New guy with old Ford
 

Hello.
I decided to register to this site, because I think the idea of this site is quite close to my interests. I've always liked to fiddle with technical things and old cars. If something doesn't work well I have to "improve" it little bit and after it runs well I find myself thinking "now it must be too much on the safe side, maybe I can squeeze it little bit".
Improving fuel economy has always been one of my interests. I think it's more challenging than endless search for more power. And maybe someday ecomods will pay back themselves by saved fuel. 30 horsepower would be enough for me,:turtle: but the traffic is so grazy nowadays, that some extra reserve is good to have. For example when coming from a small road and joining others on the highway.
Usually old cars are not very economical with fuel and people is told that if you want to use less fuel you have to buy a new car. I believe that an old car is just not optimised well enough. I have seen a 1990 car (with same size and weight as my old car, and with carburettor) doing 40MPG (6.0 L/100km) on the highway.
So I think it would be possible to get at least 36 MPG (6,5 L/100km) with my old car, if I can copy the best ideas from the newer car.
I have already played with the fuel mixture and ignition advance and changed the transmission ratio. With these mods MPG has improved from 23 to 30 mpg.

I want to keep the car looking original so I'm not going to make any visible changes to the body.;)

23 - 30 mpg is a significant change - nice work.

And... welcome to the site!

Welcome to the site.

Not too shabby for an old car. It'll be quite interesting to see what you can do with it.

Have you checked out the 100+ hypermiling / ecodriving tips to increase gas mileage yet?