Fuel consumption

[Paulmarshall]

Well impressed today. Took the 350i on a business trip from Gloucestershire to Herfordshire. Last time I did this I had to refill for the return trip. I did it today on less than a tankfull. Suprised, I thought I should find out the fuel consumption for the trip.
I got 29.25MPG thats a UK Gallon not US.
The journey was 125 miles A road and motorway. Two 5 mile journeys each from cold, and the return 125 miles.

Can you beat this. I my experience I am usually happy to get 20MPG.

[danny hoffman]

Were you using Optimax?

[kevinday]

I am not surprised by this at all, my 350i used to return 26-30 mpg regularly when used on long trips. short blasts or more 'enthusiastic' driving lowers that of course. I have also heard of Griff 500s returning over 30 mpg on long trips. Fuel consumption calculation can be based on weight of car, aerodynamic efficiency and engine/drivetrain efficiency.
Given that TVRs are quite light you should get reasonable consumption on longer runs.
Many years ago I drove Capris on a regular basis, the 1.3, 1.6 and 2.0 all returned similar figures for similar routes, the 3.0 was slightly worse (heavier and less efficient, wider tyres etc.) and the later 2.8 was better (more efficient).

[Paulmarshall]

I was using Texaco high octance fuel. I forgot to mention I also spent 30mins crawing 5 miles at Oxford which dosen't do much for Wedge consumption. HAd a blast the rest of the way though.

[ralph dodds]

Somewhat surprised to see the comment that last time you did this you had to fill up for a return trip. Both my wedges have got 12 gallon tanks and return 24-26 on average with 26-28 on a long run. Because I've never fully trusted TVR fuel gauges (it was the only item that failed even on my Chimaera in 2 years) I tend to fill up every 200 miles with 7-8 gallons. Incidentally, the best consumption I've ever achieved in a TVR was just over 32mpg over 1000 miles touring Yorkshire in 95 in the Chimp. I wrote about this when editing Sprint at the time and to my knowledge, no-one managed to better it.

[dickymint]

Funny that this thread is back as i was just going to post one about my MPG.
You may recall my thread about fitting ECOTEC clean burn valves. (I had quite a bit of flak about the virtues of Venturi's).
Yesterday i calculated 32.2MPG over 200 miles of daily driving back and for work last week. Previous figure was 28MPG.
This coupled with much improved performance proves (to me at least)the value of this simple mod.
So come on you doubters give it a go.