Fuel consumption

[dwomby]

Originally Posted by Kevin H

David, this may be stating the obvious, but if the wheels are off the ground for a long period of time, make sure you support the front suspension, otherwise you will risk destroying the rubber rebound stops.

I rammed the roll-on ramps as far as I could under the front wheels. That will have to suffice but I have a question: how do others store the cars for long term? Would I have been better leaving it on its tyres but inflating them to, say, 40psi, to resist flat spots? Bear in mind, this particular car is not in winter storage. It's stored indoors at 25C to 30C for about 3 months.

Thanks

David

[David C]

My two 410s used to average about 18 to the gallon over a single tank, but most of my mileage was fairly long distance with a fair bit of motorway. If commuting across London it could drop to about 15mpg but I don't remember much worse than that. On trips to France I could do as well as 20. One had a stock cam and Carter carb. The other a slightly hotter cam and Edelbrock carb. I was enjoying my driving and not making a great effort to save fuel, but not going berserk.

[Sam410]

According to my app, my 410 has averaged 16.7 mpg (calculated tank by tank) over the last 35,000 miles. High is around 22mpg, achievable if I sit at a steady 70-80mph on the motorway for the whole tank. (I have sometimes filled up from empty three times in a day if travelling long distances.) Low was 7.7 mpg, achieved by filling up in east London one Friday afternoon and after taking well over two hours to get across town I filled up again in west London, just out of interest to see how low the mpg could go.

The overall average reflects quite a lot of short journeys, as I frequently use the car locally, but also my lead footed driving style. The engine is the 318, but was slightly overbored in a 1990s rebuild, and I think it has a slightly hotter camshaft than standard. Gearbox is standard 3-speed.

[PEU186F]

17mpg sounds about right for a 410 on the standard transmission. My experience being that it doesn’t vary much whatever the circumstances.. Be aware that the needle valves on the standard carb do wear over time resulting in overfilled float chambers and an over rich mixture - hesitation on pick up when hot in traffic is one symptom of this issue

[dwomby]

Clearly I need to investigate why my consumption is so high when I get back to the car in October.

David