Hi my name is Russ and I've lost track of how many car forums I'm on...oh wait that's tomorrow night. Joined up here for the MPGuino dojabber. I've been fixing and 'improving' cars as long as I've had them (~8 yrs). I decided to do it officially and go to school for the all-important piece of paper and after 7+ years in 2 fields at 3 schools, I'm currently a junior at SIU carbondale. I like going fast and having fun as well as efficiency but mostly the latter gets done since I'm still a broke college student. I don't go crazy for economy, more of a save it so IF I want to have fun I can.
My garage (apt parking lot) has:
-1990 Toyota Cressida. 3L I6 7MGE (the one that blows head gaskets) that I rebuilt at school last year and a manual swap. I had the head and block both shaved enough to improve compression, metal head gasket, ARP head studs, .020" over, cleaned up the exhaust ports, fixed the missing cooling port, used a turbo block for piston oil squirters, nixed the AC, cold start injector, and EGR and used the throttle body from a turbo motor to delete the EGR vacuum line ports. 25 miles after installation the trans input shaft bearing sounds like gravel so it's at mom's house in the garage
also has wheels, ~1" lower, and a tired LSD from a Supra. was around 18c/24h mpg with the old engine. no idea with the new one, should be a little better.
-1991 Toyota Pickup. 2WD 2.4L I4 22RE 5 speed. no AC or PS. mostly stock. steel timing guides, all alloy radiator, partial grill block (still seeing how far I can go), just pulled the air injection (exhaust pulse, not crank driven belt) no cat or muffler, just a glasspack and some holes (best the budget can do with what the PO had). pretty stable 24 mpg combined with a questionable O2 sensor but it only goes down to 18 with 5500 lbs of 6x12 box trailer and stuff.
-1977 Suzuki GS400xb. 400cc I2 6 speed close-ratio. only mod is H4 conversion from sealed-beam headlamp. 50 mpg without trying, tuned by ear.
-2003 Mazda Protege sportwagon 2L I4 auto w/ manual mode. Fiancees car. with mostly me driving it still gets EPA city estimated mpg in town below freezing. Unfortunately hwy mpg isn't great because of the 'sporty' gearing...OD is a passing gear.