Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
For fuel mileage? It was buy a 1985 VW diesel and keep the RPMs low and floor it for a "pulse and glide" technique. I'd get over 50mpg on the highways. One trip I did just about 600 miles but couldn't get more than 10 gallons into the tank. The car was also immortal. 3,000 mile oil changes and it just wouldn't die even after who knows how many miles. It had at least 300,000 miles on it, but the odometer was broken and I drove it for 7 years. The next car I got I did 30,000 miles that year, and I assume I drove about the same in that Golf, so 7 x 30,000 = 210,000 + the at least 300,000 miles meant it had over 500,000 miles on it. And that's the lowest guess, it probably had a lot more on it.
Advancing the timing on my 1993 Mazda 323 also was a big help. That, and again, stick shift that I keep the RPM's as low as possible, but in a gasser you keep it mostly floored, but not all the way. The AFR gauge I put on the 1972 VW Super Beetle helped me keep my foot into it just before the enrichment circuit would activate. In all of these cars I'd usually be in top gear at around 25mph. The Mazda got around 45mpg on the highway.
The 1972 VW Super Beetle was the most fun, even though it got the worst fuel mileage. I got a custom cam grind so I could up the compression ratio to 10:1 and have more low end torque to boot. It was still more peppy than the Mazda and the VW Golf diesel. The AFR gauge made it easier to jet to get the AFR to where I wanted it. The fully adjustable distributor let me advance the timing to as much as possible at every load/RPM combo. It was great fun to experiment. I felt like I was doing the exact opposite every other air-cooled VW owner would do. I had increased the compression ratio, advanced the timing and made it run much leaner. Yet the results were fantastic, a solid 30mpg combined and the thing was very peppy. The downside is that the temp gauges, oil and heads, indicated that the engine actually ran cooler, too cool actually. Apparently 16:1 AFR's actually run cooler than 14.5:1. I had also ceramic coated the exhaust ports, which now I see was not necessary.
Now I have a Toyota hybrid. It's practical and reliable. But other than that, it's about the most boring car I've ever owned. I do all the maintenance I can to it. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to properly flush the brake fluid, so that's one thing I take it to a mechanic to work on. The infotainment center also no longer works, and I'm not going to pay anyone to fix it since I know it's going to be at least $300 and will probably go back out again (it's been fixed once already).
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