# Fuel 'economy' the complete SHAM revealed here FIRST!



## CarrPainting (Jun 29, 2010)

I am making this thread, so I dont forget... I will post the pictures as evidence...

In my shops bathroom, I have a 1960's book... I dont even know the name of it! 

They talk about getting better gas mileage out of a 1960's BOAT we're talking a car, with the aerodynamics of a cinder block, with a big block V8, tipping the scales at over 4,000lbs...

wait for it...



wait for it....

22mpg AROUND TOWN!!!!!!!!!!!

and they talk about how to increase mpg, up to 28mpg, on leaded gas, in this 'boat'

This, leaves me with the impression, that all our 'advanced' technology in the automotice business is pure horse****!

I gotta post pics, this will blow your minds! :thumbsup:


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## CarrPainting (Jun 29, 2010)

Ok I am not sure how to post pics via the iPad yet... So I uploaded them to my Facebook page... You don't need fb to veiw them...

Go here: http://www.facebook.com/sparkyscorner2

Now no laffing at my dog sparky! :whistling


(yes I'm selling all that 'stuff'. No I won't ship it)


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## woodchuck2 (Feb 27, 2008)

An older fella i worked in Corrections with worked for Ford back in the late 50's/early 60's and he remembered a new station wagon being sold and being brought back for a gas gauge not working properly. The car was a 9 passenger wagon with a 390 4V auto. He stated to me he had to work on it so he replaced the fuel sender. The car came back a week later with the same concern except the owner claimed he was driving unusually far on gas. So he replaced the sending unit again, filled it with gas and put on a locking gas cap. They told the owner to drive it around 100 miles and bring it back. When he brought it back the car only took a couple gallons to fill. The dealer figured he had somehow put gas in it so they kept the car and my friend drove it back and forth to work for the week. He stated it had decent power but the gas gauge barely moved. He stated he pulled off the air cleaner to find a very odd looking carb on it. He told his boss who contacted Ford. The next day Ford reps showed up, took the car out in the back and removed the carb themselves and stuck a regular 4V Autolite on it. From there the car was returned to the owner and was averaging 12-15mpg. My friend was told by his boss that the car was never to be talked about but had slipped through Fords hand and ended up at a dealer. Apparently it was a research/development car used for mileage research.


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## skcolo (May 16, 2009)

Oh bullcrap. If the auto manufacturer's could get better fuel milage, they would. They have to lighten the crap out of cars to get the CAFE averages that are required now and that average goes to 54mpg in 2025.

No carburetor is as efficient as FI, never has been.

The computer controls that they run on cars make it so clean that at the tailpipe, it's almost pure water vapor.

In the 70's, you were lucky to get 5% CO and 500 ppm hydrocarbons at the tailpipe.

Don't believe that BS. BTW, those homemade hydrogen kits all over youtube don't work either.


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## woodchuck2 (Feb 27, 2008)

I will disagree, decent gas mileage could be obtained back then but it was not clean per emission standards. Look at the compact cars for example. These cars have always been good on gas but as time went by society wanted more power but cleaner emissions. Technology has been a huge improvement but lets face it, that has been held back on us too. We can put a man on the moon in a computerized capsule no bigger than a car in 1969 but at the time we cannot put a computer in a car for better power/fuel mileage?

Nicola Tesla had an electric 1931 Phantom "large car" that could go 100mph and had a range of 300 miles, yet 80yrs later we can barely match those numbers at best with a carbon fiber/plastic electric car the boast his name???? We as contractors know how battery technology has expanded in the just the last decade yet we somehow cannot come up with better batteries for an electric car?


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## tjbnwi (Feb 24, 2009)

The Tesla from 1931 was a Pierce Arrow (supposedly). Tesla some how (maybe) was able to us an AC motor and power it through the use of the earths magnetism. All other electric vechicles ever built have and currently use DC motors. The reports/stories of this vechicle can't even decide if it was an 80 hp motor or 80kw motor (108 hp). Batteries aren't there yet. 

As to a carbureted engine getting the same fuel economy as an electronicly controled fuel injected engine of the same displacement, it is not going to happen. To many "uncontrolled" factors affect the volume of fuel pushed through a carburetor. It is a device of compromises. Electronically controlling the ignition system was the first vast improvement. 

All of those emissions are the results of inefficiency. HC is unburnt fuel, wasted, just dumped out the tail pipe, Co, a bi-product of burning fossil fuel, higher the percentage, the less efficient the combustion, NOx a bi-product of high temperature cumbustion. 

Sure small vechicles get better fuel economy, less weight, smaller engine displacement. 

This comes up all the time. Any manufacture that can solve all of these (or most of) issuses will cash in like never before. 

