DrCaleb DrCaleb:
mtbr mtbr:
maybe if the former"big 3" would build something other than gas guzzlers they wouldn't need government bail outs
"Gas Guzzlers"? How do you figure that? My Canadian built 4 door V-8 Ford(s) get great gas millage, better than many Toyotas. My one with 310 HP, gets about 8.5L/100km on the highway. The other one gets 8.4 l/100km combined city&highway, real world fuel economy. (~29MPG).
What does Toyota have in the 5 passenger range to compare? A Corolla only gets 31MPG combined, and would you want to sit in one for 5 hours at a stretch?
The big V-8s with all their torque can get pretty decent mileage when they're properly tuned, getting enough air, and when you're not being a lead foot.
The problem with getting good mileage on them is that the smog equipment on a V-8 typically messes up the performance which means you use more gas to do the same thing as a V-8 without those additions.
I know this from intimate experience.
I once had a 1972 Ford LTD (four door) with the 429ci Cobra Jet. It came with a crappy little two barrel carburetor, a smog pump, a single exhaust with an exhaust rebreather and it got about 6/7MPG.
I neutralized the smog equipment while leaving it on the engine for inspection reasons (it always passed, too!), replaced the 2bbl with a Holley 4bbl 750cfm dual feed with vacuum secondaries, installed a Mallory Unilite distributor with a 100,000 volt Blaster coil, installed SplitFire plugs, added an MSD, installed 3-inch dual exhaust with a crossover, and then advanced the cam 3 degrees.
Thereafter it got about 18MPG around town and up to 24 and 26MPG on the freeway ( it would do 24MPG at 55mph - the legal speed limit at the time - and 26MPG about 65MPH ).
The dynomometer horsepower rating went from 300 something to close to 500.
I can't speak to the new V-8s with all the BS on them, but the old ones can be made to get decent mileage but you just have to work on the performance. See, the more torque the engine can develop then the less gas you need to get it to do what you need it to do.
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That's with big knobby winter tires on the front... it will get 8.7 with the summer tires.
Sorry Ford but your gas front shocks all died after -30,your heaters wont clear the windshield past -15 and your air filters clog solid within ten minutes of driving in drifting snow. I had the pleasure of driving a half a dozen new ones straight off the barge the last month,the boys are modifying,thats what our auto industry consists of. 
