kishy's 1984 Town Car

[Arquemann]

I couldn't usually squeeze out more than 15-16 mpg out of my CFI, maybe 18 on a longer trip. I don't do hours on end of highway, so I don't really know what's possible.
Before the whole carb swap, mine would run better but take a small hit in mpg with the O2 unplugged, two sensors did the same and a third one ran even worse.

[kishy]

Gotta hand it to you for your patience and determination with CFI. Ten years ago I would've been right there with you hangin' tough, now I'd either slap a "For Sale" sign on it or SEFI swap it.

I have one full set of SEFI swap parts in storage. This car would be modestly complicated by the exhaust manifold business; the left side manifold is different on CFI and the cat fits differently. The wagon is already wearing SEFI manifolds (and it received SEFI cats to facilitate that) with a spare O2 just chilling unused in the hole on the left manifold.

But I like how archaic it is and realistically I don't do enough distance in the Panthers (they aren't my daily commuter vehicle) to really go too crazy over MPG gains.

I couldn't usually squeeze out more than 15-16 mpg out of my CFI, maybe 18 on a longer trip. I don't do hours on end of highway, so I don't really know what's possible.
Before the whole carb swap, mine would run better but take a small hit in mpg with the O2 unplugged, two sensors did the same and a third one ran even worse.

Silly question: when you do MPG math, which gallon do you use?
It was recently brought to my attention (and absolutely blew my mind) that I actually do it "wrong" for Canada because Canada is supposed to use the Imperial gallon (as in the UK) rather than the US gallon.

But to me, living so close to the border and talking about cars so much with Americans, US MPG just seems to be more relevant.

That 15.4 I clocked yesterday would be 18.49 Imperial MPG, which is a vastly more acceptable figure given the speed premium over the 55MPH that the car was engineered around.

I don't think I got the wagon doing much better than this before the same road trip in it so I'm very near the threshold of "good enough".

[kishy]

The replacement fan clutch came today. It has some subtle differences in the details of the casting, so while it may have come from the same manufacturer, I'd guess maybe a different plant/line. While I was changing it, I left the battery unhooked (thinking back on the O2 sensor change, it might be better to start with a clean slate in the keep-alive memory).

The new clutch works, which is great.
The car is also driving differently with the KAM cleared so it's definitely re-learning some stuff. It idled a little rough at first, coming down to idle from driving it tried to stall once, and power comes on when romping on the pedal a little differently. After a decent drive KOEO is 11/11 and KOER is 44, and it's running decently again, so that all checks out. We'll see if MPG changes but I don't think it's likely.

[gadget73]

Country of production IMO has vastly less to do with quality than the quality controls installed at that plant. Garbage can and has been made everywhere. In the 50s and early 60s Japan was where you got absolute trash from.


rivet nuts are probably a better solution than the U nuts, the U nuts are thin and will break, then its a massive PITA to get the bolt out. Maybe next time I have to touch that stuff on mine I'll do the rivet nuts.