Hello from Florida

[mike21091]

Hello, my name is Michael, I am 18 years old and I drive a 1986 Nissan Sentra.

(I know that I have an introduction that i made about a year ago but I was using my parents Jeep then and figured that since that was my only post, I should make a new intro since I plan to be more active instead of just lurking like I've been the last year. )

I actually got my Sentra almost exactly a year ago with a broken window and a worn out clutch and replaced the clutch sometime in Febuary after a week of working 4 to 6 hours a day. ( Did I mention that I never worked on a car before getting my Sentra? But I did have a factory service manual )

About a month later I surrendered my license after an incident in my parents jeep and my car sat untouched for the 3 months until I decided to get my license back.

My car was then licensed and registered in July and it was discovered that it would pop out of 2nd and 4th gears along with reverse and that the carburetor was completely shot.

I figured out that the popping out of gear was because is actually forgot two of the three bolts on the main transmission mount! It was fine after finding and installing those two bolts.

I decided to get a better carburetor in September and ordered a Weber 32/36 conversion kit. By October I had the carburetor installed and my car was finally running well, but I still had to find a passenger side front window and I did late October early November.

Now I've noticed that the right rear lower control arm bushings are shot and the wheel has enough play that I can move it side to side with my hands.

And today I logged my worst fuel economy yet ... 28mpg. My best was 35.

Also, I drive 100% city, most trips are between 10 and 20 miles, 45mph speed limit where people go 50 to 55 and I usually go with the flow of traffic and don't really do anything to help fuel economy except I'll use a lot of throttle and shift up early usually between 2000 and 2500 rpm.

That's my introduction. I hope to be able to contribute and learn.

[SVOboy]

Welcome (back)

[RobertSmalls]

It's a shame your car isn't fuel injected. Otherwise you could get some good instrumentation that shows you how much fuel you use per trip, so you know whether you're doing well. In city driving, changing your driving style will save you more fuel than anything else. Avoid pressing the center pedal, and install an engine kill switch.

There doesn't seem to be much interest in weight reduction on this forum (because it's not very helpful for steady-state cruising), but if you do a lot of stop and go driving, weight reduction will help.

Have fun, and drive safely.

[mike21091]

I've thought of removing the spare tire and also the back seat but decided against it. Although I might remove the spare after I get AAA, that would save about 25 - 30 lbs.

I guess I have reason to lose a bit of weight other than health.

I also might put packing tape over the wheel covers to smooth them out. They look like these.


I don't think they're too bad aerodynamically.

I'm also considering messing with the EGR since it is vacuum controlled and it would be easy to to tinker with using a small valve or two.

I also am still tweaking the carb and since the filter is exposed under the hood, I guess that it kinda qualifies as a WAI.