What mileage do you get in your rod?!?

If this has been covered recently, I didn't find it in a search so please let me know and I'll get the thread deleted.

If not, well I'd like to know the straight dope!

What's the car, what's the drivetrain, wahts the true mileage, and prefer you break it down to in city and highway

Mine's a '51 Ford, 350 SBC wtih a cam/headers/edelbrock carb/ 350 turbo /3.31 rear ...no speedo or gas gauge. I don't know the exact mileage, but I can supply a wild ass guess...8 - 11 mpg city, and 14 -18 highway maybe?!?

I'm switching to a 2.79 rear soon, really for strength and braking, but the gear ratio will help keep the RPMS down in town so I'll get less resonance from the mufflers , and maybe even dare to take it on the freeway!!!

EDIT: Feel free to call bullshit! I'm reading a 2005 thread that had some combos that seemed doubtful to get the mileage claimed.

 

my 53 f250 with 4.86 gears averages about 15mpg

 

My guess would be that you will be able to hit ~20mpg, esp w/the 2.79 ratio. Much depends upon the cam/carb duration and CFM. Similar setup in my A (355 SBC, 350hp GM cam, 4spd muncie, 3.08 rear) w/full height windshield yielded ~18 mpg. Let us know what you find, and definitely try it out on a highway cruise. BTW, there will be a sweet spot (speed/rpm) value, which yields best mileage. 2.70 is a tall gear, coupled w/rear tire diameter. You might try 60, then 65...70 etc.

 

On the way to Bonneville last summer, at an average speed of between 75 and 80 mph, I averaged 14.5 mpg. With a BBC under the hood.

 

'55 Chevy 2-dr HT. 355 SBC, 625 cfm Carter, L79 cam, MSD ignition, K&N air filter, block-hugger headers, Muncie 4-speed, 3.55:1 rearend:

Consistant 17.5 mpg at steady 65 mph.

 

22 mpg to the Jalopy showdown, 187 miles one way, 8.5 gal. '49 chevy 1/2 ton 3.90 rear, '62 3sp+od, '56 235, Fentons 1-2bbl H-W. Umm, in town I get 15, 16 tops.

 

Well since you asked I'll call bullshit. Wanna talk mileage you need to track it instead of a wild ass guess. If you ask most people what they get they're several mpg optimistic over what the logbook says when tracked.

 

My 37 Ford 4-door, 3300 lbs with a bone stock 1991 5.0 roller Ford (EFI removed) rated at 220 hp. Has a 500cfm carb, stock '81 C-4, 3.08 gear and 27" dia rear tires. Get 16-17 city, 19.5 to 20 hwy with the cruise on and at speeds under 75mph.

Worst I ever heard of? USS Tarawa (LHA-1) got 8 FEET per gallon. I rode that boat with a bunch of Marines to Desert Storm and back from San Diego in 1991. How'd ya like that credit card bill? Of course, it WAS cheaper in 1991 gallons!!!!

Gary

 

On the highway I get 18 mpg. I have a 1939 International pickup with a 350 with a tunnel ram with 2 450 Holleys, 700R4 and 3.73 posi.

In town it is gallons per mile. It is so bad you can just about see the gas neddle move.

 

292 L6, 390 cfm Holley, TH200R4 trans, 3.53 rear. 16mpg city, 25-27 highway.

 

1953 henry j 4.6 fuel injected overdrive with 300's in the rear 28 mpg on the highway best guess 18 in the city
also have 27 roadster pickup 347, aod and 462's out back with 33 " tires gets about 150 miles to 11 gallons with the stock 5.0 it got 182 miles to 11 gallons but now I can smoke those 33's

 

Judging by my last tank of gas, my 53 Plymouth (218 flathead 6, 3 speed on the column) got right at 22 mpg. That's keepin' it around 60 mph (it doesn't sound happy goin' much faster).

 

10 to 12 mpg. Ford flathead, mild build in a Model A. That is highway mileage. Stock gear ratio. Runs around 2800 rpm down the road, around 70 mph. The motor is running a bit rich but not that far off.

Neal

 

20 mpg. Chevy 250 with duel 2bbl. 700r/4.10 gear.

