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ORCGuide
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I searched and did not find a mileage thread for the TBI Pathfinders specifically.

 

Another thread gone horribly off topic got me thinking about mileage, driving habits weather and such.

 

I just finished "fixing" my trucklet and took it on a 360km (~224 miles) road trip; 95% highway ( 100-120 kmh/60-75mph) 5% city.. Burned 45.527L of 87 octane pump regular (12.028 US gallons). This gives me 12.6499 L/km, 18.5941 USmpg or 22.33 UKmpg. I was trying too keep the revs under 2500 but some of the in town shifts were ~3000 and there were a couple of hills where it kicked down into 3rd and brought it up to ~3500. I was driving for economy. . .

 

Trucklet is an '88 SE, VG30i, automatic with stock 235-75-15 all season radials. Odometer test section (gotta love Alberta highways) indicates my truck looses 1 km/100. . . it's out by 1%.

 

Weather ranged from -7C to +2C with no wind (around here that is a rarity and has to be taken into consideration).

 

The tank before was 55.618L for 320.1km. Mostly cold -10 - -15C in 4hi with my foot stuck to the firewall as often as possible. The result? A dismal 13.5 USmpg or 17.375 L/100km. . .

 

What did I do to "fix" it? Replaced the leaking and squealing fan clutch (which required turning an adapter to go between my 8 bladed fan (5 1/2" bolt spacing) and my JY fan clutch (5 1/4" bolt spacing)) and cleaned my Crank Angle Sensor. (again!)

 

Anyone else got any real world numbers?

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My 88 with 240,000 plus miles autotragic, 31-10-50 15s, light bar with those big a$$ bosch lights, on the freeway running between 2700 and 3000 rpm speed is between 70 and 75 mph I get just a tad over 15 mpg. Before I mounted the light bar I was averaging close to 17 mpg

 

speed is not by the speedo but 2 different gps

sure wish I could get milage in the 30s :rofl: :rofl:

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From my winter driving experience what you are seeing is a normal dip in fuel economy. We have been going through a deep freeze on the East coast -25 C and my fuel numbers have dipped as well. Almost exactly the same numbers.

 

My only advice would be to consider adding a block heater. I'm going to install one myself this spring. I've had block heaters on all my previous WD21's and noticed that it makes a big difference in keeping fuel economy consistent during the winter months. For now you can use some cardboard to block up the grill to try and keep your engine warm.

 

Cheers

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  • 2 weeks later...

You know I just replaced the T-stat in my 89 after the old one stuck open. It was a 172 F degree t-stat (supposedly factory temp) and the temp never gets more then about a 3rd of the way up the gauge unless I'm sitting in hot houston Texas traffic. I'm wondering if the 172 is too low a t-stat and bumping it up to 190 F degree t-stat would cure all of your mileage issues in the cold. If that motor doesnt get to temp the computer is just going to keep dumping fuel. Any motor that's up to temp in cold weather should actually get better mileage...(more 02 and fuel into the cylinder per suck means a bigger bang and less applied throttle needed to get the same performance)

Edited by Vividkid
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  • 3 weeks later...

I've got a wonderful App on my Android phone called "aCar" and I put in my speedo details etc and how many litres I purchase when I fill up each time and it keeps a running tally of my litres per hundred kilometres. (Sorry I don't know the MPG).

 

My Pathy is: 1989 Z24 (dual spark plug) with over 470,000 kms on the engine and a carby that's sucking air around the throttle body housing (working on trying to locate either a new carby from a Pathfinder or a friend has offered me a Weber carby for it and I think that might be a good option too).

 

Anyway, my best ever fuel consumption stats was on a 3,000 km trip across half of the continent and I got down to as low as 11.194 litres per hundred km. That's pretty damn good in my opinion. This was without running Air-Conditioning (as it wasn't working at that time). That was with an average speed of 100 kph. All highway (well all bush road) driving.

 

My worst ever fuel consumption was on one of our central Australian highways that has a 130 kph speed limit, my fuel usage went up to 16.040 litres per hundred km. Which is considerably higher and means that at current pricing of $1.839 PER LITRE (yes, our fuel is far more expensive here than in the US) I would be spending an extra $9 (approx) per 100 kms (which is another $275 (approx) on my 3,000 km journey!)

 

My average fuel consumption isn't correct right now as my air conditioner has not long been fixed (when our day time temps hit 49 degrees C in the shade it HAD to be working!) so my consumption has gone up dramatically. But my previous average according to my long term stats was 13.455 litres per hundred km. But the program has given me anywhere between 13.5 up to 15.5 approx as the new average, after another month it'll be a bit more 'even' hopefully..

 

I've just fitted a set of extractors to the vehicle (and while I'm still running air con with our temps in the high 30's or low 40's) I am hoping that this will lower the fuel use just a little. I think it has already though they were fitted the day before I last fuelled up so I can't really tell until I fuel up next.

 

aCAR is a great little App to have, I paid for the full version because then I had access to all the charts and graphs etc, but the free version works quite well and my brother has been using the free version for a couple of months with no problems.. :)

 

 

 

If anyone knows how to work out those figures in to MPG I'd be interested in knowing how economical my old Pathy is..