Tom


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## madmax718 (Dec 7, 2012)

Look at the old 6.2 Chevy diesels. Not much power but man.. I got 25 in my 83 burn and 22 in my 92 k2500. Were just getting back there now. Dodge says 25 in their new pickup with the [email protected]

Point is you can get some great mpg.... If you shrink the motor.


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## J L (Nov 16, 2009)

madmax718 said:


> Look at the old 6.2 Chevy diesels. Not much power but man.. I got 25 in my 83 burn and 22 in my 92 k2500. Were just getting back there now. Dodge says 25 in their new pickup with the [email protected]
> 
> Point is you can get some great mpg.... If you shrink the motor.


I've got 2 of the 6.2s. My '85 blazer gets 17mpg on 33s with 3.08 gears and my '85 k3500 gets 12mpg on 37s with 4.56 gears. That truck will pull anything and go anywhere. The blazer is better at highway speeds but is a dog speeding up.


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## Cole82 (Nov 22, 2008)

I read some where the 1982 Ford escort is the most fuel efficient non hybrid ever produced. I don't know if that is true or not but here are some facts about it

1982 first year to have fuel injection
hwy mpg 41

My step mom had one and here in the flat state of IA we could get 45 on a regular basis keeping it at 65mph.

Cole


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## WarnerConstInc. (Jan 30, 2008)

Cole82 said:


> I read some where the 1982 Ford escort is the most fuel efficient non hybrid ever produced. I don't know if that is true or not but here are some facts about it
> 
> 1982 first year to have fuel injection
> hwy mpg 41
> ...


The old Chevette's got great mileage.


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## JT Wood (Dec 17, 2007)

WarnerConstInc. said:


> The old Chevette's got great mileage.


The sedan? or the SS



:laughing:


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## skcolo (May 16, 2009)

Remember the first Honda 600. In Japan, they had a 360 cc motorcycle engine and claimed 72mpg. They first started importing them to the US in 1969. I think the whole car weighed 80lbs.

Safety and emission regulations made it a short life span. I had a friend who had one when I was a teenager, and it was a scary experience riding around in it.


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## mehtwo (Nov 14, 2010)

There were MANY effort to increase the MPG of vehicles with improved carburetors. Many were successful, so the Big 3 or the oil companies bought them to have rights to them and never used them.:whistling Greed, not lack of technology, is why vehicles perform worse than they should. :whistling


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## mehtwo (Nov 14, 2010)

Think about this too: Before diesel pickups were the craze in the 1990s, diesel was a lot cheaper than gasoline, and diesel engines were more fuel efficient. When people started catching on to this, all of the sudden the government had to say that these engines ruined the envirinment and put very strict emmissions standards on them as well as mandated the low-sulphur diesel fuel, etc. If diesels weren't popular, then the price of diesel would still be cheap and there wouldn't probably be such thing as low-sulphur diesel, etc. So the government and corporations see a high demand of something and regulate it to make money off of it or control it by price.


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## Tom Struble (Mar 2, 2007)

boats are usually measured in hrs per gal


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## J L (Nov 16, 2009)

Tom Struble said:


> boats are usually measured in hrs per gal


Gallons/hr. Very few boats will get more than 1 hour per gallon. I just burnt about 6 gallons for an hour cruise :laughing:


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## Tom Struble (Mar 2, 2007)

my mistake:laughing:


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## Dirtywhiteboy (Oct 15, 2010)

I want the Milwaukee Rotary Hammer:blink:


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## Cole82 (Nov 22, 2008)

Dirtywhiteboy said:


> I want the Milwaukee Rotary Hammer:blink:


You will have to let us know the holes per gallon you are drilling.:whistling


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## The Coastal Craftsman (Jun 29, 2009)

I used to build fishing boats and a guy once told me that a boat prop is extremely efficient at transferring power and the engines have very little power train loss. I have no idea how true this is but it might explain why back then they were getting that kind of MPG.


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## Dirtywhiteboy (Oct 15, 2010)

Cole82 said:


> You will have to let us know the holes per gallon you are drilling.:whistling


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## ca90ss (Oct 14, 2010)

43 city, 52 hwy >20 years ago.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=6516


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## Cole82 (Nov 22, 2008)

BCConstruction said:


> I used to build fishing boats and a guy once told me that a boat prop is extremely efficient at transferring power and the engines have very little power train loss. I have no idea how true this is but it might explain why back then they were getting that kind of MPG.


5-8% of prop slip is ideal for a boat. That IS more efficient than most vehicles.:thumbsup:

Cole


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## CarrPainting (Jun 29, 2010)

Speaking of boats, you can get 40% better fuel efficiency by making the prop pull the boat thruogh the water vs pushing


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## r4r&r (Feb 22, 2012)

mehtwo said:


> There were MANY effort to increase the MPG of vehicles with improved carburetors. Many were successful, so the Big 3 or the oil companies bought them to have rights to them and never used them.:whistling Greed, not lack of technology, is why vehicles perform worse than they should. :whistling


I remember a news story when I was a kid in the '70s. Some guy invented a carb you could put on any car and get 80+ mpg. IIRC it was Exxon that bought the rights and shelved it.


