Fort Wayne, IN man.
 

Greetings!

Righto. I'm Kevin, and I'm from Ft Wayne, IN. My current ride is a 1987 Ford Thunderbird TurboCoupe. It's got the 2.3l motor on it, so I can get some rather good milage out of it. Well, compared to most cars. Abysmal compared to most of the guys I see here...

I'm looking at getting perhaps 30+ MPG out of it, but sadly, I'm not one who can give up the option of power. That's why I like the turbo, if I don't get on the gas, it doesn't kick in and start sucking fuel.

Just hoping eventually to get some real nice MPG. That would be awesome...

The best way to get mileage is to give up on the power, you'll be safer when you're not blasting around, too.

Anyway, welcome to the site. Fill out a gaslog and garage entry while you're here.

Biffmeistro -

Welcome to GasSavers! Maybe you can have a "Turbo Disable" switch that allows you to choose the time and place to use it. Is that possible? Kind of a "Turbo as NOS" dee-lee-oh.

CarloSW2

Goofy... I guess you could if you held the waste gate open... don't know what adverse effects (if any) would come up :P

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Welcome :thumbup: :thumbup:

Turbo
 

Welcome to GS

One of my old cars had a really touchy turbo -- cruising along on the highway, just slight pressure on the throttle spooled it up (perhaps the problem also was 17 psi stock :D )

...not sure on your type of wastegate (internal/external), but the exhaust gasses essentially bypass the turbo and could result in odd emissions behavior if altered. For a large car with a 4-cylinder, without the assistance of the turbo, the loss in power will certainly be noticed. I guess you'd have to experiment to see if being underpowered is less efficient than current (requiring more throttle input).

In the meantime, take a look at the Stickies about mods in the General FE Discussion area -- some good ideas about aerodynamics, mechanical modifications, and driving style (also what works and what doesn't).

Best of luck!

-RH77

Heh, main reason that I can't give up the power is that I've had a couple slow cars before, and I've had way too many times that I've nearly been run off the road because I couldn't merge fast enough. Fort Wayne has some very poorly designed on/off ramps for it's highway.

I might be a bit of a heretic to this site, but I'm just hoping for some ways that I can max my milage without giving up too much in power.

Biffmeistro -

Sorry to hear about the onramps. In LA there is a 1920's freeway with super short onramps (I think it was built pre WW II). Extremely deadly for the poor folks who have to merge.

I think there are alot of FE/performance nuts here. I don't know much about cars, so that's why I suggested the turbo-off option. You should be allowed to control the amount of HP your car outputs with a *switch*, not just the accelerator pedal.

CarloSW2

I already have a 2 stage turbo (9.5psi and 17psi), and it's rather easy to be gentle enough on the gas that the turbo doesn't engage at all. Heck, I don't get too good of FE with the cruise control, because whenever it accelerates, it always kicks in the turbo, when I can do it just fine without using boost.

A belated welcome to GasSavers! You are not all that far from my neck-of-the-woods. I'm up in Elkhart, IN. Great FE and power don't HAVE to come from two different cars. Check out the website of a friend of mine that feels the same way you do about power and FE. https://powrehaus.com/about/

It's been awhile since I've been in Ft. Wayne but, from what I remember, you could pick up some extra mpg by trying to time the lights so that you don't have to stop as often. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.