1971 through 1974 Pinto has breaker points ignition. Maintaining that plus keeping a carb in tune, along with maintaining the spark plug gap over time was required to get and keep optimal MPG.
Starting in 1974 the Pinto shared its front suspension (and damn little else!) with the Mustang II. 1975 brought electronic ignition across the board at Ford, removing one of the most finicky fiddly maintenance jobs on a car.
The 2.3L engine was new for 1974. 1971-1973 the Pinto had either the little 1.6L "Kent" or the 2.0L. One rather "WTH?" "feature" of those engines was the cam bearing journals were all different sizes, smaller towards the front. No removing the cam with the head on the engine, in the car, as is possible with the 2.3L.
IIRC it may have been possible to order the 2.0L in a Pinto from 1974 to ???? Why anyone would *want* to have a 2.0L in one...
Racer Walsh was to Pinto as ANDIAL was to Porsche in the 1970's.
The RW catalog was chock full of go-not-as-slow goodies.
What would be interesting to test is a MegaSquirt on an old 1975-1981 Pinto to see how much MPG can be squeezed out, otherwise stock and with some aero mods.
Then there was the 155+ MPH 1980 Mercury Capri (with the "I'm a Porsche 924 wannabe!" bubble hatch and rear bumper*) with one year only 255ci V8 and some lightening, aero and gearing mods. Took a bit to get up there but once up to speed...
*I'm serious. Compare the side views of the two, the rear slope/curves are practically identical. Too bad FoMoCo never made the better looking twin in a notchback coupe.