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Having owned similar vehicles in the past, let me throw out a few ideas. The basic premise is that anything that you can do to reduce weight or reduce friction of moving parts will make a positive impact on te performance of this vehicle.
1. The 4 banger and manual transaxle both respond really well to full synthetic lubricants. 5w30 oil in your engine and Mercon ATF in the transaxle.
2. Pay attention to small details when performing the routine maintenance that an older vehicle is bound to need. Things like sanding and greasing the calipers when replacing the front brake pads, pressure washing or steam cleaning the underside of the vehicle to remove the inevitable 50 pounds or so of grime and dirt, replacing all vacuum hoses at once instead of the one that has the obvious leak, cleaning both ends of all battery cables when replacing the battery, etc. All of these little things add up to make your vehicle work like it is supposed to.
3. Lose weight everywhere that you can, particularly with unsprung weight like the wheels and tires.
4. Lower your idle speed if you can. Even a 50 rpm reduction in idle speed will noticeably improve your fuel mileage.
5. Over inflate your tires to reduce rolling resistance
6. Try NGK v power spark plugs.
Good luck!
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