<VV> Strange economy run happening

Bruce Schug bwschug@charter.net
Mon, 23 Aug 2004 16:33:23 -0400


FastVairers,

I've been on a lot of economy runs and I've never seen anything like 
this... see what you think.

Saturday, CORSA South Carolina had its annual economy run. We had a 
good turnout with eleven Corvairs and one "other" car. We filled our 
own cars up at the start, as usual, and got going. The course was 
short, about 42 miles, and flat, not many hills or mountains to coast 
down. At the end we pulled into a gas station and the fill-up began. 
The eventmaster and a helper carefully filled everyone's tank. I did 
very well getting 49+ mpg. One of these days, I'm going to get over 50, 
but not today! Other cars were; 32, twentys, etc.

But I didn't win.

Another fellow had a nice black early coupe. I'd never seen the car 
before and I don't think he'd ever run an economy run. They had pulled 
up to the pump and the eventmaster had only been able to get about .2 
gallons in it! THEY GOT 228 MPG! I wasn't there when they filled it, 
but they said they let it settle and it just wouldn't take anymore.

Later, a fellow pointed out to me the way the car sat when parked, 
lower on the driver's side. He told me that the driver was in the car 
when it was filled causing it to lean even more. Everyone knew 
something was wrong, but no one knew what. Assuming the guy had not 
installed a second gas tank or some other crazy thing, the only thing 
we could figure was that there was an air "bubble" trapped in the tank 
because of the way it was leaning. The only other possibility might be 
something to do with the overflow hose or something like that.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? Any other ideas?

Bruce W. Schug
CORSA South Carolina
Greenville, SC
bwschug@charter.net

CORSA member since 1981

'67 Monza. "67AC140"