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Originally Posted by George Wiseman
YES! Exactly, I think I was only a little above 700 rpm at 45 mph, if I had a tailwind, (on the prairies) I got as high as 36 mpg (average 32 at 45 mph).
The 361 ci engine had the torque to start out OK with those high gear ratios but I could only spin the tires on gravel, not pavement. Once it got up into the higher rpms (highway speeds) went into its true power curve, which is why I could accelerate so fast at highway speeds. I did pretty well against a lot of hot cars, even with the poor aerodynamics, until I needed to corner... It would also catch air as I'd come over the top of hills at 120+ mph... I was young and lucky...
So, for fuel economy with larger engines, gear them up any way you can to make use of the torque and keep the engine rpm low. Larger diameter tires are one way.
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So if I have it all correctly figured out,
ALL the extraordinary mpgs this Ford got were due to the extreme gearing, as there are no modded fuel "systems" or really, anything modded that would impact fuel efficiency, other than the gearing. So the truck has pretty much standard weight, standard aerodynamics, maybe a little better than average rolling resistance from the ball bearing axle but standard- not even oversized- tires (not needed because of that extreme axle)... and possibly because you were always in there wrenching on it, it had a high state of stock engine tune, right?
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Originally Posted by George Wiseman elsewhere on the web
My prototype took a 1973 GMC 3/4 ton pickup with a 292 ci engine and a 4 speed manual transmission well over 200 mpg. Took my brother and I over a year to build and $16,000 cash out of pocket for components we couldn’t build ourselves (see my book, “Extreme Mileage, 101?.
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What are the particulars on this one?