Better MPG

[taylorendicott]

Hey guy with gas at 4 dollars a gallon I’m curious what can be done to our cars, for those of us who drive them every day, to improve gas mileage.

Any suggestion on losing dead weight? I heard there were aluminum bumpers?!
Or anything that can just improve gas mileage.

I am currently making a new trunk lid for my 1988 Lincoln out of carbon fiber and will post pics soon.

I have removed my smog pump, put in an aluminum water pump, BB upgrade which saved a few pounds, and my carbon trunk should save a few more. Now I just started this for fun because all my friends say I need a fuel efficient car cause they think I have to drive around with a gas tanker, but with the way I’m driving I get 20-22mpg in a 6000lbs car and that mileage is almost as good as my buds fancy 2007 cobalt.... that big homo.

So guys I would love to hear what you got, I'm realistically shooting for 27-30mpg we’ll see If I can do it.

[johnunit]

aluminum bumpers are getting hard to find... I'm not sure if they came for town cars?

aluminum heads will help, they save big weight. underdrive pulleys, run your tires at 40-45 PSI, make sure your alignment is good, run as free flowing an exhaust as possible, aluminum rims. 27 mpg for a lincoln is doable but not impossible.

[gadget73]

Signatures and Cartiers came with aluminum bumpers. Verify that both front and back are not steel though. Some cars had aluminum rears and steel fronts. Also make sure it has the aluminum hood, which was standard from 86 onward. If it had been in a front end wreck though, its possible it may have a steel hood.

Towncars do not weigh 6000 lbs. About 4100 is stock weight.

Did you know the stock EPA highway mileage for the 87 Towncar is 27 mpg? I've never yet seen it, but thats what they claim. Maybe if you go everywhere at 55 and heading downhill. In reality, 20-22 is on the upper end of normal for these.

[1980c10]

Your car should only be slightly over 4000LBS not 6000. Remove a/c, smog, and get an electric fan. Headers are lighter than cast manifolds. Depends on how far you wanna take it. You can pull the carpet and scrape out sound deadening. Look in 100 places for 100 lbs. I got 24mpg mixes with my car. I had a H.O. Swap, mass air conversion, a/c and smog removed, electric fan, shorty headers, dual exhaust, and 3.08 gears.

[johnunit]

is this car seeing more highway or city mileage?

Aero mods may be worth considering if the bulk of your time is spent over 50mph. As a starting point, there are a couple ways to get a flexible deflector going underneath the front end which will help aerodynamics by keeping some of the air from dragging along the undercarriage. Duceandahalf's car has this, along with a few others.

[1990LTD]

gears, depending on what kind of driving you do.

[BerniniCaCO3]

how hard are deflectors to set up and install? I was thinking about it.
Start getting too fancy, and just a smaller lighter car is easier and cheaper
But in terms of mods for <$200 and <10 hours installation?

[87gtVIC]

I don't advise this for a daily driver but some have cut the steel support behind the bumper o just contain the actual mounts between the bumper shocks and the bumper cover. Get an aluminum bumper then cut out the steel behind it would help as well. You could cut off one corner of the bumper shock mounting plate because only three bolts are used per side to secure the bumper. The shock plates are heavy so cutting 4 corners would reduce weight. Like what was said above all you have to do is look around and you will find much opportunity to reduce weight. You could get rid of power seats, all insulation, remove unnecessary wiring from items you have already removed like egr/smog stuff. etc etc. There are way to do it...just dont get too carried away because then the car will not be fun anymore because it will no longer be a lincoln but a tin can.

[P72Ford]

I am planning to trim weight once I get my car up and running.

The bumper mod is at the top of the list. There is alot of sound deadener in my car as well. That will be a real project, so I'm not sure I will go that route.

I have removed the a/c entirely, no emissions stuff, nothing in the trunk (except for the battery), lightweight seat belts (I know, hardly any gain, but one of my old belts was trashed), etc. I recently bought lighter mufflers, and may do a tailpipe delete, although I much prefer the sound of a car with the exhaust routed to the rear. You get less of that 'under water' sound.

I'm not looking for mileage though...

[1987cp]

The best thing to do seems to be to build an efficient engine. I know of a guy who claims 25-28mpg AND 350rwhp with his SBF from a pretty simple combination of good heads, good-flowing inlet and exhaust, and custom cam designed with street economy in mind.


BTW, what have you added to your Lincoln to make it weigh three tons???? Isn't it more like 4500 stock?

[taylorendicott]

Sorry didnt mean to upset you guys just jacking around with you on the fact that the GVWR is 5475lbs. I do drive mostly highway miles at 55mph, what areo mods are you talking about and whats the flexible deflector?
Now i dont want to get stupid with this and take the carpet doors and glass out just so it weights as much as a geo storm, and i dont want to make the car unsafe. However I do know their is alot of dead weight that can be removed or alterd. My best friends dad has a shop on which he makes titanium sport bike frames.... Soooo since thats the case im thinking i might learn how to tig weld, i like the idea of titanium control arms and swing arms, ect. plus he gets this stuff pretty cheap or atleast cheap for titanium.
But on the motor side the car: performance wise it is stock. I like the electric fan idea, what about the MAF conversion will it help out at all on a stock LO302? i guess it would atleast prepare me for an engine swap. The headers are the stock cast iron ones, what is a good alternative to that? An i didnt know about th aluminium bumpers what models did they come on? Why did they have them?

I also have a 3.27? rearend i wanted to put in it i know it wont help the fuel efficency of the vehicle but you think it would hurt it very much? especially with 55mph highway driving?

Also this car has been with me since i was two so i dont really ever plan on getting rid of it, may just dig a 8x20 foot hole 6 feet deep and bury me in the car when i die. lol

Thank guys

[86VickyLX]

2.73s for highway. Just realize that your round town mileage will be worse than what you have now.
The only mass air lopo I can think of would be the Californian 90 and 91s. I don't know if I'd trust that...

[tjc78]

Did you know the stock EPA highway mileage for the 87 Towncar is 27 mpg? .

I just looked this up b/c I didn't believe it. I always remembered my 89 being 24 MPG HWY (EPA). It turns out the 87 was rated at 27 and the 88/89 is 24. What changed from 87 to 88/89 to affect the FE? Did a higher RAR become standard?

At any rate, the best I think I ever got in either of my box Panthers was 23 on a long highway run.

[johnunit]

The deflector is just flexible flat plastic tacked onto the bottom of the rad support. The factory Police version is a fairly thick plastic piece spring-loaded to move out of the way of curbs, but many aeromodders and hypermilers just use that black plastic stuff you get in rolls at garden centers for skirting a garden. Check out www.ecomodder.com and www.cleanmpg.com and similar sites for ideas. Most of those guys are running little japanese compacts or hybrids, but many of the driving techniques and modifications transfer over. you can get a little into it (45 PSI tires and lightweight synthetic fluids) or a lot into it (shutting the engine off going downhill and giving the car a nose cone).

[Dereck]

Hey guy with gas at 4 dollars a gallon I’m curious what can be done to our cars, for those of us who drive them every day, to improve gas mileage.

Hi Taylorendicott

A couple of these on the gas pedal and drive barefooted works wonders.



Oh yeah let me know when gas drops to only $4 a gallon, I am paying $8.60 allready

Regards

Dereck