Carburetor/Gas Mileage

L

lesterwa58

Member
Carburetor—Gas Mileage

I have a 1080 Pinto with the 2300 4 cylinder engine, with automatic transmission, that came from California with all of that state’s pollution requirements. I have removed all of this pollution restrains but find that I am getting terrible gas mileage, maybe 10 miles per gallon. The carburetor is the stock 2 barrel Holly/Reman. With this I am thinking that maybe I need to change carburetors for a 2300 engine that came from another state or a stock carburetor from an earlier year model when pollution control was less. Looking at parts lists there appear to be different carburetors used on different year models. Therefore, I am asking what other owners might recommend, and if another stock carburetor would improve my gas mileage what year/model carburetor should I use?
Please reply to:
Lesterwa58 @
wesjones98922@yahoo.com
 
What was the mileage before you removed those parts ? What you removed were coordinated by the factory to work together as a unit,you have probably made things worse.
 
The vast majority of "reman" carbs are junk! Parts are mixed up between carbs so you may not have the original sized jets, linkage, etc. Often the employees are poorly trained and unskilled and the finished product is untested. You are better off finding an original, untouched carb that needs rebuilding and do it yourself. Plus, removing "pollution restraints" willynilly often results in shooting yourself in the foot.
I recently retired after 40 + years as a mechanic. One car I remember, a mid-70's Olds with a Quadra-jet, ran terrible, stalled during warm up, etc. The carb had been "readjusted" (attacked) by several hacks. I simply rebuilt it and carefully reset every possible adjustment to factory specs. It started and ran flawlessly from the get-go. So get everything set to stock and working as it was intended. Then, and only then, you can start playing around to see if you can improve on it.
 
Like Jeff mentioned, sometimes when you remove the smog equipment you make things worse. Before you start throwing parts at it, try a couple things. Try turning the idle mixture screw to see if it makes any difference in the way it idles. It should stall when you turn the screw all the way in. If it doesn't, you probably have a dirty carb concern. Second, check the ignition timing. See what you have for base timing and make sure it advances when you accelerate. It's probably set at 6 degrees. I would bump it up to 10 or 12 degrees (hose at the dist. disconnected and plugged) and if you haven't, discard any vacuum delay valves in that vacuum line. If it spark knocks you can always set it back until it stops. Finally, I would run the vacuum advance line from ported vacuum from the carb. Manifold vacuum will work also, I'm just not a big fan of running it from manifold vacuum.
 
removing smog would not make it that hard on gas.i use to remove the stuff back in the day and it never dropped fuel milage.you didnt say what you were getting before.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top