600 miles from one tank of gas??
 

Yep - that's my goal this week.

I'm taking my eco-modded 2.3 and going on a road trip.
Cajon Summit, CA to Provo, UT on one tank of regular unleaded.

The car?
My 1992 Mustang LX 2.3/A4LD ragtop

The mods?
Junkyard Underdrive Pulleys
(crank, water pump, and alternator pulleys)
3" Aluminum mandrel bent intake tube
Accel drop in filter with gutted airbox
NGK fine wire platinum plugs
144cc Denso fuel injectors
pre cat removed and oem 5.0 muffler installed
Gutted trunk
S-10 front air dam
45 psi in stock 195-75-14 tires

The driving style?
freeway cruise at 55mph
neutral coastdown on hills and signals
engine shutoff at red traffic lights

I have seen 40-41mpg on similar controlled driving adventures locally so if all goes well, I'll get 600 miles worth of travel on a single fillup.

I'm leaving thursday early a.m. and hope to be in Provo later that day.

Wish me luck!

...Good Luck! and happy cruising!

Good luck. Is that a 2.3 liter 4 cylinder turbo engine? I'm using (6) 370cc SVO turbo injectors in my track car, I put 313 hp to the wheels with them...

yep these 2.3 Lima motors are stout beasts - my car is a mouth breather, so no turbo here. There are 9 second 2.3 turbo mustangs, and even some impressive N/A ones as well. A fellow moddedmustangs forum member has a stroked non-turbo 2.3 with esslinger head and other go fast goodies and is seeing 245hp.

Trip complete! 561 miles on 15.24 gallons of gas... 36.81 mpg.
Besides having some pretty high elevation climbs (3 summits over 6000ft above sea level) I'm thinking my last minute change to 215/70-14 tires and the installation of the air dam might have possibly hurt mileage.

Pity that you didn't reach your target, still, the potential is there. Have you considered a full or partial belly-pan? Even if it's just at the front, it might make your air dam more effective.

yes, i think the belly pan is on the to do list.

as for why i'm 4-5 mpg lower than i was prior to the tire change/air dam mod...

I'm concerned about the existing air dam, it extends farther down than the lowest point of any of the undercarriage, and only has 4.25" ground clearance between the dam and the tarmac. so... i might have negatively added to my frontal area :(

Also, right before the trip, i had a tread seperation blowout with a bridgestone insignia 195/75-14 tire on the right rear. thank gawd it wasn't during the trip, but it did put me in a time pinch. i am planning on replacing the wheels/tires at a future date, so i didn't want to spend any $$ on a temporary tire. Luckily I had a spare set of oem wheels with the 215/70-14 tires. BUT i think they harmed my economy (I read the debate over wider and taller tires are better, but I'm not sold on that concept, nor do I want to debate it on this thread).

Also, the size, ran my odometer 1 1/2% slow, so i actually got 1/2 mpg better than indicated (i'll take a mpg number improvement any way i can lol)

return trip is done... things worked out to be about the same.
15.41 gallons over 560 miles = 36.34 mpg

Maybe we'll have to go next level with the motor, and since it is an OHC motor it just makes life way easier.

How about a cam swap, something that can boost the bottom end torque.

A tri-y header ( 4-2-1 ).

Programming the ecm.

Synthetics front to back.

good points - checking into a lot of that.

my dream project would be to grind a cam with a atkinson style of profile (huge intake duration, short exh duration) but i'd only do this if I milled the head for increased compression ratio since atkinson motors are half again as much as a typical gas icm's. But since I'd be dealing with a engine tuning learning curve from hell, i might not attempt this any time soon.

so, as a cheaper alternative, there is a factory mustang SVO turbo cam that adds a little lift and duration to what i already have so I might give that a go first with an adjustable cam gear.

the factory cast manifold is a 4-2-1 design, and no aftermarket company makes a CARB compliant header for this application (I'm in smog nazi california)

re the ecu upgrades, i need to polish up on my eec tuning skills. Currently that is way over my head, so i'll probably resort to a wide band o2 sensor and gauge, and tweak the sensors to give me the kind of numbers i seek.

i have changed out the oil to a 5w30 mobil 1 from 10w30 dino, and might look to do something similar in the diff, but i don't see any benefit in messing with the recommended atf, other than a trans cooler.