Dumbing Down an Engine

Having swapped the 302 V8 for the 200 (3.3L) six, I dropped from 134 HP to 84 HP. The Canadian Fairmont comes with a 3.08:1 Rearend, my Mexican-built wagon has a 3.07:1 rearend. I'll do the MSD Dizzy Distributor spring swap and acheive a 15% fuel mileage improvement. And I'll add water injection and gain maybe 10% to 15% more. I should get a power boost from the water injection as well. I can only use it during non-freezing weather, but that's a big chop to the annual fuel bill.

My wagon weighs 2,645 lbs. I kept the new 2.5 diameter V8 exhaust, so it should breathe better, maybe giving me a better boost than stock.

Where I'm going with this is how else could I dumb it down and get better mileage? I'll probably get up to 90 HP with the above. Lots of early small sixes ran with 80 HP and held their own in traffic. They weren't fuel efficient though. So when I say dumbing down, I mean dropping fuel waste or improving MPG.

Ideas?

I had a couple of earlier posts about this:

Fuel Economy not in Less Weight Myths
http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8175

Free Fuel Mileage Calulators/Loggers
http://www.stationwagonforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9811

 

In NORMAL freezing temps you can still use water injection by adding a little alcohol. But as we know Winnipeg is NOT NORMAL.

Water injection will probably not give you additional mileage but it will allow increased advance in timing which will provide more power and mileage and not cause pinging. That's the advantage. You can also jet the carb with a slightly smaller jet. If it's a Holley you probably have a .065 in it now. You might be able to go to .064. When you inject water or use EGR you effectively lower the combustion chamber temps. This will reduce the chance of pre-ignition.

My 200 that's completely stock with all emission controls in place gets 19-20 mpg in local (non-highway) driving. You may get yours to 23-25 with the mods you talking about that will allow you to advance the timing to 12 or degrees in advance base timing. I have the 3:08.1 rear end in mine and I have about 400 more lbs. The stock HP on my non-California car is 88. The engine has been rebuilt but I don't know about whether the bore was increased during the rebuild process or whether the head has been decked. I'm assuming that it has the origonal compression ratio of 8.6:1. I can't play with mine and still pass the emissions test. I'd like to try but every two years I'd have to remove what was added and re-time to factory specs.

Good luck. I think you will acheive good economy with your plan.

 

Just when you think ONE THING will stay stable, the whole concept of NORMAL goes out the window:

US Long term Climate Impact on Vehicles:
http://www.nationalacademies.org/morenews/20080311.html

CDN Long term Climate Impact on Floods, Droughts, etc.
http://www.adaptation.nrcan.gc.ca/assess/2007/index_e.php

Both of them came out yesterday.

So let me pick your brain. What adjustments do you make or would recommend in hot, dry conditions? If you've got dry air, does it change any tune up specs, plug ratings and advances?

And then health risks from Climate impacts:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/03/11/climate-change-disease.html

This is a good site to check occasionally:
http://www.nationalacademies.org/

 

Really no. Unless you want to change the jetting in the carb everytime the weather changes. Once you have the initial set up it should be good. I really don't know about metering water injection tho. I would imagine that carb icing could be an issue but this is usually due to high humidity with freezing conditions. That's why some models have water circulated through a carb base plate. Mine doesn't have that.

 

I think that improving the return on your engine efficiency is a place to concentrate on. By that I don't necessarily mean getting more mpg out of it, but rather more power from the same amount of fuel.
So that leads to porting, larger valves, perhaps a 2bbl Holley 5200 that has a smaller primary and larger secondary rather than the old 1bbl.
The cams of that era were retarded for emissions, so I installed a double-roller timing with up to 6* of advance. An aftermarket cam will really wake up the little six.
Did you hook up the I6 2" manifold to the 2.5" V8 pipe?
Swapping to higher gears should improve the mileage. The loss of torque can be offset with the other mods somewhat. I think some models came with 2.73 rears.

 

Any thoughts to Turbocharging?

 

Yeah, I kept the 2" manifold and exhaust. I may scrounge your templates for the different manifold header. If I make any major changes, it'll be in August, after the construction season (the other season :banghead3: )

I learned my lesson this year. Warm garage coming...

 

Boy, these are good tips, guys! Thanks.

 

There's room under the hood. I thought about it. If I got a couple of Paxton exhaust-driven units, like the Corvair units, that would be great! Good luck finding any in good shape, though.

 

Might be able to find one off a TBird Turbo Coupe from the mid to late 80's or from a E250-350 diesel van they are small in size. A friend had a 2000 F250 Powerstroke diesel he swapped out the factory turbo for one out of a Van cause they were smaller and would spool up quick which gave him more HP.

 

Good to know! Thanks.

 

I can't remember where my Fairmont got its air, but my Colony Park breathes through a hose that takes air from the grill area.
Hot underhood air wastes fuel, and costs power.
If you don't already have something like that in place, its easy enough to make a cold air intake.

 

My Cougar gets its air from the right front fender. I'll bet the Fairmont in similar.

 

make it lighter and toss out all the interior jejeje

 

Yeah, my 302 setup didn't have the fender duct or the passthrough hole, so I cut one through to use the fender duct and airbreather from the 1978 Donor: