Mark, Listers,
First off, with tongue somewhat in cheek, I'd suggest that this topic would
probably be more appropriate in some other marque's enthusiast group; e.g.
Geo Metro, etc. The point is that among the reasons for buying a Tiger,
good gas mileage is not, for most owners, a priority. And another point I'd
like to make is that Mark has taken an extremely complicated system and
tried to simplify it down to a single parameter (mileage), which is way too
simplistic to be meaningful. In particular, if we were to take Mark's
conclusion seriously, then a whole lot of us out here are going to have to
tear down and rebuild our motors (Hey, I'll admit it, I'm not getting 20
mpg @ 400+ hp). I say tear down and rebuild, because the cam, the ported
and polished heads, the big valves and springs, etc. are going to have to
all be re-worked in order to get back to the 20 mpg range. Now, I'll admit
that 11-12 mpg is pretty poor and there is a good chance that in a lot of
cases this could be improved without sacrificing anything else; but not
necessarily. For some people, the 11-12 mpg is EXACTLY the way they want
it. They want that big overlap cam, high revving, 11.5:1 fuel ratio, Chevy
killer motor and screw the mileage. And they would also probably react a
little adversely to someone like Mark walking over and asking them after
they had just turned an 11 second, 114 mph quarter mile: "So tell me
honestly, what kind of gas mileage does this thing get? What, only 11-12
mpg? Gee, there must be something seriously wrong with your motor." Well, I
think you get my point.
Bob
At 10:57 AM 9/6/98 -0400, CoolVT@aol.com wrote:
>Well, a number of people have responded to the fuel efficiency item, and I
>appreciate it. It wasn't my Tiger I was discussing with 11-12MPG, I was
>commenting on a recent question posted here by someone.
>
>Anyway, the consensus seems to be that most Tigers, if everything is set up
>correct, can have upwards of 400HP and still get nearly 20MPG on the highway.
>It seems that a number of people have had this experience. Therefore, for
the
>one or two list members who were getting the 11-12 MPG, this indicates that
>they should get their rigs checked over.
>
>Someone had responded that even if the mileage can be increased or possibly
>doubled, the savings would still represent a small fraction of the total
>operating cost of the car. I agree, but I think it's not necessarily a
matter
>of dollars and cents for most people. I believe many owners want the feeling
>that their car is "right". When someone realizes that their car is getting
>1/2 the mileage of another car with the same set-up and horsepower, then they
>know something is wrong and want to straighten it out. Mark L.
>
Robert L. Palmer
Dept. of AMES, Univ. of Calif., San Diego
rpalmer@ames.ucsd.edu
rpalmer@cts.com
|