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## skcolo (May 16, 2009)

The only carbureted engine to ever get 80 mpg was either a moped, or someone driving down I-70 to Denver from Evergreen. BTW, that's a 7% grade downhill, the steepest interstate grade in the country.

It's just not possible. It was all wive's tales. It can't work. The guy who invented something like that would have made way more money than Exxon could have paid him by patenting the thing and selling it to every car manufacturer through a licensing agreement.

The auto manufacturer's are having a hard time meeting the CAFE standards now, with high tech computer controls and small engines making gobs of horsepower for their displacement. They use almost all the energy that fuel can produce and pretty much emit water vapor out the tailpipe.

Teams of engineers and highly sophisticated software programs can't do any better. Some shmuck in his garage never came up with the miracle fuel mileage solution.

it's a myth.


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## kiteman (Apr 18, 2012)

r4r&r said:


> I remember a news story when I was a kid in the '70s. Some guy invented a carb you could put on any car and get 80+ mpg. IIRC it was Exxon that bought the rights and shelved it.


Those stories have been around for over 50 years and Imho they're all urban legends. They used to have thosep ads in the back of magazines and JC Whitney catalogs for the water injectors back then, too. How 'd that work out? All just conspiracy theories and wishful thinking:whistling


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## tjbnwi (Feb 24, 2009)

As the skcolo stated it cannot happen with a carburetored engine. The physics of how the device works, just will not allow it. 

Chrysler had their lean burn engine. Introduced in 1976 running through the early 80's. The variable venturi carb, had the main metering rods on sliding venturies, what a nightmare those were. Between the electronics not being up to the task, all the vacuum hoses and the fact that they were trying to run the engine at 17 to 1 the entire package was not a good thing. 

The least fuel efficient thing that can happen is to not supply enough fuel to the cylinders. 

Tom


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## cleveman (Dec 28, 2007)

I think it is a combination of several factors, including the US automotive industry and the fact that road use funds will disappear if fuel consumption drops and therefore revenues fall.

But honestly I can't come up with any theory that makes sense, except that the consumer is just plain stupid.

If the US auto industry were to blame, foreign competitors would be more successful. But the US gov't is keeping out imports to some extent with their emissions standards. 

If the gov't is worried about road tax revenues falling, then they can increase the tax rate. And the gov't is promoting higher fuel efficiency (only recently).

I've been driving VW diesels since a 1979 Rabbit and one can buy the new Passat for about $26,000 and I suspect it will get 45 mpg. Look at what Ford or VW is offering in the european market by going to google.de for Germany, or try google.uk or whatever to get google for the UK. Once you convert the litre/100 kilometer to mpg (3.785 litre per us gallon and 60 miles to 100 kilometers) you will find that they are offering cars there which approach 70 mpg.

I hear Mazda is going to offer a diesel next year.

After you study this for a bit, you begin to ask yourself why the US is concentrating on the gas/electric hybrids and even on the all electric cars.

The VW blue technology was offering a car which could beat the Prius on mpg and emissions about 12 years ago.

And, again, you can buy this sort of technology today. And I understand that VW has trouble keeping a supply of TDI's. But we are still far away from seeing whatever Europe has in registration numbers, which I suspect are over 70% diesels vs. 30% gasoline.


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## JHC (Jun 4, 2010)

http://gas2.org/2008/02/29/37659-mpg-car-found-in-museum-it-was-built-in-1959/


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## mehtwo (Nov 14, 2010)

JHC said:


> http://gas2.org/2008/02/29/37659-mpg-car-found-in-museum-it-was-built-in-1959/


Interesting.......:thumbsup:


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## cleveman (Dec 28, 2007)

I looked on VW's UK website last night, and found the following:

1.9 litre TDI in a Golf gets 3.4 litre/100 km. Divide by 3.785 and you get .8983 gallons in 60miles which is equal to 66.79 miles with a gallon.

The Polo was slightly better, with 3.1 litre/100 km or 73.25 mpg. The Polo is a bit smaller than a Golf, but would still be a decent commuter car. It seemed very small in 1982 but it doesn't seem so small anymore.

These are both highway miles. I think the Golf is 90 horsepower and the Polo is 75 horsepower. Would be interesting to see what 75 horsepower feels like in a Polo.


