[T3] MPGs??

Dennis Stiefel dlstiefel at dekalbk12.org
Fri Jul 25 15:53:29 PDT 2014



The mileage you get with any given car is strongly dependent on speed.
You'll get your best mileage in your top gear at a speed that's just high
enough to make the engine "comfortable." In our cars, that's something
around 45 or so.

As your speed increases, the wind drag increases roughly with the SQUARE of
your velocity, so your gas mileage will drop stunningly quickly as your
speed goes up.

We get in trouble when we start to compare older Type 3s with later ones,
since there's an unfortunate tradeoff between NOX emissions and gas mileage.
The FI cars were designed to meet the emission requirements that started in
'67 and got tighter every year after that. So under the same driving
conditions, a '66 will always pollute more and get better gas mileage than a
'72.

I did some test drives a few years ago, with my FI '71 and got ~26 mi/gal at
65 mi/hr and ~29 mi/gal at 60 mi/hr. Those are the best numbers you should
ever expect to see in your '72, unless you've got a tail wind. The earlier
cars, with OE carbs, get significantly better mi/gal, but pollute
significantly more.

-- 
*******************************
Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
*******************************

_______________________________________________
I really did check it that much on this car during my youth I just remember
getting low 20s with the 1641.  The other vehicles we drive doesn't have
this wide of a margin between driving 60-65 and driving 70.  My Frankenstein
truck that has an engine, trans and rear end out of late 90s early 2000s
crown vic police cars gets about 19-20 if you take it easy in it and about
17-18 if you get aggressive in it. I use to have a Dasher diesel that would
get 42 MPGs didn't matter if you drove it 50 or 75.  But then again it
didn't have enough power to pull the hat off your head and as far as
emissions go you could look in the rear view mirror and see the smoke
rolling behind you every time you pushed the accelerator pedal down(talk
about your NOX emissions I know you can't see the NOX part).   

Dennis Stiefel
72 Fastback FI MT
71 STD. Beetle
67 Ford F-100 (hart of Crown Vic)
Rainsville, AL


      




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