Okay, so what would cause this?
Bob and I always use almost exactly a gallon of fuel per day at big events.
That's two drivers, three runs each, perhaps a rerun here and there,
driving around the pits and paddock, to and from the scales, etc. It's
been that way for years. Very little variation.
This past weekend at the Rome National Tour, we used about 2/3 to 3/4 of a
gallon each day. These were longish runway courses, fairly fast. We can't
come up with anything that was particularly unusual about this event that
would cause us to use less fuel than ever before.
Further, in discussing the course with our competitors, it seems that we
were running out of gear sooner than the others. Jim Garry and Mike
McMullen are running the very same gears that we are, and Kent Sawyer is
very similar, perhaps a tooth taller throughout. We were hitting the rev
limiter sooner than everyone else, meaning that either we were going
faster than they were or our rev limiter is coming in sooner than theirs.
However, we got our asses handed to us on a platter this weekend, so I
don't think it's because we were going faster. Major congratulations to
Kent.
Anyway, it was our first event of the year and certainly much of the
time difference was due to the fact that we both drove like crap. However,
it occurs to me that if our rev limiter has drifted downwards then that
might explain why we seemed to be running out of gear sooner while at the
same time going slower and using less fuel. And given that we haven't run
the car since October, if the limiter were coming in early, we probably
wouldn't pick up on it.
I'll test the rev limiter when I can -- other than starting it up and
revving the motor while watching the tach, what methods are there for
testing a rev limiter?
Does anyone have any other ideas for what might cause unusually low fuel
usage while the car felt fairly normal?
Thanks,
Mark
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