North Georgia Newbie
 

Greetings all. Found the Ecomodder site a few days ago and what a welcome relief. We live in the country and five to 15 mile daily drives are the norm.

Driving an '05 Focus wagon and '78 Chev C10 pickup. On the wagon have removed the roof rack and have installed extended front air dams ahead of the lower control arm and tire opening. Will do more work sheilding the tire.

On the truck have fabbed partial grill blocks and will fab the bumper air dam next [came w none]. There's a lot of non-aero stuff hanging down under the truck and will work on that as well.

Going slowly w the mods. Will try to get it as close to good the first time. This is fun work for me- I'm a retired car nut and enjoy the tinkering.

Lingus -

Welcome to EM! Nice rides. You get to compare old-school carburetion to new-school fuel injection and compact car to full-size truck. Since you're taking your time, you have the chance to establish baseline MPG before doing mods. Sometimes I get impatient and do too many mods at once.

What is your normal MPG on your car/truck? Are they manuals or automatic?

CarloSW2

CarloSW2,

The Focus is a 2.0L w automatic. EPA is 26/32 mpg. At 30K miles we're getting 28+ w AC and 30/31 no AC, mostly rural highway @ 55-60 mph. On a long steady 65mph interstate trip it has given 32+ mpg. The rural highway numbers include trans in neutral on the downhill runs and easy-does-it accelerations. These are baseline pre-mod numbers.

The truck has a 4bbl carbed 305CID V8 w TH350 automatic trans. Trans is non-OD and uses a non-lockup converter. Steady careful highway driving gives 17mpg. Have recently installed electric cooling fan, 170F thermostat and CAI. No mpg data yet, but it seems to run easier, and it's now getting 7%denser air. A little more engine work and clean up the front and some underside aero is next. At that point will put a 700R4 auto in w its OD and lockup converter [on hand from other work]. Truck weighs 4,040lb wet, no driver. There's maybe a fast 200lb in the hitch, rear bumper, and 58lb spare.

Ordered Hucho's book, and really looking forward to its receipt.

Lingus

Welcome to ecomodder! Definitely fill out some fuel logs so we can track your progress!

Glad to have you here!