Hypermiling a classic mini... help?

[HowGudAmI]

Hi everyone - i own a 1983 Austin Mini Sprite with a 998cc A-Series engine, here is a quick bit of info:

Petrol is currently about 139.9p ($2.23) per litre around here.
Thats £6.37 ($10.18) per UK gallon
Or £5.30 ($8.48) per US gallon

My car has averaged 29.36 uk mpg (24.45 us mpg) (9.62 l per 100km) between 16th sep 2011 and 25 mar 2012 over 1733 miles. mostly town driving and country roads with the odd bit of fast dual carriage ways.

I made no effort to 'hypermile' over that time - i just collected the data out of interest, i have each fill up accounted individually.

I am now looking to hypermile as an experiment more than anything - i have read the various tips around the site but i am seeking some information more specific to my car (and its age).

here are my questions:

1. Is my car still using petrol in gear decelerating (foot off throttle)?

2. I have a vacuum gauge - i know the general consensus is to be in the highest gear possible when climbing a hill and scrub off some speed. what confuses me is - I have found that sometimes, my vacuum gauge reads higher (less poor) if i shift in to 3rd whilst climbing (car has 4 gears)...
Which is delivering better FE?

3. Has anyone any idea of the BSFC for my engine?

4. Any other advice that will help me improve my mileage (old car specific or not)

I am currently in my first tank of petrol where i have tried to be efficient (usually do 100 miles between fills - i have done 70 so far so i am close to getting some data). I have generally smoothed out my driving - done a little p+g and eoc.

Will post here when i find out what i get!

[wdb]

The wizards will be able to help more, but I can take a whack at the first one. If your car has a carburetor, it's burning fuel no matter what the throttle position.

I had some Minis a long time ago; a '65 850 Countryman, '65 (I think) 998 Cooper, and a '67 850 that had an Austin America 1275 stuffed under the hood. The roads here are made for behemoths, so you could actually drift a Mini around a turn without crossing the center line! I had a ton of fun with those cars.

[Weather Spotter]

1. Yes

2. Not my department but search the site.

3. Search the site, then google.

4. Coast when you can, take a look at our 100+ hyper milling page and our 65+ mod page. I bet you can find some stealth mods to do

[lowglider]

"4. Any other advice that will help me improve my mileage (old car specific or not)"

A clean and well tuned carburettor is a must for economy, so make sure yours is in top condition.

[MetroMPG]

This will be fun to watch.

"Mostly town driving and country roads" matches what I do most of the time (reversed, in my case). You should be able to get some really good numbers, particularly if you practice engine-off coasting and "driving without brakes" in town. Depending on what type of traffic you encounter in town driving, it's quite possible that that may become your best MPG environment.

[Ryland]

If you have the money, a somewhat costly mod you can do is a Honda Vtec engine swap, there is a company that sells kits allowing you to put a Honda Vtec engine in your car, designed for racing but the Vtec-E should be an easy fit with a kit like that, giving 52+mpg with a 2,000 pound Honda Civic, seems like a 1,200 pound Mini would get much better mileage.

[Ecky]

This is the above mentioned kit:

VTEC D SERIES HONDA ENGINE CONVERSION KIT FOR MINI - Classic Mini Cooper

They also have them for the bigger Honda B and K engines, but the D will give you your best economy. I'm tempted to one day build a classic Mini with a Honda engine.

[HowGudAmI]

Thanks everyone.

An engine conversion would help - but I'm not actually looking to spend any money lol!.

Going to see what I can do with technique and my vac gauge

[RunningStrong]

Just please, don't do this!



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And you don't even want to see the home-made rear diffuser...

[euromodder]

You're throwing 13.5 GBP - or more than 16 euro - at it per 100km.
That's a lot .

At the very best, expect somewhere between 6 and 7 L/100km - that's 40 to 47 mpg (Imp) , 33 to 39 mpg(US)

Check out these fuel records:
Overview: Austin - Mini - Spritmonitor.de
and
Overview: Mini - Mini Classic - Spritmonitor.de