 

32 Ford highboy roadster, mildly built 462" Buick, 9.0/1 CR, 3.70 diff, 30" tall tires, T-400 with 2400 rpm stall, single 750 Edelbrock carb jetted for the altitude (3300') where I live and it still runs great down at the River at about 450' altitude.
K&N 14" air filter.
The roadster has a top which adds aerodynamic drag.
Aero drag is fairly high on these streamlined as a brick little cars.

In-town mileage varies from 10-13 mpg although it's right around 13 mpg most times since I drive it fairly easy.

Highway mileage runs 16-17 mpg . . . which could be improved since I tend to run at the speed limit most of the time and nail it on the on-ramps now & then.
The speed limit on some of our long desert highways is 75 mph.
80 mph = 3300 rpm which is a bit of a mileage killer.

Fwiw, with the big cam, a dual quad setup running Fram paper filters with straight linkage and a pair of Edelbrock 500's the mileage runs 10-11 mpg in town and 15-16 mpg on the highway.
Everything else was the same.

These mileage figures were derived from careful tracking and record keeping.
You can do the math in your head when you fill up and when you find the mileage dropping off, it's an indication that something is wrong somewhere.
An early indicator of problems that should be looked into.


I'm swapping to a 3.00 diff in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping for a 2 - 3 mpg gain on the highway and a small improvement in town, but not too much there.


Biggest mileage prob for most of the guys here in town is their refusal to jet for the altitude or even for the optimum.
I've got the right jets and rods for my pals old roadster and his new 46 sedan, but he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in getting things squared away in the carburetor dept.

For me, one of the most fun things about hot rods is the tinkering and improving you can do long after they're up and running.
14 years for the 32 and I'm still inventing little things for it....

 

I will guess somewhere around 15mpg (327 two 2s), but honestly, I never really figured it out.

 

46 ford sedan, 400 chevy 200R4 3.79 rear
20 on the open road@65 mph.
I don't know in town.
Russ

 

My '35 sedan 5.7 w/4L60 trans and 3.70 gears gets 26 highway and 22 city, I was gonna be Mr. Smart-ass and really jack up the mileage so I took th 3.70 gears out and installed a fresh set of 3.25 gears......BIG mistake, I ruined the car, it just wasn't happy, performance suffered a little bit but the drivability was crappy and it constantly wanted to shift up & down, in & out of overdrive.....it was awful! Finally I put the 3.70 gears back in once I figured out that not only was the car shitty to drive...but I LOST 2-3 mpg in the deal also!!!

Lesson learned: A set of Bonneville gears is NOT instant magic big fuel economy.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that you can't compare mileage figures with todays cars and cars from a few years back.

I'm not talking daily drivers with computerized fuel injection setups, but they are affected the same as we are with our most-times carbureted cars.

Californias marvelous experiment in seeing how much ground water they could pollute with MTBE knocked the mileage down about 10% across the board.

No one in government has ever explained satisfactorily how come a 2% or so improvement in smog made us use more fuel overall which impacted the smog situation even worse.

All about control and $$ as well as building a smog empire that has segued into the biggest scam the world has ever seen with Al Gores carbon footprint bullshit.

England is looking at issuing carbon footprint cards for individuals and if you've used up your credits for the month you're out of luck.
I'm sure there will be an arrangement so you can buy more.

You can be sure the US gov't is watching this to see how it plays out.


Along with Californias MTBE bit, Arizona has gone to gasoline with methanol added which has also knocked the mileage down approx 10%.

Now and then I see comments about cars from the good ol daze knocking down some great mileage figures.
You can't compare those cars with todays cars due to the gasoline involved.

Gasoline from the mid-50s and prior was sweet smelling and there didn't seem to be a smog problem until they reformulated the gas formulas to make a cheaper product.

My dads stock V8 50 Ford sedan used to knock down 19-21 mpg on the highways and got 19 mpg towing a tear-drop trailer up the coast with mom, three kids and all the camping gear & golf clubs required for a one week vacation.

I would guess that a restored 50 Ford similar to and as good running as dads car, overdrive etc. would have a difficult time knocking down 18 mpg with todays gas....

 

'62 Chevy Suburban, crate 350 (290horse), Edelbrock C3B intake with 4-hole spacer and 600cfm carb (right outta the box), HEI, 4spd manual OD trans (.73:1 final drive), 3.55 gears. Got just a fuzz under 17mpg driving down to Florida at 75-80mph.

