Gas Mileage - was<VV> RE: Running on regular

[FrankCB at aol.com]

V V ers,
    Let's get back to basics.  In my area, Premium  fuel (93-94 RON) costs 
only 20 cents more than Regular gas (87 RON).  If  regular is $ 3 a galon that 
means premium is $ 3.20 an increase of only SEVEN  percent!  As soon as you 
start retarding the ignition timing you  will LOSE at least that much in miles 
per gallon as well as in  performance!!!!  Is it really worth it???
    There are a number of ways to increase mileage to  help offset the rising 
price of gasoline.  The most obvious is to drop  highway speed down to the 
speed limit.  It takes a lot more energy to push  the car at 75mph compared to 
60 mph due to the BIG increase in wind  resistance.  The other ways of saving 
gas are more subtle.  Minimize  use of the brakes.  Every time you brake, you 
are throwing away gas money  by converting the momentum energy of the car into 
waste heat. The guy who gets  100,000 miles on a set of brakes is getting good 
gas mileage.
    The way to minimize braking is by "anitcipatory  driving" as the Prez of 
our local club puts it.  Plan ahead so that by the  time you reach that red 
light it has turned green.  So many times I am  in the slow lane of the highway 
driving at the speed limit and drivers are  PASSING ME in the exit lane where 
they will soon jam on their brakes for a red  light or a stop sign.  As part 
of this, allow a large distance between  you and the car in front of you.   
That way, when he suddenly  jams on his brakes to make a turn or to change lanes 
or because his kid  bounced something off his head, you can simply take your 
foot off the gas  instead of jamming on your brakes.
    Try leaving for work 10 minutes EARLY instead  of 10 minutes LATE.  
Taking the time pressure off can do a lot to  increase gas mileage.
    And on Corvairs, make sure that the vacuum advance  is working correctly 
on your distributor.  When I converted from pressure  retard to vacuum advance 
on my 180, my mileage increased 22% on the same drive  back and forth to work 
every day.  Plus the car was much more responsive in  part throttle driving 
in traffic.
    Frank "the frugal" Burkhard
    
 
In a message dated 5/7/2006 5:17:35 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
deltainc at grm.net writes:


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven R. Marti"  <srmarti at netzero.net>
Subject: <VV> RE: Running on  regular


> <snip>
> There was a thread last week  about how to make a 110 run on regular.  > I
found the timing at 4  deg BTDC.  When I moved it up to 14 deg the engine
> smoothed out  and and sped up.> Steve Marti
*******
sounds about right... on my '66  110 4sp 3.55 streeter I can run Iowa Ethanol
( 89 pump sticker ) with just  an occasional ping if I twist my distributor
to 8 degrees no  vacuum.
runs smooth, no backfires but is flat on top end (g) , turns about  85 mph
tops on level road, & reads 88 horses on my G-Whiz  gadget.
Just some trivia .. ken campbell, iowa  guy.