[bobstad]

I'm still enthralled with the 63 plus mpg recorded one day in my '91 Festiva L five-speed; which if not from being spaced out and entering a bogus figure somehow I've gone over and over again and again without any suggestion of that; seems from the temperature being over a hundred degrees from long before sun-up, and that the station in Lake Stevens, WA where I filled up has tanks below the lake level, thus very cool gasoline.* And/or the freeway station near Toledo, WA I filled up at that afternoon was selling their stuff on the cheap? That is redneck heaven with lots of truckers mostly who buy there; so one has to factor in for paranoiac fantasy, in reasoning about what otherwise is very hard to explain; about twenty mpg over the car's otherwise absolute a few times, best milage.

Oh hey; yeah, I try to keep the tires at 42 pounds front, 38 rear.

This is always something which makes me feel that the car's performance is enhanced in several ways; so that my cornering is appreciably improved for instance. The mileage always perks up a little; as I record every gas station stop with amount delivered, miles from the most recent previous gasoline taken on, date, place and gas mileage: When often having the car sit for months without much driving, so that I'll space out the tire pressure which always sags a little below the 35 psi, which is the minimum I feel competently conveys the car down the road.

There are definitely feelings of worse than slightly degraded gas mileage at say 30 psi, though I've never allowed less pressure, or even below 35 psi for that matter except rarest occasion.

Thirty-five mpg is pretty normal when having to keep up with freeway traffic of 70 plus mph running down to Seattle and back; though one Bellingham to Olympia tour got me over forty-three or so round trip, when there'd been icy enough conditions both the rolling resistance was minimal and my speed around fifty-five. Tearing up the road in comparison to the laggards about me; except right at the last I chickened out passing a big semi until another dainty enough rig zipped by us both to demonstrate I'd nothing to fear from diving into the big leviathan's wake too.

"Mr. Smarty-Pants" ain't so bright after all, eh? I got over that pretty quick; thinking of how long since motoring under such conditions: As global warming and/or periodic weather patterns made for spring like conditions moving from Eureka, CA to B'ham in eight round trips from February to June of '08; when I found the Festiva Motor Sports "racing/lowering" springs and 13" SR-15513 tires instead of the stock 12" ones with KYB damping, made pick-up like loads using a rolled metal futon frame for a roof-rack an entirely reasonable set-up.

That yielded 30 mpg pressing always to maintain 60 mph, with no problems despite aerodynamics of decidedly lumpen style. To the point catching a cat-nap during the month of March at the I-5 rest area south of Olympia, WA I awakened to morning gawkers speculating on my endangerment of their sanctity; as part of the on-going denizens of the rolling zoos of humanity, up to not much good I can manage to imagine?

One time doing a run back north I'd spaced tying down well enough out a 16" wide little flap of 3/8" plywood on the roof which worked a little loose then caught lots of air; that dropped the mileage down to the worst of those journeys, of around 25 mpg. When I noticed that in a rest area in southern Oregon I just about #&@% which was in tune with the whole foray that particular mission, where I'd not had enough space to hardly curl up over the two front seats; as someone used to having the whole back-end behind the front seats, with my Therma-rest under me to be quite comfortable upon while traveling to snooze with.

I'd say as many have before me; that manufacturer's tire psi reflects mostly their desire to make people as happy as possible about their car's ride qualities, fudging a little on what would be the most rational tire pressure to do so.

Yet, if that were really much of an issue; long ago the whole industry would've adopted the type of an oil-based suspension which was used unique in all of automobilia on the first car I ever drove and learned to drive in, the family '64 MG 1100.

These cars had large pods in place of shock absorbers, each filled with oil and connected by a line to the one either in front or behind; so that when a bump in the road was hit by the front end this would send pressurized oil to the pod on the rear for an instant, to better absorb the jolt.

This worked so well the car could be driven at 70 mph over the worst wash-board or pots holes, as if almost on the freeway; but, the engineering if exceptional in concept and design also suffered massively from poor execution, as the thing always leaked oil after the new wore off. So that typically there was a visible sag on one side and nearly no effective suspension on that side either.

I keep wondering when someone will start building and marketing decent after-market conversions applicable to any variety of vehicles; but, I suspect law enforcement of suppressing these cars and that technology.

Which, one wonders about as far as gas mileage economy; if this could also be enhanced by advanced suspension design?

Not too many years ago Formula One race cars were getting exceptionally fast due to computer controlled suspensions; though last I knew of, these were banned to keep the track speeds from getting so excessive the driver's safety was becoming ludicrous were someone to crash; which a person would imagine would also be easily applied to consumer vehicles as well.

That MG's system was so interestingly simple though; shared by the Austin America, whose only difference was a less classy grille and lack of wood dash, done in walnut on the Morris Garages examples. The French Citroen has a similar suspension; with air as the animate medium, rather than more viscous oil.

*I heard of a couple characters obviously disgusted with their livelihood; who'd got caught pumping heated fuel into airplanes at the Spokane airport during cold weather, to take advantage of the differential. Which was supposedly enough to cause significant diminishment of range compared to a normally fueled plane.

Check out Mrs. Hudson, one of the country's four hundred richest people; who got caught setting the pumps to read a little too much in her favor in her chain of gas stations, and had to do community service for a year as a slap on the wrist.

Though her amazing perfidy in another far less prosaic offense is daunting to try to imagine as simply bucolic if benign; where huge storage tanks of a chemical highly corrosive and four times as lethal as cyanide, had been nearly about to burst due to lousy maintenance and inattention over years, when discovered accidentally; that would've rendered a four state area basically inhabitable for decades to come if not longer, centered around Ohio.

Well, maybe four counties; but, certainly sleazy-on worse than Chernobyl levels. We'd guess ended up teaching disadvantaged pre-school children how to cut-out doilies over that?