1987 Mk2 Jetta 1.6 Carby

[SvdM]

Hi there.

I'm from Pretoria, South Africa and I drive a hand-me-down '87 Jetta 1.6 Carburettor and no AC. It's just only gone over 120 000km on the clock [we think the clock stopped working for a while when Gran had it for ± 15 000km]. Apart from all the VW rattles, it still drives well and I love the space.

The car is listed as having a 55l tank, but I've topped her up to the gills a couple of times and the pump then stops between 58 and 59.5l. Mostly I just fill up with R200 at a time, which amounts to about 24.8 litres at present. I hardly fill the car up to the full and only do so when I visit my parents 600km away 2-3x/year.

When I got the car.

How the car looks now.

I do mixed driving mostly, but I'd say a little more highway in engine running time than town-driving.

I used to drive like the wind and the worst mileage I remember getting was 460km on a tank, but I had a bicycle on the back too.

My previous record was 701km on a tank with about 3/4 of that on the highway. After that though and with the fatter 15" Michelin 195 / 50's I actually managed 860km. Worked out at 60l (Worst case scenario) that puts me at 6.98l / 100km or 14.33 km/l *. One thing to note though is that this is on the up-run back to where I stay with 95 Octane LRP fuel. On the down-run I have to use 93, because that's the only LRP option for me here on the reef ± 1400m above sea level.

*33.71 mpg US / 40.48 mpg UK

It's hard to get the car to use less than 10l / 100km in city traffic especially when the weather heats up as the torque seems to fall through the floor and the car needs a lot more right-foot coaxing to get going.

Recently I have started noting down how many kilometres I've travelled between R200 fill-ups and the litres I get for it. I hope to get a better idea of real fuel consumption this way.

I plan to do an aero mod or two when the time permits. I don't think I'll try to go Fuel Injection soon, but in time hopefully I can do an MP9 conversion. When fuel prices where high the conversion could've paid for itself in 18 months, but fuel prices have dropped and I also now live much closer to work, which have put this mod on an indefinite hold.

I also had small leaks in the exhaust fixed lately and the car pulls a lot better than previously.

Furthermore, I studied Product Design [aka Industrial- or 3D Design] and I am currently working for a company that produces training simulators for the mining industry.

Schalk van der Merwe

[euromodder]

Welkom Schalk !



The original wheel caps were probably more aerodynamic than the alloy wheels

Do you really need those mudflaps ?
Deleting them will improve your fuel economy.

If you often drive with the windows open, the winddeflector may actually be usefull. Try it out at your usual speeds.
More noise normally also means more wind resistance.


This hypermiling thing surely makes your car and yourself look like an old fart


Tracking your exact fuel use is quite important to see how you're doing.
So fill up completely for once, then go to the fueling station when you think around 200 Rand worth of fuel can go in.
By not filling up completely, you're always guesstimating.
Even so, less than 7 L/100km is OK for a carburetor 1.6L .

The mirrors could also be made more aerodynamic, as they are quite flat at the front.

[robchalmers]

looks good!

I had an '89 and 90 golf 1.6carb. just be carful the auto choke doesn't stick on or the rubber gasket between the carb and manifold doesn't crack or perish

[SvdM]

@ Euromodder - Haha, yeah well, I'm only 6 years older than my car, but I guess I'm not yesterday's child anymore

Original hubcabs more aero = agree, but the improved stopping power of the 195 15's are more important to me than the fuel economy improvement the 165 13"s might give.

I do want to delete the mudflaps and have an aftermarket "big-bumper arhes and sill" kit at home. If I want to fit them I have to lose the flaps, but I haven't figured out yet how the sills attach to the car... I think I'm going to have to drill, but I've left it for now. As for the mirrors, they're actually quite aerodynamic [hard to see in the pics] and I reckon they have good laminar flow without unnecessary air 'kick-out' from their shape. I'd like to keep the car looking as stock as possible, but with some tiny tweaks that I can hopefully make look as OEM as possible.

The wind deflectors where bought when I studied in Cape Town with lots of Winter rain because the inside kept fogging up with closed windows (no AC). I know the current ones add to the FA, but I have a plan for a flush mod.

I know that knowing the exact fuel economy over the last [say] 200km just driven would be easily to calculate with a full tank that gets filled again to see the exact litre usage right now! However, wouldn't filling up the tank regularly add another 25 kg+ to the car that I don't usually carry? That is okay when on the highway, just cruising, but will have an effect on my morning city runs to work. I just figured that with about 10 x R200 stops under the belt, that even with a 'fuzzy' beginning, I'd already have a pretty accurate starting point for deriving an average use nowadays. I'm at 5 or 6x now. I'll post soon when I've done 10, because I also want one of those cool 90-days thingies at the bottom in my signature

So! I'll hardly ever know per trip usage, but I'd get a good idea if the graph comes down slowly over time and that's all I really need.

Guess I'm not ecomodder to the bone yet but under the skin, YES. Perhaps later I'll become more methodical.

@Robchalmbers - No auto choke here I'm afraid - as manual as they come. The manual choke gets stuck in the off position after a long drive, so starting her up the next morning is a bit of a hassle. The cable-housing is cracked and dries out with the heat, but lube sorts it out fairly quickly. Luckily though the CSL was like an entry level car [no radio or AC], but with the 5 speed box for FE. Early base-models here came with 4-speed. The carb gasket is still good, but the valve cover is leaking again as well as at the oil filter. I'll need to get that sorted.

[SvdM]

@Mr Anderson

Wish I was in the States... looks like I would've been spoilt for choice. Luckily, parts still seem to be fairly easy to come by for the Mk2 here in RSA.

[SvdM]

Here's my FE so far. Like previously stated, I don't fill up unless I go on a long trip, but from what I do remember is that I hardly ever got more than 10km / l and now on average I do almost get 2km more.

[SvdM]

Hi there.

I've been dipping into the 6.9L per 100km range of late.

Once I've converted my fuel log to US MPG I'll log it into the system.

My unofficial record is now 6.55L/100 or 15.25km/L (35.1mpg US; 43.1mpg UK)

[SvdM]

Picture of my grill-block that I ran still stuck on my phone, but managed an average of 6.67L/100km over a 1251km trip with a bike rack and bike on the back; speed mostly 110km/h. Pretty much all highway miles 34mpg US / 41mpg UK.

Unfortunately my average overall consumption is climbing to 8L/100 because where I live now includes a lot more suburban travel and very little highway travel through a week.

[cleanspeed1]

Wow, talk about old school! Beautiful car, wish we had metal that nice and rust free in my area.

I'll toss in my .02. If you haven't tuned it up lately, give it a thorough one and add a MSD-6 or MSD-6A amplifier ( go to Summit Racing, I think they ship overseas ), coil and wires. I've used Techtonics parts on my VWs and like their quality, but I know that there are more tuning houses in Europe that can accomodate bolt ons. I don't know if Jacobs Electronics is still around or not, but they had a pretty good ignition system also.

It's all old timey tricks; play around with the timing ( advance the timing bit by bit and track the performance change ), make sure the carburetor is adjusted properly, add some type of monitoring device that can track the fuel consumption in real time. Maybe a bolt on, low restriction, but quiet exhaust system.

[JethroBodine]

Same color as my '90 Jetta. I have the Digafant2 fuel injected 1.8. I'm going to start a build thread soon as I just started getting over 40mpg US( since I've been reading on here). Good luck with the 1.6. V-Dubbin' all the way.