 

Cheers,
Sim

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Was just chatting with our mechanic at work. He used to work at an import shop in Calgary (and a Chev dealership. . .). His suggestion was a carb spacer and a CAI. I know a CAI won't do anything for me until I replace the wimpy little . . . 1.5" (?) exhaust with a 2" or 2.5" exhaust. . . He also mentioned a piggyback eprom for the ECM. . . I was this close (][) to telling him about Cory and his 35+ MPG Pathfinder. . .

 

Anybody tried a carb spacer under the throttle body?

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Well, I've noticed that even using my air-con now that I've got the extractors fitted (and I already had a 50 or 55 mm (2 - 2.5 inch) exhaust system fitted) I'm now getting atleast another half of a litre less fuel use per 100 kms. I've only done my calculations with town and highway driving and only over 2 weeks or 1 fill of the tank. In another few weeks it'll be getting cooler so it'll be interesting to see what the new extractors combined with the already larger exhaust does for the fuel economy, I'm guessing it'll be a lot nicer than it was before fitting extractors.

 

I'm interested to know if anyone has a Weber carby fitted on a Z24i (the 8 plug engine) and whether that increased or decreased your fuel use..

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I know i dont have a TBI pathy but ive been shocked at my gas millage. in a bad way. the only thing i have aftermarket that i know of is the 30x9-15r tires, and a shift kit. my mpg is about 13-14 city and 15-16 highway. seeing how i do pizza deliver downtown, i do 90% city driving. it has had a whole tune up, i dont know what to do to try to get it to be less thirsty. if there were any clean civics on cl i would buy one and have it paid off in a month but for now im stuck with this. suggestions?

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I know i dont have a TBI pathy but ive been shocked at my gas millage. in a bad way. the only thing i have aftermarket that i know of is the 30x9-15r tires, and a shift kit. my mpg is about 13-14 city and 15-16 highway. seeing how i do pizza deliver downtown, i do 90% city driving. it has had a whole tune up, i dont know what to do to try to get it to be less thirsty. if there were any clean civics on cl i would buy one and have it paid off in a month but for now im stuck with this. suggestions?

with my 94 SE 3.0 5 spd I'm averaging 17 1/2 to 18 freeway driving between 70 and 75 mph. If I'm out of ca for a couple of tanks of fuel the milage will go up by about a mile and a half. I hate Ca. gas

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It seems to smell just fine, that why i didnt guess wrong fuel mixture via vaccumm, o2 etc. and i do have an exhaust mani leak. my question is why do our rigs weigh less than a cherokee, have a lot less power and a lot less displacement and seem more aerodynamic and get less gas millage? My buddy had 31's on his cherokee and averages 18 in town...

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Just finished a 2700 mile trip on the 88, the big a$$ Bosch lights are gone and I'm running KC series 57s in place of the 4 Bosch.

My best mileage was 17.85 mpg on 1 tank, the other tank fulls were 17.26 mpg to 17.50 mpg.

Average speed was 70 to 75 mph, tried to keep the RPM around 3000 rpm

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I have the first 87 SE delivered to the dealer in my town. It is at 256,400 and needs a lot of TLC, but I used to deer hunt with it for years. This VG30 with no OD is twisting the rubber bands pretty tight on the interstate. It sits right on 4000rpm at 80mph and gets about 13 miles to the gallon. It's running 31 x 10.5 x 15 with the factory aluminum rims which are still in good shape.

 

I let a shade tree mech rebuild it around 200,000 and the valve stem seals must have been cheap as hell, cause it burned a little oil 6 months after I got it back. He didn't seem to care and I didn't seem to care about the $800 I owed him.

 

Friend of mine has an 88 with the smaller tires and it will run circles around mine. I'm either going to rebuild it again and try to get some more horsepower out of it. Engine swaps and transmission swaps don't make much since do they, unless I could put an 88 trans with OD in it. I'm sure that sounds a lot easier said than done.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

88 XE w/ 180,000. Dad bought it in St. John USVI in 2007, shipped it back to the states and drove it for about 5 years. Mothballed it after a mechanic shafted him on injector replacement. I resurrected it, needed new power brake booster. One of the injector pins was left unplugged from the pigtail after the mechanic worked on it. Other than that runs like a charm.

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  • 1 month later...

1990 VG30E SE with 88k and some small change with about $1750 in new parts on it in the last 9 minths due to lack of use and regular maintenance issues from the 2 POs. Like Pav, I live in a frozen waistland so decent liters/100kms is difficult but with the basic timing adjusted correctly now, I get about 535kms out of the whole 80 liter tank. Measured over the last three tankfuls of gas 50% city and 50% highway and taking it easy most of the time.

 

sent from under Ernest the Pathfinder

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

87 xe stock tires 306000. New to me but suspect engine has been rebuilt, runs strong, no blow by, all new vac lines, no oil consumption in month I've had it. At last check 13 mpg, going through intake system, and full tune up soon (has electric tape around 2 presumably split plug wire boots). I'll report back after.

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