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Old 11-05-2008, 02:34 AM   #5 (permalink)
PonchoBuick
Eco-Noob
 
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Liverpool, NY, USA
Posts: 14

"da bus" - '94 Dodge Caravan base
90 day: 18.25 mpg (US)

"da Oldsmoblubble" - '83 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme
90 day: 9.95 mpg (US)
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Thanks all for the welcome!

SVOboy, it's a unique combination in the driveway! I do plan to start gathering some figures in the near future, all comes with time and money (and when I have one, the other is usually nowhere to be found).

groar, here are a couple of pics.




The van looks the same, the car however is in the process of badge removal and is about 1/3 done in dark gray primer. There is a bit of surface rust which I want to attend to before the snow gets here, so I'm priming the whole thing then I'll concentrate on getting it sprayed next spring. But as you can tell, both can definitely need help for some FE improvements!

MetroMPG, thanks! I'm very familiar with the 1000 Islands. My folks have a house in Cape Vincent right on the St. Lawrence, and years ago we used to have a summer camp halfway between Cape Vincent and Clayton. Love going back when I can.

The interest in economy? Hmmm, quite a few factors. The van is the primary concern as it's the family truckster, does most of the grocery running and out of town trips. So in that case it's trying to get the most bang for the buck. As for the car, well, it started as just a second car for me to drive to work. But it was all original and needed a good tune-up and some past due maintenacne. As it sits now it gets equal to slightly better FE than the van, and considering it's a carbed V8 powered 27 year old car I think it does fantastic for what it is. The engine is a Pontiac 4.3 litre (265 CI) engine with a 2 barrel carb designed for fuel economy, so hopefully trying out some of the tricks on here might help this old beast out. This one is kind of an experiment to see just how efficient an older car can be using some newer tricks, an exercise of sorts.

And the interest in building an EV car comes from your Metro, actually! I did a yahoo search for high mpg vehicles, and came across your EV Metro and saw that it was built for less than $1000. Now I know that won't be the case most times, but it proved to me it was possible to do it affordably. The only thing in my case would be using an older econobox car, just to set it apart from the field. A Chevy Sprint is my first choice, but it comes out to what is available when I decide to go forward with it.

Cheers,
Aaron

Last edited by PonchoBuick; 11-05-2008 at 02:49 AM..
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