economy challenge

Krupa · Post by **Krupa** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 1:14 am

This is one challenge I have no plans to enter, unless there's a low MPG possibility then I'd stand a chance.

A modified G40 isn't exactly frugal, around town I'm getting under 30mpg and that's sensible driving too. On the motorways it can do as well as 35ish with a mixture of cruising and hard acceleration bursts but that's its limit with me behind the wheel.

The gear ratios are better for economy than a GT mind at motorway speeds, 3,000rpm or thereabouts compared to 4,000 with a GT box. I reckon a G40 box on my old engine would see over 45mpg possibly even as much as 48 on a motorway trip provided the temptation to floor it didn't take over. All in all my G40 makes a good motorway cruiser, nice and stable on the big wheels, comfy seats and a box that makes the engine pretty quiet while cruising (certainly quieter than a GT on the motorway) it's only ever a pain doing motorway miles when it's really hot as the blowers don't do much to cool you down..

By the way, the last tank of fuel I put through the GT engine returned 42mpg and that was somewhat enthusiastic A road/motorway bahnstorming and the engine was chipped too. Those of you with older cars, go replace your coil. It pays for itself very quickly.

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 2:55 am

which is why i want to put an 8p on the 1-litre

think it'll be interesting to see if its as frugal as i suspect

not sure if i need to change the coil though, thats only a GT/G40 thing right?

SpikeyG40 · Post by **SpikeyG40** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 12:40 pm

i will be entering the challenge in my G40!

i've done it slightly different! i put in Â£30.50 in on sunday and when i checked last night, i have done 249 miles (200 of which are motorway) driving careful with only about 4 or 5 bursts of power (in first and second usually).

so last night, i worked it out even though i've still got fuel, it gave me a good estimate of what i should make! so anyway, last night, doing 249 careful miles in a standard G40 still with fuel left in the tank, i've averaged:

34.8MPG

i'm not done yet! i'll give you an exact figure when i finally run out! then, next week i'll see what i can get when i drive normally!

Krupa · Post by **Krupa** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 3:35 pm

I would assume that changing the coil would be worth it on any old car.

Changing the coil on mine gave me better performance and a better MPG figure. That's desirable whatever you drive surely.

Though I'd imagine low milers would have healthier coils than the 143,000 mile one I took off mine.

DanDiesel · Post by **DanDiesel** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:53 pm

yay i did well!!

SpikeyG40 · Post by **SpikeyG40** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:48 pm

following on from my previous post of 34.8mpg with a still not empty tank.

after 270 miles on Â£30.50 of fuel @ 93.9p/litre, i ended up with a grand total of..............

37.8mpg!!!

a book i have mentions the MPG of the g40 as:

urban mpg : 31.4
mpg @ 56mph : 51.4
mpg @ 75mph : 37.2

so does that make mine good or bad?

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:26 am

depends how you were driving and what proportion of your miles correlate to those figures!

(which is why im disappointed with the astra figures, they claim its easily mid-fifties at 56mph, and low 30s round town when driven in a manner approximating how it would be driven by a regular dope taught to drive in underpowered 3-speed 1960s cars...)

SpikeyG40 · Post by **SpikeyG40** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 12:31 pm

put it this way, 200 of the 270 miles was motorway! so the other 70 were for speeds of up to around 50mph due to road works on the way to my work!

as for the driving style, i was very careful, apart from a couple of moments where i put my foot down in first and second! but thats it!

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 6:44 pm

the book figures look a bit thirstier than i remember ... will have to check the manual to see what they claim

next question then is how fast were you cruising on the motorway?

SpikeyG40 · Post by **SpikeyG40** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:44 pm

was doing about 75ish mostly! although there is a 50mph limit in places due to roadworks! and u must do that speed otherwise the distance speed camera's will get ya!

doing a normal driving week this week so will be interesting to see what comes of it!

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:15 pm

similar here ... on this tank so far i've done a bit of general round-suburb driving (not much though), chased the trucks up and down the M42 once at 55, and today got bored of that and did about 60 both ways (can't get much quicker consistently at the times i go anyway). And hammered it the once to work at the bar. Which makes it a fairly "normal" bit of driving, just with a little more emphasis on applying thought to how I approach the journeys instead of blatting through them as quick as the machine and traffic will allow.

if i can get over 40mpg travelling in this manner, i'll be happy (astra again). if not, then the thing is definately for the chop.
mind you i might allow 39.9, as i've twice run the aircon for a few minutes to clear the screen, and had a couple moments spinning the tyres on wet leaves (guilty pleasures)

thing is im not sure what to make of the previous figures now, or any i might subsequently get, because during a little bit of 60-ish boredom i decided to test the speedo ... found out that at 60, a mile as measured by the odometer (more accurate than the needle?) took exactly 1m 06 ... and at an indicated 66, it took exactly 1 minute ... can it really be that far out? It has implications for how good the economy is too.
(if it is, then that shows there are also a lot of trucks actually rolling around at a sustained 50mph or less ... never mind 56... i need a GPS!)

xplinth · Post by **xplinth** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 8:27 pm

Ok, I wanna play, I wanna play....

The Car: 1.2 55bhp '52 reg

The Journeys
Journey 1: 30 miles motorway to work, 30 miles motorway on the way back from work, 5 days a week in the rush hour...

Journey 2: ~5 miles through town and back 3 days a week to work.

Other stuff, sometimes go shopping or whatever...

The Rules Drive as frugally as possible. Gear change below 2,000rpm whenever possible and never after more than 2,500. Motorways = 3,000 and never ever more than 3,500rpm.

The Result
376 miles using 40.1 litres of fuel.

45mpg

Pretty good huh? Never going to drive like that again though. What a ball ache. I mean its hardly a mean machine I know but it is nice to use the accelerator once in a while...

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 4:37 pm

b!tch! those are far laxer rules than what i was driving by ...

perhaps i was under-driving the car however (not actually reaching efficient speed range or something) ... the last tank has lasted almost 430 miles - about 39 mpg?? off the top of my head - and i've gone a fair bit quicker, including a bit of a blast thru light rush hour traffic to work, and 70-80 each way to/from college where the congestion allowed. (still, i cruised it and coasted where possible, but wasn't really really stretching)

kind of embarrassed by a couple of folks in the work break room discussing cars, travel, govt etc and they were one-upping each other even while complaining about how much fuel their cars use... one at 48mpg, the other at 55..... and they're not even doing any particular extra-careful driving... one having "accidentally" (as in not looked at the dial) driven a good part of the way up the m40 last week at around 100. WTF?
*steals their cars*

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economy challenge

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