Fuel Consumption

[alanh65]

I can't pretend that this about my first drive but it is my first attempt at calculating fuel consumption.

 

My car is a series III, monocoque, Robin Hood (which can be found in the Garage section of this site ...alanh65).

 

The car was built in 1987, has been driven 9000 miles since then and has had 4 owners.

 

It has a 2.1 engine purchased from Maxiflow Poducts (Vulcan Engineering) running on a pair of twin Dellotoes.

 

Accepting the fact that the fuel gauge, tripometer and speedo may all be inaccurate by now ... I appear to have achieved 15mpg driving round

town. I have not yet had the opportunity to take the car on a long, 5th gear run.

 

Is this fuel consumption about right, what might I expect on 'cruise' and lastly ....

 

Is a rolling road 'service' some thing worth investing in?

 

I live in Sutton Coldfield (Birmingham) and would appreciate a recommendation of a rolling road centre, should the consensus of opinion be that it is worth spending good money on one.

 

No more questions as yet ...

 

Thank you all for any time taken both reading an replying to my questions.

 

Alan

[brumster]

How accurate is your speedo (and hence trip) - tip : find one of those "speed awareness" signs coming into an urban area that give you a readout of your current speed and warn you if you're going too fast. Great way of testing speedo accuracy

[alanh65]

For a 30 area, the speedo 'waves' between 20 and 40 !!

[Guest Gargoil]

I can't pretend that this about my first drive but it is my first attempt at calculating fuel consumption.

 

My car is a series III, monocoque, Robin Hood (which can be found in the Garage section of this site ...alanh65).

 

The car was built in 1987, has been driven 9000 miles since then and has had 4 owners.

 

It has a 2.1 engine purchased from Maxiflow Poducts (Vulcan Engineering) running on a pair of twin Dellotoes.

 

Accepting the fact that the fuel gauge, tripometer and speedo may all be inaccurate by now ... I appear to have achieved 15mpg driving round

town. I have not yet had the opportunity to take the car on a long, 5th gear run.

 

 

 

 

God, I hope it's not normal. Even taking in to consideration that it's all old tech mechanicals, I would have thought 15 mpg is too little.

With a 30 litre tank, that's not going to get you very far. I have no real idea what mine is doing mpg wise but estimate it as 30mpg.

A rolling road session is a good idea, just to make sure everything is set up as it should be. Mine showed I was running too lean and my timing was way out.

When the carb was being re-jetted I was given the option of power over fuel economy, it could be the previous owner of your car went for power.

[Guest NantLladron]

Hi

 

I had a 2.1 pinto with twin 40s in mine and max was 25mpg , anything that put a smile on your face was sub 20

 

just changing into a zetec with the guarantee of more power and the hope of a little more economy

[Guest Jameslark]

My pinto running a pair of 45's runs at about 15/16mpg of you are out enyoying yourself. I just fill it up every 100 miles and carry a can wherever I go. If you are very careful get up to about 120miles range but must be running on fumes by then. Webers and other similar carbs are not world renowned for their economy hence why bike carbs and throttle bodies are so popular.

[Guest NantLladron]

_{......in addition i found that my first 1/4 of a tank went very fast ..i thought it was the gauge not being accurate till someone followed me and told me on hard left handers a had fuel gushing out of the filler cap ......fuel tank has no baffles in it .......another job for the list}

[richyb66]

For rolling road tuning I can recommend Steve Walford in Northfield, nice bloke, knows his stuff and a few of the Midland area memebrs have used him with good results.

 

http://www.swmotorsport.tk/

[alanh65]

Thanks Richard

Thanks for the link.

[speedtripledan]

My 2.0 pinto with big cam and bike carbs only did around 25mpg might be worth a tune, russ at torque tune Ollerton is good and fairly cheap.

[alanh65]

Many thanks ... Northfield is currently the closest to home ...

[Guest mower man]

I can get 30 and alittle or 16 less bit but overall av is 26ish 2.1 ,38 dgas stage 2 head and Newman fast road cam stop blipping on down changes and underbridges and tunnels mowerman

[Bob Tucker]

I managed to get as low as 12mpg when I spent a day at Barkstone.

2.0 pinto twin 40s, big valve head, FR32 cam.

But generally between 25 & 30 mpg.

15 sounds like it needs setting up....I'd suggest a RR session will be a good investment

Bob

[alanh65]

Thanks Bob ... I'll try and organise a suitable date to get it done.

[kevin the chicken]

Sounds like a rolling road session might be a good idea. I was doubtful about the accuracy of my speedo so I downloaded a gps speedo on to my smart phone (a bit hi-tech for me!) It was free and it worked ok. If you dont have a smart phone then take someone who has one for a drive, that might be easier to check anyway. The Dellortos are a low tech solution to making the car go quickly without all the injectors and ecu's etc but the simplicity has its price in fuel used. Me, I love low tech, blow the fuel consumption.

 

kevin