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## Red Adobe (Jul 26, 2008)

Back in the late 70s and early 80s there were several cars that did good mpg. ID TAKE ANY OF THEM BEFORE A PRIUS

Chevette: I had one and did some tinkering with timing ,jetting, intake was gettting around 40mpg on 80% hiway runs to work n home 100 miles a day

82 celica 5spd 22r. put larger LT tires on it and was 35 mpg
86 celica 5spd 3mgte or something around 32
sis had a dodge omni that was around 40 mpg
bro built a 64 fairlane with 289 , 4spd, and OD 35 mpg
Bro had an 80 vw diesel rabbit that was around 40 mpg

I drove a 98 saturn for awhile last summer that was getting 37 mpg completly stock and had 179,000 miles and needed a tune-up didnt keep it tho


Engine wise V6 or V8 are not efficient at all from the big 3 makers. Lots of arguements why but VE or Volumetric Efficiences are horrible in a stock engine. My personal opinion is they want them to just be tolerable and not last too long. I also think big oil has alot to do with it since a high VE engine would do better mpg and have lower emision

I have researched alot (15 years worth) on the sbc 350 for racing applications and spent alot of time running desktop dyno then building engines and seeing the real dyno sheets. Ther is alot of airflow stuff we do in intakes, heads, and piston to make power that if used by manufacturers combined with cam and rocker geometry could get a 350 into the 94% VE range easily meaning with right gears high mpg and still keep 300ish hp


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## skcolo (May 16, 2009)

JHC said:


> http://gas2.org/2008/02/29/37659-mpg-car-found-in-museum-it-was-built-in-1959/


Urban legend.

http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/...piracy-376-mpg-opel-uncovered/comment-page-1/

This is what it takes to get 157mpg http://www.canosoarus.com/03CalifCommuter/CalCom01.htm

There is no conspiracy. They get the best mileage for the safety features required and the consumer requirements that can be acheived.

No one will be able to find the Guinness record for any passenger car getting 376mpg because it never happened. Maybe downhill.

Maybe a solar powered car. I guess we need to define car, because no production car has ever acheived more mpg then is available today.

here is the production car world record, and it's a hybrid.

Wayne Gerdes and Chris Bernius (both USA) achieved a fuel consumption of 122.36 US gallons (463.18 litres) of gasoline while driving a 2011 Kia Optima Hybrid over 12,711 km (7,898 miles) through all 48 contiguous US States, between 26 August and 9 September 2011.

The vehicle used an average fuel consumption of 3.88 l/100 km (64.55 US mpg)and the tank required a refill five and a half times throughout the trip, achieving an average of 1,400 miles between each fuel stop.

65mpg. From the official Guinness site.


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## tjbnwi (Feb 24, 2009)

A "stock" naturally aspirated engine, off idle is greater than 100% volumetric efficient. The velocity of the air entering the cylinder is self packing to a point. More air enters the cylinder than the cylinders volume. 

Every molecule of air that enters the cylinder needs a proportional amount of fuel to avoid lean misfire. More fuel, less fuel economy. 

More energy is wasted to heat loss than used to power a "factory" vechicle.

Building something for the masses is far different than building a one off. 


Tom


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## hdavis (Feb 14, 2012)

Look at the X-prize vehicles. NOBODY got over 110 MPG. The winner was gas powered, not hybrid. All custom made, the best of the best, and a million bucks for a prize to the winning team.

IC engines aren't very good as air pumps, no matter what you do to the carburator, fuel injectors, etc.


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## Red Adobe (Jul 26, 2008)

Another factor in all this is the fuels they are blending and selling. Right now here we are into the "high altitude winter blend" which is horrible on the mpg About a 12% lower mpg avg on hiway. Might have something to do with ethanol containing alot of water. There is 1 pump in town with no ethanol but its only 86 octane and usualy 15 cents higher, worth it for the boat or bike or long trips.

The age of a vehicle has alot to do with how they adapt to blended fuels, Older carbs you have to manuely tune (timing light and vaccum guage works ok ) early tbi and cpi's will get by with a step hotter plug ( IE ac 45 instead of ac43 ) where obd2 controled vehicles will adapt after a few run cycles if everything is ok and working.
Diesel also has different blends by area ( not just hiway and red )

Out here in the west its often 100 miles to anywhere as we like to say so you start to apreciate even the small things that save money at the pump.
I usualy start with tiresizes.....I watch the tack at hiway speed and note rpm at 65 and 70 mph cruize then go to the tire size calc and figure what diam tire is needed for 1800 to 1900 rpm cruize speed. In the case of the 96 c3500 I went from a 29 inch tire to 31 inch. I barely notice any effect in town or towing but I go farther per gallon. I do know guys who put big tires on underpowered trucks and jeeps who suffer IE jeeps and 4 cyl automatics

From there its all basic maint and making sure the engine is tuned proper. A small vaccum leak on an obd2 will make all kinds of minor issues that effect performance as will a week plug or wire at wrong ohms. Not always turning on the engine light but often fattening up the fuel curve automaticly or retarding the advance.


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