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Re: [T3] long distance gas mileage experiment


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On 5 May 2006, at 04:51, Jim Adney wrote:
I *Think* the Taurus has an AFC based system, do you
think your good gas milage was more because of the FI system than the
thinner air to drive through?  Is this also true of the Squareback?

I think the Taurus uses a hot wire sensor, but I'm really not sure. I'm almost completely ignorant of it, which annoys me, but everything I've tried to do on it has turned out to be incredibly difficult (more than 1 hour to replace a center brake bulb, drop the engine to replace the alternator, etc.) I suspect that whatever the Taurus uses, it accurately measures air mass, so it should meter gas appropriately regardless of altitude.

If it uses the hot wire than it truly measures air mass, and would act correctly as air thins out. Simple AFC systems with the flap- based sensor cannot react as precisely to air thinning out, I believe some L-Jetronic engines actually had separate height compensation devices.


Speaking of long-distance driving and recording gas mileage, I still have my hand-written notes from 1995 when I drove my 412 wagon (L- Jetronic) from Midland/MI to San Francisco, San Diego and back. I went north through the UP, crossed it to Duluth and joined I-94 in Fargo/ND. Straight shot west to Seattle, then I-5 South to Grants Pass and US-101 to San Francisco. My best tank yielded 24.5 mpg, and the worst just under 20. In total 3045 miles averaging 22.25 mpg. And the gas was averaging about $1.30/gallon.

The route back from San Diego went east on I-10, changing to I-20 in western TX, I-30 in Dallas/Ft Worth, I-40 in Little Rock/AR, then I-65 in Nashville and I-71 in Louisville, picking up I-75 for the home stretch in Cincinnati.

When I got home I had clocked up a total of 8724 miles in 3 weeks, burnt 390 gallons of regular unleaded fuel with an average of about 22.4 mpg, and used 7 quarts of oil (the engine was leaking a little bit then, but cured itself on this trip). The only problem I had was the typical VW malady where the solenoid sticks due to voltage loss, I kept an old piece of carpet in the car to crawl underneath and tap the solenoid.

It looks like I might be doing a true ocean to ocean cross-country trip in July, from Salem/OR to just south of DC. This would be to purchase and drive home a 1976 Porsche 914, coincidentally a 1.8 model which has the exactly same engine that my 412 wagon has, plus a catalytic converter.

jens

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