Posted by Russ Roth on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 at 9:50PM :
In Reply to: so should I change to a different carb? posted by Kevin Sullivan on Wednesday, June 16, 2004 at 11:15AM :
Kevin,
My '67 standard cab W200 sounds like it was equipped very much like your rig is. It does have 19.5 rims (33") and tires. It never did very well on fuel mileage or power compared to my '73 W200 w/360. The 360 would outpull it and got better fuel mileage to boot. The '67 now has 450 cubes with an AA OD/gear splitter and has way more power and does better on fuel mileage also. I have gotten as high as 15 MPG on a trip but that is at a VERY steady 55. The 383 never got more than about 11 at best. It was Dad's rig so the only thing I ever fiddled with was to put a DP4B Edelbrock manifold on it that I had and a 4 bbl off a '64 Bonneville he junked out. When I got it and got around to working with the distributor it had about the slowest curve I have ever seen. I think the mileage and power could have been improved quite a bit with just an improvement there. You do say you have the elctronic ignition and that should come on pretty strong but I would check that out. Also the 383 had a very mild cam in it which I don't think helped. It should do a lot better than 6 MPG. How hard do you drive it? When I got the 15 MPG I had to drive very, very easy, never put the step-up rods in the rich mode if I could help it and never more than 55 MPH. I would normally get about 13 on a trip like that and about 10 around town. You might also check the accuracy of your odometer. I bought a '69 swinger years ago because the guy didn't like the fuel mileage either. Turned out it was quite a bit better than he thought since the odometer was a long way off.
RR