all contributors: Ray T. Bohacz
During the past year, the price of having fun in your Pontiac has risen dramatically due to higher gasoline prices. This is further compounded by the added expense to drive to work, heat your home, and pay the electric bill. If you are like us, the additional money you put into the fuel tank has to come from somewhere, and since we all like to eat, the easiest way to save the budget is to cut back on a hobby.
This conventional wisdom cannot be faulted. But what would you think if High Performance Pontiac showed you how to reduce your Pontiac's fuel consumption by up to 30 percent while having no negative impact on performance? Another way of looking at our proposal would be: We will show you how to turn $2.50-per-gallon gas into the equivalent of $1.75 per gallon. No, we are not going to hijack the local gas station. Instead, we will instruct you on how to improve your car's fuel mileage so the out-of- pocket expense for gasoline would be equal to about 30 percent less than if you did not follow our steps. Interested?
Some of you may think this primer on improving the fuel economy of your Pontiac has no place in a magazine with the words high performance in its title. But in engineering parlance, high performance describes any mechanical apparatus that is superior in function to its peers. A Pontiac that can blast down the dragstrip and sip gas at the fuel pump is by definition a true, high-performance machine.
Learning to drive for fuel economy is the first step. Gentle acceleration, constant throttle pressure and lower road speeds all help your Pontiac go farther on a gallon of gas.
To this cause, High Performance Pontiac has created a two-part series dedicated to reducing the fuel consumption of your Pontiac while having no negative impact on horsepower--with maybe even a slight gain. Part I will explore the theory of fuel mileage, while Part II will apply the hypothesis to an actual PMD vehicle. The author is working with RaceKrafters Automotive Machine Inc., the shop that will build our "Bicentennial 455" for a future issue. The owner of Jones Pontiac-GMC in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, also came on board for our fuel economy search, and will lend us one of his vintage Ponchos for our attempt at tuning for cheap running.
In drag racing, there is a simple edict that any successful competitor embraces: Do not look for a large gain in one place; instead look for smaller gains in many areas to achieve the desired result. A practical application would be if you need 100 additional horsepower to obtain the desired elapsed time, look to find 10 ponies in 10 different places instead of 100 hp with one modification. The same holds true for improved fuel economy. To enjoy a 30 percent reduction in fuel usage, look for 15 areas where two percent can be found.
Learning How To Drive All Over Again
Do you remember the first time you sped down a dragstrip? From the spectator's bench, the task seemed simple, but boy did it change when you pulled to the line yourself. Staging the car, lighting the bulbs, mastering a reaction time, driving straight, shifting gears, and paying attention to your competition in the other lane all made a 13-second pass as tiring as an hour chopping wood. Thus, you did not become a dragstrip master in one day.
The same holds true for driving for fuel economy. To many this is synonymous with driving slow. It is true that lower speeds usually yield higher mpg (more on this later), but that is not what is being implied. Driving with an eye toward eking every last foot out of a gallon of gas is more centered on smoothness, anticipation of changing road conditions, using the downside of a hill to help get up the other, eliminating engine idling, and getting the transmission into high gear as soon as possible, to mention only a few. In many respects, driving for fuel mileage is more challenging than traveling the dragstrip or a road-race course.