240 General: New (to me) 1980 Volvo 244

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by john.wigley

That is an excellent point regarding relative economy 'L.S.' Back in the days of company cars, it was my experience that the 1.6 Mk 2 Cortina was more economical on fuel than a 1.3, when driven 'like for like', for that very reason.

Another example - my Fiat 500 averaged only 45 MPG overall, while the equivalent figure for my Mini 1000 was 48 (It returned over 50 on a run). Both cars were each driven like for like over an extended period, so any difference has to be down to the smaller engine having to work much harder to move a not dissimilar sized car around.

A lot of people tend to forget that when discounting larger engined vehicles, to their cost, in my opinion.

Regards, John.

Very true John - a case in point actually had the Govt figures on it, that of the SD1 Rover. Thirsstiest round town? The 2.0 auto closely followed by the 2.0 manual. Thirstiest at 56mph? The 2.0 auto, once more followed by the 2.0 manual. Most econoimical round town? The V8 manual, closely followed by the V8 auto then the 2.6 auto and the most economical at 56mpg? The 2.6 manual, followed by the V8 auto and then the 2.6 auto.

I seem to recall Ford had similar results with the 2.0/2.3/2.8 Granadas of the time, later Jaguar with the 2.9 and 3.6 XJ40s (the 3.6 beat the 2.9 hands-down in all economy and performance) and many other cars before and since.

The so-called economy model is usually just a false economy. I remember Motor magazine did a test on three cars in the early/mid 80s, the Cavalier 1.6, Sierra 2.3D and Jag XJ-S HE for travel costs, time and so on.

The Jag was the quickest A to B on the test route, Cavalier not far behind but the Sierra took about 2 hours more, partly because of poor acceleration (in comparison to the other two) and poor cruising ability. The fuel saving worked out to something like £1.50 an hour and the concluding line is along the lines of "Would you sit in traffic on your day off for £1.50 an hour?".

At the time i was a lowly apprentice but still earned about 3 times that amount so wouldn't have put myself in traffic for an extra 2-3 hours to get somewhere just to save a few quid when i could have gone somewhere and earned considerably more in that time if i'd done overtime and if i was going somewhere i wanted to go, i'd want to spend my time there, not getting there.

Unless you really are a miser or a skinflint, that paltry saving just wasn't worth it.

[loki_the_glt]

90-degree V6s also appeared on the other side of the Pond; GM took a chunk out of one of their V8s for fuel economy reasons but retained the 90-degree crank throw for a couple of years. Once they had some spare cash they "twisted" the crank to make a smoother-running engine, with 60 and 120-degree firing intervals.

On a (much) larger scale the EMD 645-20, which is a 20-cylinder, 2-stroke locomotive powerplant, was often coveted to a 645-16 by the simple expedient of torching off the rearmost 2 cylinders on each side. Each cylinder displaces 645 cu ins, or 10.5 litres.

As to the real-world fuel economy, the 1.6litre Escort Mk2 was more economical than the 1.3, never mind the 1.1, as you didn't have to use as much throttle eithe to get it moving or to keep it moving. And Chrysler's 2-Litre, which came only in automatic form, was more economical than the manual-only 180. Heaven alone knows what the 160 must have been like.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by loki_the_glt

90-degree V6s also appeared on the other side of the Pond; GM took a chunk out of one of their V8s for fuel economy reasons but retained the 90-degree crank throw for a couple of years. Once they had some spare cash they "twisted" the crank to make a smoother-running engine, with 60 and 120-degree firing intervals.

Wasn't that a Buick engine, aka the Rover V8 they chopped two pots off? Seem to recall the capacity crept up to 3.8L but in V6 form.......

[Othen]

... talking of which, at this week's fill up the Royal Barge had covered 103 miles on a smidgen over 4 gallons (19 L), which I think was close enough to call 25MPG!

I'm very happy with that as it was exclusively short journeys (nothing over 10 miles). I'm putting the improvement down to getting the CO adjustment pretty well right now (the adjuster has been turned a total of 7 hex flats inwards). I use #2 plug as my marker and that now has no soot at all.

:-)

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Excellent news Alan! Reckon you might see 29-30mpg now on BP Ultimate, more on a run!

[loki_the_glt]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Wasn't that a Buick engine, aka the Rover V8 they chopped two pots off? Seem to recall the capacity crept up to 3.8L but in V6 form.......

It wasn't that Buick unit; this was a traditional cast-iron lump though it might have been of Buick origin. I'd need to delve through my assorted reference material to check. (Or I could use Wikipedia...)

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by loki_the_glt

It wasn't that Buick unit; this was a traditional cast-iron lump though it might have been of Buick origin. I'd need to delve through my assorted reference material to check. (Or I could use Wikipedia...)

It seems we were both right, from what i can work out from Wiki, it was made my chopping off 2 cylinder from a cast-iron version of the Buick 215 (aka Rover) V8 that was apparently built alongside the all-aluminium V8 :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_V6_engine

For cross-referencing and interest, here's the Wiki link to the Rover V8 - 'd suggest reading both articles as some information in one isn't in the other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_V8_engine

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

Good news on the alignment etc Alan! Likewise the CO although the HC seems a bit high to me.

Hope the parking sensors went well!

Good morn Dave,

The camber instrument arrived with the postie yesterday. What a clever little tool this is, and it fits on to the brake discs perfectly through the Virago wheels:



Pretty good for a tenner methinks :-)

Alan

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

Good morn Dave,

The camber instrument arrived with the postie yesterday. What a clever little tool this is, and it fits on to the brake discs perfectly through the Virago wheels:



Pretty good for a tenner methinks :-)

Alan

The simplest things are often the best Alan! Very similar to my manual wheel balancer, that's a bullseye spirit level (with adjustment for calibration) on the top of a "top hat" that is balanced on a pointed spindle - simple and effective!

Glad to hear you've found your camber gauges useful though, are you going to do a write up on their use?

[Othen]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

The simplest things are often the best Alan! Very similar to my manual wheel balancer, that's a bullseye spirit level (with adjustment for calibration) on the top of a "top hat" that is balanced on a pointed spindle - simple and effective!

Glad to hear you've found your camber gauges useful though, are you going to do a write up on their use?

Yes indeed: really simple, but I think should work fine. Coincidentally the gaps in my wheels are just the right size.

I was thinking: having had the alignment checked and adjusted only a few weeks ago (and they did the whole 4 wheel set up - I think the guys at F1 just like the Royal Barge) I could use that as my datum. The camber should not need adjustment, but I could measure what I have in a known environment (i.e. a marked place in my garage and with the same instrument) so I can check and if necessary return to that setting in the future.

I'll probably do that next week. I'll post a photo or two, but I think a write up would be a bit trivial for most readers of this forum, don't you?

Alan