Future plans call for 2.5-inch rams horn manifolds in place of the 1 3/4-inchers, 3.42 gears, a front end alignment, dropping the nose another two inches with spindles, and some very, very simple aero bodywork: the opening in the grille support panel has nearly 160 square inches of unused, open area that allows air to crash into the radiator core support behind it and stack up. I'll close that off, and still have an opening big enough to fully feed the radiator.
A short 2-inch chin spoiler mounted behind the front bumper, to clean up the air under the truck.
A filler panel, like new vehicles have, between the back of the front bumper to the cross member to keep air from stacking up under the hood. While driving down the road, I can see the center of the hood bow up and pulse from air getting under there.

I don't drive it like a nut around town--almost never in the 4bbl, so around-town mileage is close to highway. Living in the country, with 55mph roads helps that.

There's probably more to be had in the engine, too: dialing in the carb and blueprint the distributor, experiment with different carb spacers, different cam specs, etc. And if I wanted to get silly, I could shave some weight with aluminum heads and radiator, and an aluminum drive shaft.

-Brad

 

Hot Rod mag built up a Suburban - mid 70's if I remember right - and did a good job of documenting it.

They added a simple right angle aluminum spoiler just behind the rear bumper - and retained good ground clearance.
MPG improved 1 mpg.

I did the same thing with my 63 Chevy short-bed half ton - 327 engine, stock cam, small carb, 3.73 gears, tall rear tires - and mileage went up 1 mpg.

Like Hot Rod mag noted, it wasn't an all out under-chassis air flow device, but it did clean up some of the airflow in an aerodynamically dirty area.

 

My wife's flathead 8BA roadster with a three speed and 3.0:1 gears got 10-12mpg......we converted the distributor to electronic (Pertronix), rebuilt the stock Holley 94 and installed a T-5 trans. It gets 18-20 now pretty consistantly and it's ALOT more fun to drive.

 

I just checked mine on the last road trip......about 17.5 on the highway at 65, I've never bothered to check it around town. (Olds 88 with a 394)

 

2400 lb car, LT1 intercooled Paxton 15 psi, 200R4 (0.67) 29" tall rear tires, 3.89 gears Fwy, 70 mph average (141 miles in 2hrs 2 mins) = 12 mpg and miles of smiles.

I measure in FPG - Fun Per Gallon

 

My 55 Olds gets right at 18 on the highway with the stock 324(600cfm edelbrock, open lakes/no mufflers), 700r4 and stock rear.

 

my summer beater
41 olds buisness coupe
53 big six motor with a single carb and a hydo
17.2 mpg all day long
tom

 

1934 Plymouth 2dr sedan PE, SBC 350ci/350hp,11:1 cr, cam, headers, Edelbrock Torker 1 with 600 cfm carb, TH400, 2.73 rear will do 12 in town, 15 hiway.

1957 Oldsmobile 88, 371ci/312hp, J2, Hydramatic, 6-8 in town, 10-12 hiway (depending on speed lower mpg at 70mph, higer at 50 mph).

Both cars are running 2.5" dual SS exhaust with dual Smithy's. Olds is all original drivetrain. Overdrive trans would be a plus on both, but no money now to convert. Spending all my disposable income buying gas to get to work and back.

 

1951 Ford Tudor i get around 14 to 16 in the city depending on the traffic and on the HWY i can get 20 if i run 65mph, and thats with the air on.

the specs are:.030 over 302, E 303 cam (full roller motor), mild port and polish job on heads, Edelbrock performer RPM air gap manifold, 625 cfm Edelbrock, Mallory HEI distributor, 11:1 slugs, large tube shortie headers, 2.5" exhaust with turndowns before the rear end, 3000 stall with a C-5, and the factory 3: what ever rear. (non overdrive car)

 

58 Apache SWB, .040 over 283 w/ powerpack heads, Comp Cams 260H cam, Edelbrock performer manifold & properly jetted 600 cfm Edelbrock carb, shorty headers, Crane XR-700 electronic ignition in a Mallory distributor, T-5 w/ .06 5th gear, 373 rear gears and 275R60-15 tires.

I keep a log and average mileage over several fill ups to get a better average. The truck gets 15-16 in town and 20-21 at 75 mph on the highway running A/C. I runn about 2200 rpm at 75.

 

Sometimes I drive the wifes 38mpg Kia on the weekends. Laugh if you must.