars worse than my dads truck (s-10 4 cyl 5spd) and speeking of tires i have a question, my spedo is about 5 miles off all the way from 0-70 (never been able to check it faster than 70, my friend was driving my dads truck and it was screwing up becuse of the spark plug wires) anyway would that be tires, or could they have dont gear work and not change the spedo gear...my tire size is 235/60R14

 

[bnickel]

lol yeah, ive even broke down to looing at a geo metro 3cyl 5spd...and i hate those cars worse than my dads truck (s-10 4 cyl 5spd) and speeking of tires i have a question, my spedo is about 5 miles off all the way from 0-70 (never been able to check it faster than 70, my friend was driving my dads truck and it was screwing up becuse of the spark plug wires) anyway would that be tires, or could they have dont gear work and not change the spedo gear...my tire size is 235/60R14

most likely tires. stock size tire would be anywhere from about a 205/70-14 to 225/70-14 or about 25-26 inches tall, iirc the 235/60-14 is only like 24" tall or something so yeah a taller rear tire will get a little better mileage and correct the speedometer provided it is reading faster than you are actually going.

i once was able to get 22-24 mpg out of my 351w with 3.25 gears and 26" tall tires. but that was with a very small cam, 4 degree advanced cam and ignition timing at about 38-40 degrees total and about 11:1 compression. needles to say it was a real dog on anything under about 3/4 throttle because the cam was advanced to far, oh and detonation was ugly until you were in the upper part of the torque curve too. it's no wonder it only lasted about 10,000 miles and was probably lucky to get that.

i actually had back to back the static timing off about 12 degrees to get the damn thing to start in the morning, let it warm up and then put the timing back to where it was. but i was too poor to take it apart and re-do it, since what i really needed was a new cam or less compression, setting the cam straight up or retarded 4 degrees would have helped but not much, so i just left it and was saving for a new cam, but i blew it up before i was able to save up enough

 

[Alarus]

wow i think thats the first time that one person anwsered all my questions at once , im probley gonna get used tires just for the back and keep the front, there barley used, the backs, well back right is almost dead (i like having fun and its a peg leg)

 

[69 302/351c]

Alarus, your last post may explain where your gas is going!!

 

[Alarus]

lol i dont do that often, well didnt, here lately ive gotten really board and i have like no friends so i just go screw around but when im not doing stuff like that im getting about 14 mpg and thats going over a bunch of mountans at about 65-70 mph sometimes up to even 80 (thats when im late for work) hopefully if i get bigger tires it will be alot harder for me to spin the tires, and i wont want to put much effort into it im lazy...

 

[latamud]

Latemud, any minimal amount of research will tell you that they do not average 3 times the salary in the UK.

Alarus, Anything you do from the list you mentioned will cost you far more in the short term than save in the long term.

Say you spend $150 to convert to an electric fan. It will take you a year and quite a few miles to even make that money back in fuel savings, before you start saving, as an example.

I asked, I thought that was minimal research